IMMIGRATION CONCERN

News, views and sources for research on why and how

IMMIGRATION MATTERS

A collection of material on immigration and related issues, mainly in the
United Kingdom, as well as lists of books and of web sites.

Details of other pages are at the end of this page

RECENT NEWS AND VIEWS

Extracts of recent news and views in date order - latest first

POLITICS – IMMIGRATION CONTROL
UK immigration cap is 'stupid', says David Miliband
Dipankar De Sarkar
Hindustan Times, 1 September 2010.

     Britain's former foreign secretary David Miliband, frontrunner in the contest to be the leader of the opposition Labour party, says British government plans to place a cap on non-European migrants to the UK are "stupid" because current migration is mainly fuelled by Europeans. "Prime Minister David Cameron says he wants to build good relations with India and that's good but then he has this silly, dangerous and misguided immigration cap. The cap doesn't fit," Miliband told HT in an exclusive interview ahead of the September 25 leadership vote.
     Miliband, whose main rival in the contest is his brother and ex-climate change secretary Ed, described the ruling Conservative party's immigration campaign before the May general election as "disgraceful."
     "Immigration was a real people's issue. But above all, it was an intra-European Union issue. The A8 accession undoubtedly caused difficulties," he said.
     'A8 countries' are the eight East European countries that joined the EU in 2004 – a move that allows their citizens to move and work freely within the 27-nation EU bloc. ...
     The Conservative proposal to impose a limit on non-EU migrants, according to him, will be counter-productive as the British economy emerges from its worst post-War recession. Net migration – taking into account the number of people leaving Britain – was 163,000 last year during Labour rule, but the Conservatives say they want to bring it down "tens of thousands." The cap is also opposed by Indian and British businesses as well as the Conservatives' coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats.
     "The idea that you want to keep out of the country highly-skilled tax paying people is plain stupid. Either it's meaningless because the reduction is so small or it's dangerous – either way it sends a very bad message," Miliband said.
     Miliband, backed by a many Indian-origin politicians, added, "The big thing for me, and I've lived this out in this campaign, is that I see Diaspora communities in Britain are in the mainstream and not on the margins.
     "And there's no better example of that than the British community of Indian origin, because it's a wonderful success story.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – ISLAM, EUROPE, LIBYA, TURKEY
Gadhafi angers Italy with call for Islam to become 'Europe's religion'
Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review [Turkey], 31 August 2010.

     Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's visit to Rome has become mired in controversy after he said Europe should convert to Islam and the conversion would "begin when Turkey becomes an EU member," daily Hürriyet reported Tuesday.
     Gadhafi, who traveled to Italy to mark the second anniversary of Libya's friendship treaty with its former colonizer, made the comments Sunday during a lecture to a group of 500 young women hired and paid by an agency to attend his talk.
     "Islam should become the religion of all of Europe," one of the women quoted Gadhafi as saying in the Italian press. ...
     "Gadhafi's words show his dangerous Islamization project for Europe," said Mario Borghezio, a member of the European Parliament with the anti-immigrant Northern League, a junior partner in the coalition, according to Il Messaggero.
     Carlo Giovanardi, a government undersecretary, tried to stem the criticism, saying Gadhafi's words were simply "a remark made during a private meeting." ...
     Speaking later alongside Berlusconi at a closing ceremony, Gadhafi suggested the European Union pay Libya "at least 5 billion euros a year" to put a halt to illegal migration from its Mediterranean shores. To do so would be in Europe's interest, he said, if it wants to head off "the advance of millions of migrants" from Africa.
     "There is also desirable immigration," Gadhafi added. "There are Libyans who have money and I encourage them to come to Italy to invest."
     Berlusconi credited good relations between Italy and Libya "for countering with success the trafficking of illegal migrants from Africa to Europe controlled by criminal organizations."
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – GERMANY
German central bank chief under fire for Jewish jibe
Martin Banks
Daily Telegraph, 30 August 2010.

     A senior German central bank official has released an extract from his book in which he said Jews all have the same genes and Muslim immigrants cannot integrate.
     Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the six-man board at the influential Bundesbank, has been condemned by German government officials and immigrant leaders after excerpts from his new book, Germany Does Away With Itself, said "all Jews share the same gene". ...
     Regarding Muslim immigrants, he continues: "I don't want the country of my grandchildren and forefathers to be in broad swathes Muslim, where Turkish and Arabic is widely spoken, where women wear headscarves and where the daily rhythm of life is set by the call of the muezzins. If I want to experience that, I can just take a vacation in the Orient."
     He theorises that if the fertility rate of German "autochthons" remains at the same level it has been for the past 40 years, then population will drop to 20 million, while the Muslim population "could grow to 35 million by 2100". ...
     Senior German politicians have demanded that Mr Sarrazin step down from his Bundesbank post and resign his party membership of the left-leaning Social Democrats. ...
     A government survey last year found that the Muslim population in Germany was between 3.8 million and 4.3 million, meaning Muslims make up between 4.6 and 5.2 per cent of the population. The overall number of Germans with immigrant roots stands at more than 16 million, almost one in five of the country's 82 million inhabitants.

TERRORISM – ISLAM
Britain faces new terror wave
Duncan Gardham
Daily Telegraph, 27 August 2010.

     Britain faces a new wave of home-grown terrorists as 800 radicalised Islamist prisoners are released from jail, a leading security expert warns today.
     Michael Clarke, a former government adviser and the head of the Royal United Services Institute, says he believes the security services could struggle to cope with a new generation of extremists seeking to carry out "lone wolf" attacks.
     In a report published today, Prof Clarke says that, over the next five to 10 years, about 800 prisoners – in jail for non-terrorism offences – are due to be released on to the streets having been radicalised in jail.
     They will be joined by convicted terrorists serving short sentences who, once freed, are likely to be just as committed to the cause of jihad as before they were jailed, the report claims. ...
     In the Western world, Britain has the "greatest to fear" from home-grown terrorists, the report says.
     ... "British prisons still house more terrorists than in any other European country, though not for very long periods," he warns. ...
     Britain's "globalised society" makes it more vulnerable, says Prof Clarke. "In an open society there is only so much that any government can do to protect the public."

IMMIGRATION – NUMBERS, STUDENT VISAS
20pc rise in immigrants driven by student visa 'loophole'
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 27 August 2010.

     Immigration increased by a fifth last year, driven by a sharp rise in the number of foreign students being allowed into the country, figures show.
     Some 196,000 more people moved to Britain than left in 2009, compared with a net migration of 163,000 in the previous year.
     The figures are for the last full year of the Labour government and raise questions over the effectiveness of its points-based system introduced to curb immigration. It also means that more than three million foreign nationals were added to the British population under Labour since 1997. Separate figures show student visas have risen by a third, renewing fears that the route is being exploited for illegal immigration.
     ... A total of 567,000 people migrated to Britain last year while only 371,000 emigrated, leaving a net inflow of 196,000.
     If the movement of Britons is removed, there was a net inflow of 226,000 foreign nationals in 2009. That took the total of foreign migrants who moved to the UK since 1997 to 3.2 million.
     In the 12 months to June, a total of 362,015 foreign students were allowed to study here, an increase of 35 per cent on the previous year, according to the ONS.

MULTICULTURALISM – NATIONAL IDENTITY
Births to migrant mothers reach record level
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 27 August 2010.

     The proportion of babies born to foreign mothers is at a record high, with migrants accounting for three quarters of births in some parts of the country.
     One in four births in England and Wales last year was to a mother born overseas, according to the Office for National Statistics. They accounted for 174,174 births, representing almost 25 per cent of the 706,248 new arrivals in 2009.
     That was the highest proportion since the birthplace of mothers started being recorded in 1969 and the figure has doubled in the past 20 years. ...
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "This is crystal clear evidence of the huge impact of mass immigration on not only the size but the nature of our population.
     "It is deeply worrying to a great many people but there is still a reluctance to discuss it, let alone address it."
     The three most common countries of birth of non-UK born mothers were Pakistan, Poland and India, as has been the case since 2007.

IMMIGRATION – POPULATION
Immigration is more than an economic issue
Daily Telegraph, 27 August 2010.
[Leading article]

     The public pressure for more rigorous immigration controls is far less to do with xenophobia or racism (we remain one of the most tolerant countries in Europe) and far more to do with the intolerable pressures imposed on our public services and infrastructure, and therefore on our quality of life. The Coalition proposes to address this problem by imposing an annual cap on economic immigration from next April, a move that is being resisted by employers who say it could inhibit the recovery by depriving them of specialist skills. ...
     To a great extent, however, the focus on economic migration misses the real target, which is the number settling here through family reunion and marriage. The largest single non-EU element in net immigration comprises spouses and family members from the Indian sub-continent. This raises difficult social and cultural questions that politicians are reluctant to engage with – hence their concentration on economic migration. But the political classes are lagging far behind the general public: it took the intervention of Gillian Duffy, "that bigoted woman", to shoe-horn immigration into the last general election campaign. Such political timidity does the country a disservice. Immigration raises serious and potentially divisive problems that must be addressed. We ignore them at our peril.

EMPLOYMENT – TRADE, POLITICS, INDIA
Britain's pledge on Indian migrants
Dean Nelson
Daily Telegraph, 26 August 2010.

     Britain's immigration minister has offered supplementary immigration arrangements to India in a move designed to entrench the special relationship promised by David Cameron during last month's visit to New Delhi.
     Senior British business leaders in New Delhi said Damian Green consulted local officials on exclusions to immigration rules that would guarantee that employees of top Indian firms would be able to work freely in Britain. The arrangements would make the smooth transfer of key staff to British offices much easier.
     The Government is unlikely to restrict "intra-company transfers" to Britain of key Indian staff, while Mr Green, speaking in New Delhi yesterday, said new annual quotas would be flexible to allow more Indian businessmen and professionals to move to Britain as trade between the two countries increased. He said Britain's new immigration quotas were not "about erecting barriers and closing doors". ...
     In 2009, 97,000 non-EU migrants arrived in Britain, including more than 40,000 Indian visa holders and their dependants. The Government is committed to reducing these numbers by at least five per cent, but is struggling to persuade Indian ministers and business leaders that it will not affect trade.

REPATRIATION/DEPORTATION – FRANCE, GERMANY
France seeks EU backing over Roma expulsions
Leigh Phillips
Daily Telegraph, 25 August 2010.

     France is to seek support for its drive to expel ethnic gipsies to eastern Europe at a summit of carefully selected interior ministers next week. ...
     Political opponents and the Roman Catholic Church have condemned President Nicolas Sarkozy's action against the Roma as a cynical populist ploy to boost his falling popularity ratings.
     Francois Fillon, the French prime minister, yesterday defended the deportation policy from the criticism, claiming that it was in line with French and EU legislation.
     Eric Besson, the French immigration minister, has invited Italian, British, German and Spanish interior ministers to Paris on Sept 6 to seek support for a common position that penniless can be sent back to their country of origin within EU borders. ...
     Italy declared a state of emergency and expelled thousands of Roma in 2008, while this year, Germany is evicting about 12,000 Roma, including 6,000 children, to Kosovo.

EMPLOYMENT – EUROPEAN UNION
Safety tests for foreign nurses are scrapped
Richard Alleyne
Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2010.

     Thousands of foreign nurses will be allowed to start work in Britain without safety checks because they could be deemed discriminatory under European Union law.
     Until now the Nursing and Midwifery Council has insisted that new recruits must have worked at least 450 hours in the last three years or take a refresher course.
     But it has stopped administering the tests after being told it could be sued by the European Commission for breaking the law on "freedom of movement" for workers. Now all foreign recruits will need is a diploma from their country showing they are qualified.
     The more stringent requirement still applies to British nurses and those from outside the EU. ...
     The House of Commons health committee plans to investigate the change.

BENEFITS AND COSTS – GIPSIES
One gipsy caravan set up per day under Labour
Rebecca Lefort and David Harrison
Sunday Telegraph, 22 August 2010.

     The number of travellers living in caravans rose sharply during labour's 13 years in power, government figures have shown. ...
     At the start of 1997, there were 12,796 travellers' caravans at sites across England, both official and illegal. By the start of this year the number had risen to 18,355, an increase of more than one caravan per day over the 13 years.
     According to gipsy rights campaigners, causes of the increase include a high birth rate among travelling families and a trend for members of the community who had been living in houses to revert to their travelling roots. ...
     Matthew Knight, a senior partner at Kent-based Knights Solicitors, who has more than 25 years' experience dealing with legal cases involving gipsy and traveller disputes, said: "I think the gipsy and traveller activity is really a form of property speculation.
     "If you buy a plot of land outside a village or town, where no one else would get planning permission, you pay a lot less for it. Then if you compromise the planning status you have a chance to get what ultimately becomes planning permission on the land, thereby multiplying its value ten times or more."

REPATRIATION/DEPORTATION – FRANCE, BORDER CONTROLS
France starts to 'return' Roma
Daily Telegraph, 20 August 2010.

     France yesterday flew out the first 93 of around 700 Roma it has pledged to "return" to their country of origin this month.
     But EU rules mean they can legally come back today. ...
     The government insisted they all agreed to return in exchange for money. But human rights groups said the "requests are signed usually in a deliberately induced state of panic".

EMPLOYMENT – UNEMPLOYMENT
Migration linked to youth jobless levels
Daily Telegraph, 19 August 2010.

     Youth unemployment is linked to high levels of immigration, according to figures from a campaign group.
     Migrationwatch UK found that in areas with large numbers of immigrants, youth unemployment was also high.
     For every 1,000 migrants in the 50 local authorities in England most affected by immigration, an average of 700 more young people were out of work, the group said.
     Taking out the 21 London boroughs, the figure was 900 higher. In London 200 more young people were unemployed for every 1,000 migrants.

EMPLOYMENT – PROSTITUTION
12,000 prostitutes are migrants
Daily Telegraph, 19 August 2010.

     Up to 12,000 foreign women are being forced to work as "sex slaves" in British brothels by gangmasters running multimillion pound rackets, police said yesterday.
     A report by the Association of Chief Police Officers showed that at least 2,600 women were trafficked into England and Wales and made to become prostitutes. ...
     A further 9,200 women at brothels were considered to be "vulnerable migrants" working unwillingly in the sex trade, but whom researchers could not be certain had been trafficked.
     Police found that 17,000 of the 30,000 women involved in the off-street sex trade were foreign born, with half of the women Chinese.

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – FRANCE, DEPORTATION
Sarkozy expels 700 Roma from France
Daily Telegraph, 18 August 2010.

     Hundreds of Roma will be expelled from France tomorrow as part of President Nicolas Sarkozy's summer crackdown on gipsies living illegally in the country.
     In all, about 700 Roma would be taken back to their home countries before the end of the month, said Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister.
     Police had dismantled 51 illegal Roma camps, he said, adding that two flights would take the Roma to Romania and Bulgaria on Aug 19 and 26, with a third flight set for the end of September.

POPULATION PRESSURE – EDUCATION
Pupils forced to use mobile classrooms as city is flooded by 20,000 migrants
Daily Mail, 13 August 2010.

     Schools in a city flooded by more than 20,000 immigrants are at 'breaking point', education chiefs warned yesterday.
     Peterborough City Council is planning to build emergency mobile classrooms to ease pressure on its primary schools, which have seen a steep rise in applicants.
     Every class in every year group is already full, and it has struggled to find places for all 2,438 pupils due to start classes in September. ...
     The city's population has leapt from 165,000 to 185,000 in the last six years as immigrants look for casual factory and farm work.
[Site link]

BORDER CONTROLS – EDUCATION, CRIME
Exposed: college where 'migrants get an English pass in 15 minutes'
Daily Express, 13 August 2010.

     A college that appears to have no qualified teachers is under investigation after allegedly selling English language certificates to Asian immigrants, it was reported last night.
     Students at the Oxford College of Management and Sciences appeared to have little or no knowledge of what, where and when they had studied to get their certificates, it was claimed.
     One student said he was told he had gained a pass less than 15 minutes into his first lesson.
     Another allegedly paid a £50 deposit and was asked to speak in English "about my life". After 15 minutes, he says he was told the college would be in touch and he would just need to pay £200 to collect his certificate.
     The revelations come after fears last year rose that hundreds of students from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were studying at poorly-regulated private colleges which had found ways to exploit weaknesses in Britain's immigration controls.
     It is alleged that the Oxford College, which has sites in Burnley, Bradford, Blackburn, Bolton, Rochdale and Oldham, is rigging its English for Speakers of Other Languages course to help immigrants to cheat their way to getting UK citizenship.
     A pass means those who meet other requirements can apply for a passport or indefinite leave to remain.
     Lin Homer, UK Border Agency chief executive, said the: "We have referred details of this college to Ofqual [the exams regulator] to investigate urgently."
     Rizwan Ahmed Kiyani, who allegedly runs Oxford College, has denied all allegations of fraud or criminal behaviour.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – USA, DEPORTATION, CRIME, ILLEGAL
Immigration chief: 'We're going to get this right'
Amanda Lee Myers
Google News / AP, 13 August 2010.

     The federal government has deported more illegal immigrants from the U.S. than ever before, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday as part of an effort to push back on the suggestion Washington isn't doing enough.
     "For those who doubt the federal government's resolve in the enforcement of immigration law, let me say this: We are committed to strong, effective immigration enforcement, and the facts speak for themselves," ICE Director John Morton said.
     He said his agency removed a record 380,000 illegal immigrants from the U.S. last fiscal year, and about a third of them were convicted criminals. So far this fiscal year, ICE removed 136,000 illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals, also a record, Morton said.
     "Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Is the problem a significant one, a challenging one for the nation? Absolutely," he said. But "we're in this for the long haul. ... We're going to get this right." ...
     Morton spoke specifically about ICE's efforts in Arizona, and said that during an average week, his agency removes 1,500 illegal immigrants from the state, arrests five human smugglers, investigates three drop houses, inspects the employment records of 526 people working for state companies and seizes a ton of marijuana.
[Site link]

CRIME – BORDER SECURITY
Lincolnshire footballer admits deception case
BBC, 12 August 2010.

     A Lincolnshire semi-professional footballer has admitted a string of immigration and deception offences.
     Romanian Lorand Borbely took the identity of Hungarian Laszlo Lovas when he came to the UK in 2004.
     The 29-year-old, of Green Road, Fishtoft, admitted a total of 13 charges at Lincoln Crown Court.
     Borbely, who played for Deeping Rangers and Boston Town in the United Counties League under his false name, was remanded into custody.
     He is due to be sentenced on 10 September.
     Borbely admitted entering the UK by deception on 22 March 2004.
     He also admitted three charges of obtaining a mortgage by deception, obtaining employment by deception, removing criminal property from the UK, five charges of fraud, a further charge of deception and perverting the course of justice.
[Site link]

EMPLOYMENT – JOBS
Employment rise 'down to foreign workers'
Wesley Johnson
The Independent, 11 August 2010.

     The largest rise in employment for more than 21 years was mainly down to the influx of foreign workers, campaigners said today.
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of think-tank Migrationwatch UK, said the employment figures were "further evidence that immigration really does affect the job prospects of British-born workers".
     The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed the number of employed rose by 184,000 to 29 million, marking the largest quarterly hike since the three months to May 1989, and about three-quarters of this increase was due to workers born outside the UK.
     Sir Andrew said: "An astonishingly high proportion of the increase in employment is down to foreign workers getting jobs in Britain."
     The quarterly rise in non-UK born workers was 145,000, compared with an increase of just 41,000 UK-born workers. The overall figure is adjusted to take account of how the labour market is affected by seasonal factors, such as school leavers starting work in June, the ONS said.
     The figures also showed a total of 25.08 million people born in the UK were in employment in the three months to June 2010, down 15,000 on a year earlier.
     But the number of people born outside the UK who were in employment was up 114,000 to 3.85 million, compared with the same time last year.
     The ONS added the employment rate for UK-born people aged from 16 to 64 was 70.9% in the three months to June 2010, down 0.5% on a year earlier, while the corresponding rate for non-UK born people was 66.5%, up 0.5% on this time last year.
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IMMIGRATION ABROAD – USA, BIRTHS, ILLEGAL
Illegal Immigrants Account for 8% of U.S. Births
Miriam Jordan
The Wall Street Journal, 11 August 2010.

     One in twelve babies born in the U.S. in 2008 were the offspring of illegal immigrants, according to a new study, a statistic that could inflame the debate over birthright citizenship.
     Undocumented immigrants make up slightly more than 4% of the U.S. adult population. However, their babies represented twice that share, or 8%, of all births on U.S. soil in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center's report.
     "Unauthorized immigrants are younger than the rest of the population, are more likely to be married and have higher fertility rates than the rest of the population," said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew in Washington, D.C.
     The report, based on Census Bureau data and analysis of demographic characteristics of the undocumented population, also found that the lion's share, or 79%, of the 5.1 million children of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2009 were born in the U.S. and therefore citizens.
     About 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the U.S. Latinos account for 75% of undocumented U.S. immigrants and about 85% of the births among that population.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – CANADA
Tamil migrant ship nears B.C.
CBC News, 11 August 2010.

     Government sources have told CBC News a Thai cargo ship with an estimated200 Tamil migrants on board is now inside Canada's "exclusive economic zone" off the B.C. coast.
     The exclusive economic zone is 200 nautical miles, or about 370 kilometres.
     At its present rate of speed, the MV Sun Sea is expected to arrive inside Canadian territorial waters – which extend about 12 nautical miles (or 22 kilometres) off the coast – by late Thursday or early Friday, the CBC's national affairs editor Chris Hall reported. ...
     It is thought to be carrying Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka. Officials have said there is reason to believe members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, known as the Tamil Tigers, are on the ship. The Tamil Tigers have been outlawed in Canada as a terrorist group since 2006. ...
     Government sources say this ship's arrival, along with reports of other vessels ready to get underway, are a signal that Canada is becoming a target for human traffickers, the CBC's Hall reported.
[Site link]

POPULATION PRESSURE
Britain's migrant squatter shambles
David Pilditch
Daily Express, 11 August 2010.

     Unemployed migrants refusing to return home have flooded a British city with more than 15 squatter camps – including a site in the middle of a busy roundabout.
     The impact of uncontrolled immigration on the fabric of British life was graphically laid bare yesterday by the sight of the tented communities in Peterborough, Cambs.
     Dozens of rough-sleeping Eastern European migrants have set up elaborate camps in nature reserves and parks around the city and some have even taken to squatting in homeowners' garden sheds.
     Tents, fires, shacks and shelters have been set up across the city with an immigrant community that now accounts for 64 per cent of local population growth – the fastest in Britain. ...
     Immigration Minister Damian Green last night said the situation was "shocking" and promised to try to tackle the problem. ...
     Around 15 per cent of an estimated population of 163,000 are now migrants – mainly from former Communist countries in Eastern Europe which are now part of the EU.
     Many lost their jobs following the economic downturn or at the end of farming contracts but decided to stay on in Britain to claim benefits and cash-in-hand work. ...
     The influx has led to schooling, housing, healthcare and police protection being stretched to breaking point.
     At the housing office, 95 per cent of people seen by officials do not speak English and interpreters are paid £30 an hour to be on hand to help.
     Fulbridge Primary School in Peterborough has 675 pupils but 27 different languages are spoken with only 200 of the pupils having English as a first language.
[Site link]

CRIME – USA, DISCRIMINATION
Some job-screening tactics challenged as illegal
Sam Hananel
Yahoo News, 11 August 2010.

     Companies using criminal records or bad credit reports to screen out job applicants might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws as the government steps up scrutiny of hiring policies that can hurt blacks and Hispanics.
     A blanket refusal to hire workers based on criminal records or credit problems can be illegal if it has a disparate impact on racial minorities, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The agency enforces the nation's employment discrimination laws.
     "Our sense is that the problem is snowballing because of the technology allowing these checks to be done with a fair amount of ease," said Carol Miaskoff, assistant legal counsel at the EEOC.
     With millions of adults having criminal records – anything from underage drinking to homicide – a growing number of job seekers are having a rough time finding work. And more companies are trying to screen out people with bankruptcies, court judgments or other credit problems just as those numbers have swollen during the recession. ...
     Justice Department statistics show that 38 percent of the U.S. prison population is black, compared with about 12 percent of the general population. In 2008, African-Americans were about six times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. The incarceration rate for Latinos was 2.3 times higher than whites.
     If criminal histories are taken into account, the EEOC says employers must also consider the nature of the job, the seriousness of the offense and how long ago it occurred. For example, it may make sense to disqualify a bank employee with a past conviction for embezzlement, but not necessarily for a DUI.
     Most companies tend to be more nuanced when they look at credit reports, weeding out those applicants with bad credit only if they seek senior positions or jobs dealing with money. But if the screening process weeds out more black and Hispanic applicants than whites, an employer needs to show how the credit information is related to the job.
[Site link]

BENEFITS AND COSTS – HOUSING
Migrants given one in 15 new council houses
Jack Doyle
Daily Mail, 10 August 2010.

     The number of council houses given to immigrants has increased by 10 per cent in only a year to nearly 10,000.
     Official figures show nearly one in every 15 newly-available homes let by a council or housing association went to a foreign national.
     The revelations highlight the pressure immigration has put on housing and public services.
     They have also prompted calls for a review of the rules on how social housing is allocated amid fears long-standing UK residents could be losing out.
     Tory MP James Clappison, who uncovered the statistics, said: 'This is one more aspect of the pressures created by immigration, at a time when people are waiting many years on a waiting list for tenancy.
     'The system surely must be ripe for review. I think it will strike a lot of people as strange when UK citizens are waiting up to ten years for a home.
     According to research by the House of Commons Library, foreign nationals were given the keys to 9,979 social houses in 2008/9. That is up 905 from the 2007/8 figure of 9,074.
     A total of 147,739 new social lettings were made in 2008/9. That means nearly 7 per cent of homes went to migrants.
     Nearly three quarters of the increase was attributed to houses let to immigrants from EU countries. The total is made up of houses and flats let by councils and housing associations. Rents in such properties are subsidised by taxpayers.
     It is estimated the cost of providing social housing averages £133,941 a home. The Government contributes £62,000 with the rest coming from developers or social landlords.
     Taxpayer-subsidised housing is in short supply nationwide with nearly two million people on the waiting list.
     EU immigrants who are working can apply for social housing immediately. Other foreign nationals are legally entitled to social housing after spending more than four years in the UK or successfully claiming asylum.
     Once immigrants are on the list, they are considered at the same time as long-standing residents on the basis of who has the greatest 'need'.
     Labour pledged to introduce new powers to allow local families to be given preference, but then backed down from changing the law amid fears that it could breach human rights laws.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – DIVERSITY, NATIONAL IDENTITY
Tenth of new mothers are white Britons in some NHS regions
Daily Telegraph, 9 August 2010.

     Fewer than one in 10 women giving birth is of white British origin in some parts of the country, NHS figures disclose.
     On average, 68 per cent of new mothers are white and British. ... ...
     Out of 150 NHS Trusts, white British women are in the minority in 27, while in 19 areas they account for 93 per cent or more.

MULTICULTURALISM – DIVERSITY, NATIONAL IDENTITY
Revealed: The UK maternity units in which only 1 in 10 mothers is of white British origin
Jack Doyle
Daily Mail, 9 August 2010.

     Just one in ten babies is born to a white British mother in some parts of the country, figures reveal.
     The statistics - based on NHS monitoring of the ethnicity and nationality of patients - show a sharp contrast in the backgrounds of new mothers in urban and rural areas.
     While white British mothers accounted for just 9.4 per cent of all births in one London health trust, the figure was 97.4 per cent of all births in Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust.
     The birth statistics reflect how mothers described themselves, not the ethnicity of the fathers or the babies.
     Across all of England's 150 NHS Trusts there were 652,638 deliveries last year, around six out of ten of them to women who called themselves white British.
     But in some trusts serving rural areas more than 95 per cent of mothers fell into that category.
     These included Northern Devon with 97.4 per cent, Co Durham and Darlington with 97.1, and Northumbria with 96 per cent.
     At the other end of the spectrum, in North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, which covers Harrow, just 9.4 per cent of mothers were white British. Another inner city trust - Sandwell and West Birmingham - had 16.5 per cent. And a little over one in four new mothers were white Britons at Guy's and St Thomas' hospital in central London.
     The proportion of mothers of white British origin at Bradford Teaching Hospitals trust was 34 per cent.
     Even some NHS trusts in the home counties reported fewer than six in ten deliveries were to white British mothers.
     In West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, which covers St Albans, just 57 per cent of women giving birth were white British.
     Across England 62 per cent of all births last year involved a white British mother.
     The largest other single ethnic groups were 'other white' - including Eastern Europeans - which made up 7 per cent of births, black (5 per cent), Pakistani (4 per cent) and Indian (3 per cent).
     Of the rest of the mothers 8 per cent described their ethnicity as 'other' (including mixed-race women) and the remainder were listed as 'not known'.
     Backbench Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: 'I think we have to face reality and that is if you continue to have mass immigration it's going to have a very significant impact on the demography of our country - and it's going to have a significant impact perhaps on the sort of country that we are.'
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – SINGAPORE
Singapore PM: We won't let in too many foreigners
Japan Today / Associated Press, 9 August 2010.

     Singapore's prime minister sought Sunday to ease concerns that the city-state is allowing in too many foreign workers who will undermine national unity.
     The surge of foreigners living in Singapore has become a hot topic in the lead-up to the next general election, which the government must call by February 2012. Many of the newcomers are from China, India and other Asian countries.
     "We will control the inflow, to ensure that it is not too fast and not too large," Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said during a speech ahead of Monday's National Day. "And we will make clear that citizens come first."
     About 150,000 foreign workers have entered Singapore per year since 2007, and they now make up about a third of the island's 3 million work force and about a fourth of the total population of 5 million, up from 10 percent in 1990. ...
     "It's no secret that a record influx of foreigners in recent years has led to discontent among Singaporeans, who feel crowded out of their own country," wrote Straits Times reporter Radha Basu in a recent editorial. "New immigrants are being blamed for a host of ills, from the squeeze in trains to the tussle for jobs."
     Lee reiterated that foreign workers were necessary for economic growth, which the government expects to be as much as 15% this year. Lee said last month the government would allow more than 100,000 foreigners into Singapore this year to help keep the economy from "overheating" and inflation in check. ...
     "We cannot do without a proportion of foreign workers," Lee said Sunday. "With new arrivals living and working harmoniously with those born here, we will keep Singapore dynamic, cosmopolitan, and successful." ...
     "There are a lot of jobs Singaporeans wouldn't do anyway," said Gillian Koh, a senior research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Policy Studies.
     Koh helped conduct a poll last year that found 63% Singaporeans surveyed believed the government's immigration policy was weakening national unity.
     However, two-thirds of respondents also said they supported bringing in more foreigners if it helped the economy.
     Singapore also tries to attract what is known locally as "foreign talent" - - educated professionals from abroad to work in the finance industry and other high-paying sectors.
     The government's immigration policy has provided cheap labor for companies and depressed wages for Singaporeans, Kenneth Jeyaretnam, secretary general of the opposition Reform Party, said in a statement Sunday.
     "The government continues to treat Singapore as a business rather than a country," Jeyaretnam said. "As long as the government permits a relatively elastic supply of labor from abroad while the cost of other domestic inputs, like land, continue to rise, then the real wages and salaries of our own workers will get squeezed, and this has indeed happened."
[Site link]

BENEFITS AND COSTS – TRANSLATION, BENEFITS, UNEMPLOYMENT
£6M bill to translate migrants' benefits
Kirsty Buchanan
Sunday Express, 8 August 2010.

     The £115,000 a week spent on translators to help immigrants claim benefits in Britain is facing intense scrutiny.
     The Government wants to cut the cost of interpreters which last year soared to more than £6 million, a 50 per cent rise.
     In the last six years, 169,000 immigrants claimed unemployment benefit within six months of getting a National Insurance number.
     The benefits alone cost taxpayers £1.4 million a week but added to that is the translation bill. Most of it came from providing face-to-face and telephone translation services for people whose grasp of English was not good enough to understand the benefits system.
     Employment Minister Chris Grayling said: "It's been quite clear to us that costs ran out of control under the last Government. We aim to bring the costs down as far as we possibly can. We've been very clear that people coming to live and work in the UK need to be able to speak English."
     In 2004, Labour Employment Minister Jim Murphy pledged that costs would be curbed but the annual bill has more than doubled from £2.63 million then.
[Site link]

CRIME – USA, POLITICS
Immigration backlash baffles
Bob Roper
Columbia Daily Tribune, 8 August 2010.

     The new breed of illegal immigrant in Arizona is not the man or woman pining for a better life, including work, in the United States. In recent years it has become more of a drug-driven enterprise.
     The insatiable demand for drugs in this country, along with lack of border security, has created a new phenomenon: Ruthless drug cartels south of the Arizona border have set up human smuggling operations. Because virtually no border security is in place within 50 to 60 miles of the border, paramilitary drug smugglers and their human cargo operate almost at will. In other words, drug cartels are using illegal immigration tactics to get their product into the United States.
     Considering the forgoing, is it any surprise Phoenix has a huge kidnapping problem? Is it any surprise ranch owners within 50 miles of the border are afraid for their lives and don't go out at night?
     Ironically, the Arizona law is actually less tough than the federal law, though one would never know that from the partisan statements and mainstream media coverage. Per the Arizona law, racial profiling is strictly prohibited, and police can ask for identification only if there is "reasonable cause" to believe something is amiss. "Reasonable cause" is not required of federal agents under the federal law. Federal law also requires that resident aliens carry proof of their legal status at all times – green cards, for example.
     What is really strange is the federal response to the Arizona law. It sued and won the first round, claiming federal pre-emption of the whole immigration area. It is unclear whether the federal statutes have in fact expressly pre-empted the field on this, and in any event it will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Many legal scholars believe Arizona will prevail.
     Yet the feds seem to have no problem with the 80 or so "sanctuary cities" that openly flout federal law by refusing to turn over illegal aliens, many of whom have been charged with state and/or city law violations.
     And, by the way, express federal pre-emption did occur with respect to "sanctuary cities" in a 1996 statute.
     So we are in a state of being that George Orwell would understand well: The Obama administration strongly objects when a state wants to help enforce the law and thereby leaves Arizona defenseless to near-open borders, thanks to the dereliction by the feds. But of course there is no problem with cities that openly flout the law.
     There are a lot of sensible actions that could be taken to fix our immigration policies, but I would start with border security. Unfortunately, here we run into the entrenched Washington ruling class, in which Democrats do not want to make changes without amnesty, which will bring them a huge number of new Democratic voters, and Republicans do not want to make a change because their business friends like the availability of cheap labor.
     What a sorry state of affairs.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – FREE SPEECH, LAW
The jihad of the word erupts in Denmark yet again
Melanie Phillips
The Spectator, 8 August 2010.

     A chilling development in Denmark illustrates just how 'hate speech' laws, which were introduced by deluded western liberals, are being used to stifle and criminalise the expression of legitimate opinion and essential debate – the prerequisite of a liberal society. Lars Hedegaard is president of Denmark's International Free Press Society, which is devoted to fighting to preserve freedom of expression – particularly against the threat from radical Islam to shut it down on the spurious grounds of 'Islamophobia'. The inevitable has now happened: as Nathaniel Sugarman writes at The Legal Project, Hedegaard finds himself facing prosecution for 'racism' over remarks he has made about Islam.

The basis for Hedegaard's prosecution was an interview from December 2009 in which he made controversial statements about Islam. These assertions included critiques of what Hedegaard saw as Islam's permissiveness regarding child abuse and bearing false witness, as well as Islam's general intolerance concerning apostacism and critical speech. Snaphanen, a Danish blog, published the original interview, and Hedegaard has since clarified some of his remarks.
     Hedegaard's statements earned him a hate speech charge under Danish law. While Denmark's constitution ostensibly protects freedom of expression and forbids censorship (see Section 77), the Criminal code provides that "expressing and spreading racial hatred" is a criminal offense punishable with up to two years imprisonment. (Article 266b).

EMPLOYMENT – HEALTH SERVICES
Potters Bar's MP speaks out against recruitment of foreign doctors and nurses
Chris Richards
Welwyn Hatfield Times, 8 August 2010.

     Hertsmere MP James Clappison has urged the coalition Government to put a stop to the practice of hiring foreign doctors and nurses to fill healthcare vacancies in the UK.
     He spoke out after immigration minister Damian Green revealed that a total of 2,995 health workers came to Britain for employment in 2010.
     The figure is nearly half the total for 2009, however significant numbers of doctors and nurses are still being recruited from countries such as Zimbabwe, Ghana and Nigeria where there are major health problems.
     Mr Clappison, who has represented Potters Bar in Westminster since 1992, said: "These are countries with very great needs and we are recruiting their trained medical staff.
     "We should be training more nurses here."
     He went on to accuse the previous government of reneging on an international agreement, where ministers pledged the UK would not take on doctors and nurses from developing nations.
     "I would like to see the coalition Government stop recruiting nurses from these countries as it has a real impact on their health services," Mr Clappison added.
     A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "We are determined to have an ethical approach to recruiting healthcare professionals from overseas. ..."
[Site link]

RACISM – JEWS, ANTI-SEMITISM
[Definition of anti-Semite]
Martyn Rady, Professor of Central European History, University College London
Sunday Telegraph, 8 August 2010.
[Letter to the Editor]

     Shimon Peres claimed that the definition of an anti-Semite as "one who hates the Jews more than necessary" is of English provenance.
     It is, in fact, a Hungarian saying and is usually attributed to the interwar prime minister of Hungary, Count Istvan Bethlen.

CRIME – BORDER SECURITY
Silenced...the sham marriage whistleblower: Immigration officer claims he warned bosses but was forced out
Sam Greenhill
Daily Mail, 7 August 2010.

     Hundreds of illegal immigrants have been allowed to get away with sham marriages because government officials dared not intervene, a whistleblower claims today.
     Neville Sprague, who was a chief immigration officer, accuses his former bosses at the UK Border Agency of turning a blind eye to the scandal.
     Illegal immigrants use fake marriages to apply for 'spouse' visas to enable them to stay in Britain and enjoy free healthcare, education and benefits.
     In a shocking exposé, Mr Sprague claims he fought in vain to clamp down on bogus weddings, but was sacked.
     The former policeman alleges he was forced out because he insisted on investigating crimes his department did not want recorded in the statistics.
     His damning testimony is set to be heard at an employment tribunal which he is bringing against the agency, claiming unfair dismissal.
     Yesterday Mr Sprague told the Daily Mail: 'I amassed evidence of bogus weddings but my managers just did not want to know.
     'They were really keen for me not to investigate. They kept saying, "It's not that bad". I said: "Yes it is!".'
     Suspected sham marriages have increased by more than 50 per cent since the Law Lords ruled against tough Home Office marriage regulations on 'human rights' grounds. ...
     'To do something about it required effort, resources and of course it became another unwelcome statistic,' he claimed.
     'So it was easier for them just to say it doesn't exist. They kept insisting it wasn't our "remit" to arrest them, but we do have the power of arrest and we had irrefutable documentary evidence.' ...
     But Mr Sprague, 56, of south Croydon, Surrey, who was sacked last year, said hundreds of fake weddings were needlessly allowed to go ahead.
     A former Metropolitan Police detective of 25 years, he joined what is now the UK Border Agency in 2001, and was responsible for investigating fraud. ...
     He said the scam involved West Africans, predominantly from Ghana, paying more than £10,000 to 'marry' a British citizen.
     The Briton – often a prostitute or a drug user – would receive up to £7,000 to take part. All they would have to do is hand over their passport and a photograph.
     Forgers would then insert fake stamps in the passport to make it seem as though the Briton had flown to Ghana to get married.
     A false wedding certificate from Ghana would also be produced, and the Ghanaian illegal immigrant would then send it all off to the Home Office to apply for a 'spouse' visa to remain in the UK. ...
     As a result of investigating a sample number of marriages that took place over six months, Mr Sprague believes as many as 210 out of 300 were bogus.
[Site link]

POLITICS – PUBLIC OPINION
Labour's catastrophic mistake on immigration: Brown's pollster reveals how it cost him election... and is now damaging democracy itself
Deborah Mattinson
Daily Mail, 7 August 2010.

     I'd started running political focus groups for Labour in the Eighties. This gave me the perfect vantage point to see the birth of New Labour - and its subsequent ups and downs - through the eyes of voters.
     What struck me most was the huge gulf between the electorate and the political classes.
     While politicians in the Westminster village are obsessed with the trivia that purports to be matters of great importance, voters worry about issues that directly impact their families and their communities. ...
     Above all, this gulf between voters and politicians is felt most strongly when it comes to immigration.
     After running focus groups for 25 years, I can honestly say I've rarely sat through one without the subject being raised. ...
     These views confirmed opinion polls at the time, which showed immigration was at, or near, the top of people's concerns and that eight out of ten agreed that 'immigration laws should be much tougher or immigration should be stopped altogether'.
     A year before Gordon Brown became prime minister, I ran a major focus group study. By then, immigration had become the main issue.
     We described our findings to Mr Brown and senior Cabinet members. We explained immigration was a vortex issue - its whirlpool effect engulfing everything in its wake.
     Voters were emphatic. They believed the NHS couldn't cope because too many immigrants were using its services (for example, the Office for National Statistics recently revealed that nearly a quarter of babies born in Britain have immigrant mothers).
     They thought schools weren't able to teach properly because they were struggling with large numbers of immigrant children who couldn't speak English. They believed people couldn't find work because immigrants were prepared to take jobs for much less money.
     And they said families found it impossible to get accommodation because the government gives priority to immigrant families.
     It's important to point out again that, despite the strength of these feelings, it doesn't mean people are racist. ...
     I always fed back voters' views about immigration to Labour's high command. But despite the subject being such a hot topic, it was never put at the top of the political agenda.
     There was simply no appetite to listen, let alone act. It was as if politicians were in paralysis. ...
     But the debate goes on about immigration. The coalition Government has just announced a cap on non-EU immigration. However, focus groups suggest this may well be another 'too little too late' initiative, paying lip service rather than really dealing with the core issues.
     In any case, voters are worried about levels of immigration from EU countries as well, and their complaints often centre on the immigrants who are already here rather than those who still want to come to Britain.
[Site link]

TERRORISM – ISLAM
Muslims 'linked to violent ideology'
Duncan Gardham
Daily Telegraph, 6 August 2010.

     Many apparently mainstrean Muslim groups have the same ideology as violent Islamists, according to a secret report.
     The document, sent to Charles Farr, head of the Government's Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, has been leaked on the internet.
     Preventing terrorism, where next for Britain? from Quilliam, the think tank, lists groups in Britain that are "broadly sympathetic to Islamism", including Scotland Yard's Muslim Contact Unit and the Muslim Council of Britain.
     The report warns that if the Government engages with such groups "it risks empowering proponents of the ideology that is behind terrorism".

IMMIGRATION – EUROPEAN UNION
Passport giveaway opens UK back door: 2m more Hungarians will have right to work here
Daily Mail, 6 August 2010.

     Hungary is set to hand passports to millions of people living outside the EU – raising the prospect of a new wave of immigration into Britain.
     From next year, Hungary's leaders will begin a huge passport giveaway to minority groups who have historic or ethnic ties to the East European country but live elsewhere.
     Most of the beneficiaries live in impoverished countries on the fringes of Europe. Once they are given a passport, they will be entitled to full access to the rest of the EU – including Britain.
     Similar passport handout schemes – which are legal under EU laws – are under way in Romania and Bulgaria.
     Together, it is estimated the three countries could add nearly five million citizens to the continent's population, at a time when it is struggling to bounce back from a deeply damaging recession and financial crisis.
     Although they have come control for Romanian and Bulgarian nationals, UK ministers are powerless to place restrictions on arrivals from Hungary. That means the potential impact on Britain of two million new Hungarian passports is much larger.
[Site link]

BENEFITS AND COSTS – EMPLOYMENT
Romania: thanks for the benefits
Daily Mail, 6 August 2010.

     Romanian president Traian Basescu has publicly thanked the tens of thousands of his countrymen who claim benefits in Britain instead of their own country.
     In an extraordinary TV broadcast, the leader paid tribute to the two million Romanians who live and work abroad instead of claiming benefits at home.
     'Imagine if the two million Romanians working in Britain, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, came to ask for unemployment benefits in Romania,' he said.
     'So to these people we have to thank them for what they are doing for Romania.'
     And Mr Basescu blamed the boom in emigrant Romanian workers on lazy Westerners.
     'In those countries, the social protection is at a level that makes it more comfortable to be unemployed.'
[Site link]

RACISM – LEBANON
Racism Legitimised by Law
Mona Alami
Inter Press Service, 6 August 2010.

     Lebanon has a reputation for openness because of the relative freedom enjoyed by women in comparison to other Middle Eastern countries. But many women face rampant discrimination.
     Women driving luxury vehicles with an Asian or African woman relegated to the back seat is a common sight around Beirut. Most domestic workers come from places like the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.
     People of colour are not only mistreated by employers – who take away their passports and force them to work seven days a week – they also face discrimination outside the workplace. ... ...
     A recent survey of Lebanese resorts conducted by Lebanese NGO IndyAct shows that all of the 20 beaches investigated barred domestic workers from Asia and Africa from using their facilities. ...
     The beaches and clubs where some of the incidents took place are not breaching the law, because Lebanon does not have anti-discrimination legislation.
     "The Lebanese constitution states that all Lebanese are equal in the eyes of the law, but no mention is made of the rights of foreigners," says lawyer Amal Takiedine. ...
     Lebanon has many undocumented African immigrants, mostly from Ethiopia and Sudan. ...
     In addition to suffering discrimination, foreigners do not have the same rights in terms of property ownership – a cap is placed on how much they can purchase. Palestinians face stricter restrictions; they are not allowed to own any real estate and are not permitted to inherit property, even from a Lebanese family member.
     Takiedine says that in the absence of a unified civil law, such discrimination will continue. "The Lebanese legal system follows different rules of law that vary from one community to the other," she says. "It is a situation that naturally leads to inequality among people."
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – CRIME, PUBLIC OPINION, FRANCE
French back Sarkozy crime, immigrant crackdown-poll
AlertNet / Reuters, 5 August 2010.

     French people overwhelmingly support tough new measures proposed by President Nicolas Sarkozy to fight crime, delinquency and illegal immigration, a poll showed on Thursday.
     Sarkozy unveiled the measures last week in a bid to shore up support ahead of 2012 elections, amid a series of political scandals and unpopular economic reforms that have pushed his popularity to record lows.
     Opposition parties accused him of trying to divert attention from his woes with populist steps that make a clear link between youth crime and immigration, but the poll by Ifop for the daily Le Figaro suggested a big majority of citizens support him.
     The survey of 1,003 people showed that 89 percent agree with Sarkozy's plan to force repeat criminals to wear electronic tags for years after they have served time for their crimes.
     Some 80 percent backed his plan to strip French nationality from citizens with a foreign background who practise polygamy or promote female circumcision, and 70 percent favoured the same penalty for people with immigrant roots found guilty of killing a policeman. ...
     Opposition parties, human rights groups and unions announced this week that they would stage major demonstrations across France on Sept. 4 to protest against security measures they have condemned as xenophobic.
[Site link]

CRIME – RACISM, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Thousands of illegal immigrants escape deportation because police fear being called racist
Ryan Kisiel
Daily Mail, 4 August 2010.

     Thousands of illegal immigrants are escaping deportation as police fear being accused of racism if they question a suspect's nationality, according to a Home Office report.
     Failure to carry out the proper checks on migrants while they are in police custody is leading to huge amounts remaining in the country rather than being deported.
     Police fear asking questions about their nationality because they will be hung out to dry by politically correct regulations.
     The Home Office report recommends that more checks on suspects while in custody and a closer relationship with the UK Border Agency is needed to identify illegal immigrants.
     A pilot study found that when enhanced checks were applied, more than three times as illegal immigrants were found. The 14 custody suites in England and Wales showed that the number of those identified rose from 73 to 250 during the three-month trial.
     In one city, 20 suspected illegal immigrants were found during the first month, but only six were deported due to a lack of detention space. The rest were all given temporary release with conditions.
     The Determining Identity and Nationality in Local Policing report also revealed that 435 foreign nationals were arrested in the same area and period - accounting for 25 per cent of all arrests.
     'The research demonstrated that more rigorous practices in custody suites could increase the number of foreign nationals and illegal migrants who are identified as being involved in criminal activity," its authors said.
     'In some sites there was a marked reluctance to challenge arrestees who claimed to be British, even though officers suspected that the claims might be false.
     'This reluctance was commonly ascribed to the fear that any such challenge could result in an accusation of racism.' ...
     Just under one in five of all suspected illegal migrants arrested were questioned over serious offences, compared with just over one in ten of UK citizens arrested, the report found.
[Site link]

CRIME – RACISM, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Hidden toll of crime by illegal immigrants
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 4 August 2010.

     The number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants or foreign nationals could be four times higher than thought because police are not properly checking the identity of suspects, according to a Home Office report.
     Officers are failing to check the true nationality of suspects and whether they are in the country lawfully, meaning thousands of foreign criminals could also be slipping through the immigration net and staying in Britain.
     Many of them are likely to be involved in organised crime or other cross-border offences, according to the research. ...
     The Home Office research found a "lack of thoroughness" in checking the immigration status of those of those arrested and a failure to take the appropriate action when they do discover them.
     In some cases, officers were even reluctant to challenge someone who claimed to be British when they suspected they were not because of fears of being accused of racism.
     Repeat offenders were often overlooked because it was assumed their immigration status had already been checked and police would not bother checking those who were compliant. ...
     The report, Determining Identity and Nationality in Local Policing, examined practices in 14 custody suites and, as part of the research, a pilot was carried out in four areas involving enhanced checks on arrested individuals.
     As a result, the number of identity checks on individuals increased fivefold and the number found or suspected to be an illegal immigrant increased from 73 to 250.
     Even when illegal immigrants were discovered by the police they were not always dealt with appropriately either by them or immigration officers. Details of people found to in the country unlawfully were sometimes not passed on to the UK Border Agency because officers felt nothing would be done about it or they were passed on after the suspect had been released.
     In turn, immigration officers were reluctant to attend police stations if the case was likely to be complicated. In other cases, police would put suspected illegal immigrants in a taxi to the nearest immigration office or hand them directions, despite accepting it was unlikely they would show up. The latest research was conducted in 2006-07 but has only now been published.

POPULATION – PUBLIC OPINION, AUSTRALIA
Big Australia vision goes down like a lead balloon
Jennie Curtin
The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 2010.

     Nearly three-quarters of Australians do not want a bigger population, a recent survey shows.
     The result appears to back up the decision by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, to switch from Kevin Rudd's "Big Australia" argument to her own "sustainable Australia" rhetoric.
     The Australian survey of social attitudes, which canvassed the views of 3200 people, found those in rural and regional areas were more strongly opposed to a larger population, with up to 86 per cent of those in country Queensland rejecting the notion.
     NSW inner-city residents held more moderate views than the population as a whole, with 58 per cent saying ''no'' and 42 per cent ''yes'' to more people, compared with a 72 per cent rejection rate overall.
     Adjunct Associate Professor Katharine Betts, recently retired from Swinburne University of Technology, who analysed the results, said the inner-city result was surprising "given the distress that growing traffic congestion and overloaded infrastructure are causing in the major cities" but could be explained by the preponderance of university graduates or first-generation migrants in such areas.
     Those two groups provided the most enthusiastic support for more people, she said. The most supportive were affluent migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds (63 per cent in favour). ...
     The survey showed little difference in attitudes based on voting intention for the main parties although Liberal voters (72 per cent) were slightly more inclined to maintain stable levels than Labor (67) or the Greens (68). National Party voters (87 per cent) and Family First supporters (84 per cent) were strongly against increases.
     Labourers (81 per cent) and technicians, trade workers and community workers (79 per cent) were the employment groups most against a higher population while so-called "social professionals" (arts and media, education, and legal, social and welfare professionals) were the least resistant to the idea at 57 per cent.
[Site link]

REPATRIATION/DEPORTATION – USA
Con Air: onboard the US illegal immigrant flights
Nick Martin
Channel 4 News, 3 August 2010.

     "Everybody wants to stay, nobody wants to leave." Channel 4 News gains exclusive access to US border police and travels with illegal immigrants deported "back home" to Guatemala. ...
     "Flights have increased by 77 per cent since 2006," says Michael Pitts, field director of the Texas office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "This year we will deport 400,000 illegal aliens in this way." ...
     And this is the perennial problem for US immigration officials. The never ending cycle of deporting illegal immigrants only then to discover that they have come over the border and re-entered.
[Site link]

BORDER CONTROLS – EDUCATION
300,000 a year let in on student visas
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2010.

     The number of foreigners who came to Britain on student visas rose by a third to more than 300,000 last year, prompting renewed warnings last night of a loophole in immigration law.
     Official figures showed that the number of students entering Britain from non-EU countries increased by more than 75,000 in 12 months, despite unprecedented demand for college and university places. The influx was exacerbated by a further 31,000 dependants accompanying foreign students, the figures disclosed. ...
     Last night, the Government said that the student visa system had been open to "significant abuse". Damian Green, the immigration minister, said there would be a thorough review of the rules. ...
     The increase was thought to have been the largest single rise on record.

BORDER CONTROLS – ASYLUM, DEPORTATION
17,000 immigrants told to leave UK won right to stay on appeal after Home Office failed to attend hearings
Katherine Faulkner
Daily Mail, 2 August 2010.

     Thousands of rejected immigrants are being allowed to stay in the UK because the Home Office is not bothering to defend the decision in the appeal courts.
     Immigrants whose applications to stay in the UK have been rejected are routinely winning appeals against the decisions - simply because no Home Office official has turned up at court to defend the rejection.
     The number of immigrants winning leave to remain in Britain at a hearing when no official was present jumped by almost 50 per cent last year.
     More than 17,000 won appeals in such cases - a figure which stood at less than 1,500 just five years ago.
     In some instances the Home Office has later decided to counter-appeal the decision - a procedure that comes at a significant cost to the taxpayer.
     Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, told the Times: 'This is a shocking state of affairs.
     'It represents a waste of money.
     'I think in some cases they cannot be bothered to turn up because they look at the papers and know they are not going to win.
     'In other cases it is sheer inefficiency. There seems to be an attitude that they do not even care what the result is going to be.'
     In the absence of home office officials, migrants have won appeals against refused asylum applications, deportation orders and refusals of entry to the UK. Last year 17,473 migrants won their appeals at hearings at which the Home Office was not represented by an official.
     A further 23,997 won appeals when the Home Office was represented, a parliamentary written answer revealed.
     A migrant is far more likely to win an appeal if there is no official present to defend decisions.
     But the UK Border agency is struggling to cope with a massive rise in the number of appeals to Asylum and Immigration Tribunals over the past five years and cannot spare the staff to attend all contentious hearings.
[Site link]

RACISM – ANTI-SEMITISM, JEWS
Israeli president denies branding Britain 'anti-Semitic'
Adrian Blomfield and Damien McElroy
Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2010.

     Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, has been forced to deny that he had branded Britons "anti-Semites" during an interview in which he attacked Britain for being consistently pro-Arab and against Israel.
     Amid growing controversy over his comments, Mr Peres insisted yesterday that he had "the highest regard" for the way in which Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany during the Second World War. "President Peres never accused the British people of anti-Semitism," his spokesman added last night.

REPATRIATION/DEPORTATION – COSTS
£13 million missing after Labour's 'crazy' attempts to bribe illegal immigrants to go home
James Slack
Daily Mail, 2 August 2010.

     Labour squandered millions of pounds on 'crazy' schemes to bribe illegal immigrants to go home, it can be revealed.
     Home Office papers show how the last government was so wasteful with public money that £13 million has gone missing - with officials having no idea how it was spent.
     Immigration minister Damian Green has ordered an urgent internal investigation to find out if the taxpayer has been short-changed.
     The accounts also reveal how Labour:
     • Paid £1.2 million in bribes to people who never even set foot in Britain
     • Gave repatriation grants to migrants from wealthy countries - including the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand
     • Lavished thousands on teaching foreign preachers about life in 'multi-cultural' Britain
     • Sent Afghans on year-long holidays to see if they would like to go home permanently
     • Bribed Poles to go home in the same year their country joined the EU, meaning they became eligible to immediately return to the UK
     • Handed almost £50,000 to the Ukraine to build a 'migration advice centre'
     • Wasted £25,141 on a cancelled project to support 'artisans' in Afghanistan
     • Paid £68,235 to China - an industrial powerhouse - to strengthen its migration controls.
     The accounts detail how Labour spent almost £80 million on schemes designed to encourage failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to go home.
     The payments - denounced as 'bribes' by critics - were designed to dramatically increase the number of people being removed from the UK.
     Ministers decided it was cheaper and easier than border guards tracking the illegal immigrants down themselves and forcibly putting them on a plane.
     The Home Office also spent hundreds of thousands on grants to foreign countries so they could improve their border controls, or dissuade their citizens from travelling here.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – ISLAM, PUBLIC OPINION
Three-quarters of non-Muslims believe Islam negative for Britain
Haroon Siddique
The Guardian, 2 August 2010.

     Three-quarters of non-Muslims believe Islam has provided a negative contribution to British society, according to a new poll, which has prompted calls for Muslims to help improve the perception of their faith.
     The study for the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) also found that 63% of people surveyed did not disagree with the statement "Muslims are terrorists" and 94% agreed that "Islam oppresses women". It included qualitative as well as quantitative data. One respondent said: "If I had my way I'd kick them all [Muslims] out of here."
     The results follow an online YouGov poll, published in June, that found 58% linked Islam with extremism and 69% believed it encouraged the repression of women.
     Despite the widespread negative perceptions of Islam, iERA believes the fact that most opinions were formed in ignorance of the faith indicates that Muslims can positively influence them.
     Four-fifths of those polled said they have less than very little knowledge about Islam, while 40% did not know who "Allah" referred to and 36% did not know who the Prophet Muhammad was.
     iERA's senior researcher Hamza Tzortzis said: "We wanted to do something positive with the survey results rather than just say, 'It's so sad'. So, the organisation's strategy is to give a new realm of possibility for people to comprehend Islam, have a proper respect for Islam and see the human relevance of the faith." ...
     The study, carried out for iERA out by DJS Research, used face-to face questionnaires to ascertain the views of a "statistically robust" sample of 500 randomly selected non-Muslims.
[Site link]

EMPLOYMENT – FINANCE
Leading Square Mile financiers label coalition's immigration cap 'a disaster'
Jill Treanor
The Observer, 1 August 2010.

     Leading City employers are furious about the limits being imposed by the government on the number of non-EU citizens they are able to employ and are urging a dramatic rethink of the government's policy.
     The financial district prides itself on its cosmopolitan workforce and is concerned that the quotas on migrants being set by the coalition will make it impossible for them to keep operating effectively.
     A senior City source described the new rules as a "disaster". Firms were told the implications of the policy by the government last week. Industry sources said that some top City companies believe they will be restricted to hiring as few as six non-EU nationals during the remainder of the year. ...
     Employers' body the CBI said it was in dialogue with the Home Office over the migration caps while the City's trade body, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, said its members were worried: "There is a concern that it will become more difficult to move people around their businesses on a global basis."
[Site link]

EXTREMISM – ISLAM
Muslim extremists threaten new 7/7
James Murray and Neil Doyle
Sunday Express, 1 August 2010.

     A new Muslim extremist group threatened a terrorist atrocity similar to 7/7 during a highly provocative demonstration outside the front gates of Downing Street.
     Calling themselves Muslims Against Crusaders, they chanted furiously against British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. ...
     Some of the demonstrators were supporters of Islam 4 UK, run by former solicitor Anjem Choudary. The group was banned by former Home Secretary Alan Johnson this year as it planned a protest march against soldiers at Wootton Bassett, the Wiltshire town which honours the war dead from Afghanistan.
     Mr Choudary insists he has nothing to do with Muslims Against Crusaders and was not at the Downing Street protest on Monday but he does promote their protests. Last night the Centre for Social Cohesion think tank said the Government must adopt a different approach to the constantly evolving extremist groups.
     Director Douglas Murray said: "They are one step ahead of the Government because they are constantly changing their names and thinking of ways of getting their message across but the Government has to be one step ahead of them."
     Father-of-four Choudary lives on state benefits of around £25,000 a year, like many of those who organise meetings and events to promote their extremist views.
     Mr Murray said: "There is one solution... stop paying for their benefits. It is utterly ridiculous that the state is effectively financing this problem."
     Today we reveal that Choudary and two hate preachers have joined forces to launch an internet operation devoted to their views. ...
     Choudary has joined forces with Omar Bakri Mohammad, who is banned from re-entering the UK after he fled to Lebanon in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London. With them is Abdullah el-Faisal, deported from the UK in 2007 after being jailed for distributing recordings of speeches in which he solicited the murders of Jews and Hindus.
[Site link]

ASYLUM – OVERPAYMENT, MISMANAGEMENT
Border agency costs us all £70m
Ted Jeory
Sunday Express, 1 August 2010.

     Bungling border officials are preparing to write off almost £70 million in bad debts, overpayments and compensation to asylum seekers.
     A shocking catalogue of costly mistakes at the Home Office's UK Border Agency meant £26 million had to be written off in the last financial year.
     And the agency paid out £13 million of benefits in error to would-be refugees since April 2008.
     Astonishingly, a further £41 million has had to be set aside in special accounts to cover more bungles, including bad debts, overpayments and compensation claims, this year.
     The agency's accounts reveal £12 million was overpaid last year to just six hostel owners for providing asylum seekers' accommodation.
     Embarrassingly for the agency's Home Office bosses, £4.3 million ended up incorrectly in the pockets of the agency's own staff.
     Failure to update salary changes and annual leave entitlements on payroll systems meant the agency overpaid more than 2,500 employees by an average of about £1,700 each.
     Meanwhile three refugees who were unlawfully detained while border officials investigated their claims ended up being paid more than £330,000 each last year in compensation.
     And settlements worth £2.1 million were reached with 40 under-18s who were wrongly detained as adults – an average of £52,000 each.
     Yet in spite of the mistakes, 29 senior officials were paid £295,000 in bonuses in 2009. Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Commons Public Administration Committee said: "The public administration of the civil service has become increasingly dysfunctional.
     "The whole basis of civil administration in the UK has to be a huge agenda for the new government."
     The losses are detailed in the Border Agency's annual report, published last week. Most embarrassing of the errors is the £13.1 million in benefits overpaid to asylum seekers in the past two years.
     Officials found that payments still being made to claimants when support should have ended totalled £9.6 million during 2008/09 and £3.5 million during 2009/10.
     About £1.9 million went to asylum seekers whose applications had already failed.
[Site link]

RACISM – ANTI-SEMITISM, JEWS, MUSLIMS
Peres: the English are anti-Semitic
David Harrison and Adrian Blomfield
Sunday Telegraph, 1 August 2010.

     Israel's president has accused the English of being anti-Semitic and claimed that MPs pander to Muslim voters.
     Shimon Peres, 87, said England was "deeply pro-Arab" and "anti-Israeli", adding: They always worked against us."
     In an interview on a Jewish website, he went on to say: "There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary." ... ...
     Mr Peres, a Nobel Peace Prizewinner who was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen in 2008, said that England's attitude towards Jews was Israel's "next big problem".
     He said: "There are several million Muslim voters, and for many Members of Parliament, that's the difference between getting elected and not getting elected," he said. ...
     Mr Peres made the comments in an interview with Prof Benny Morris, a historian at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, which was published on Tablet, a Jewish news website.
     Mr Peres is one of Israel's longest-serving political leaders – an MP for 48 years and twice prime minister. He is firmly on the Israeli left.

REPATRIATION/DEPORTATION – CRIME, EUROPEAN UNION
Fruit and veg law prevents deportation of drug smuggler
David Barrett
Sunday Telegraph, 1 August 2010.

     A Turkish drug trafficker sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for his role in one of Britain's largest-ever heroin seizures cannot be deported because of an obscure European law.
     The man, who was a senior member of an international drugs gang, arranged to smuggle £30 million of heroin into Britain hidden inside the fuel tank of an articulated lorry.
     The Home Office spent two years trying to deport Ali Osman Gok after he was freed from prison in 2008.
     But his lawyers overturned their efforts by mounting a lengthy series of appeals, focusing on a little-known, 30-year-old treaty between the EU and Turkey which mainly deals with import duty on fruit and vegetables.
     Gok, 40, who lives in north London with his wife and two daughters, is now free to remain in Britain indefinitely. ...
     The treaty which enabled Gok win his case governs tariffs on goods between Turkey and Europe, and includes a detailed list of aubergines, marrows and other foodstuffs covered by the agreement.
     Known as "Decision 1/80 of the Association Council of September 19, 1980", it also includes a number of "social provisions" which were the key element of the case put forward by Gok's solicitor.
     It means that Turkish nationals can only be denied the right to live and work in European Community states if they pose a "specific risk of new and serious prejudice to the requirements of public policy".
     The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) made its decision despite hearing that Gok had been a key member of one of the biggest heroin smuggling plots the UK has ever seen. ... ...
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "This is getting increasingly ridiculous. If a major drugs smuggler can't be thrown out then who can be? ..."
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – ISRAEL, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, DEPORTATION, NATIONAL IDENTITY
Israel to expel hundreds children of migrant workers in the country illegally
Sun Sentinel, 1 August 2010.

     Israel on Sunday approved new residency criteria that could result in the deportations of hundreds of children of migrant workers.
     The decision by Israel's Cabinet represented a small step by Israel to clear up the status of thousands of foreign workers in Israel.
     Under the decision, children of migrants whose parents entered Israel legally may remain if they are enrolled in school, speak Hebrew and have been here longer than five years.
     An Israeli advocacy group, the Hotline for Migrant Workers, estimates 700 of 1,200 school-age children are at risk of deportation, along with their parents.
     About 200,000 migrant workers live in Israel, mostly from the Philippines, China and Africa. About half have overstayed their visas, thousands for many years. Many have children who were born in Israel and know no other home.
     Some Israelis complain that illegal migrants are taking jobs away from citizens. Others worry that the non-Jewish workers could upset the Jewish nature of the society.
     At the Sunday Cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed with the critics. "This is a tangible threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel," he said.
[Site link]

EXTREMISM – ISLAM, FIFTH COLUMN
Muslim fifth column
Michael Nazir-Ali
Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2010.
[Letter to the Editor]

     Both Baroness Manningham-Buller and Imran Khan have been reported in your columns as claiming that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have led to increased recruitment of Muslims in Britain to radical causes. They may well be correct.
     The implication, however, that whenever the West acts to protect itself or to prevent genocide or oppression by extremists and tyrants, it is causing a fifth column to arise in its own societies, is deeply worrying. Such a situation has enormous consequences for the will to resist extremism and for morale generally.

REPATRIATION/DEPORTATION – EUROPEAN UNION, ROMA, GIPSIES, CRIME
EU washes hands of French plans for Roma expulsions as tensions grow
Valentina Pop
EUobserver.com, 30 July 2010.

     The European Commission on Thursday said it is up to member states to decide whether they expel Roma people, but only on an individual basis and respecting the principle of "proportionality", in reaction to France's announcement it will dismantle 300 Roma camps within three months. ...
     On Wednesday, French interior minister Brice Hortefeux said 300 illegal "camps or squats" would be dismantled and the travellers living there, mostly EU citizens from Romania and Bulgaria, will be sent back to their countries.
     The announcement came after President Nicolas Sarkozy held crisis talks to discuss what he described as the security "problems" posed by the minority, following an attack on a police station in central France last week.
     The French opposition and human rights groups lambasted the decision.
      ...
     In Romania, home of the largest Roma population, non-governmental organisations said that France's move violates basic human rights. "Saying that Roma who committed crimes will be expelled is a severe violation of the freedom of movement. The word 'crime' can be [widely] interpreted and can lead to abuses," Gelu Duminica, head of the association Impreuna (Together), told AFP.
     Meanwhile, Romanian foreign affairs minister Teodor Baconschi stressed that the nine million Roma living in the European Union were "European citizens" and their freedom of movement could not be impeded.
     He also deflected France's objections to accepting Romania into the border-free travel area known as Schengen, a move which should take place in March 2011, together with neighbouring Bulgaria.
     "Romania can manage migratory flows effectively, on the external border of the Schengen area. But this has nothing to do with the freedom of movement of European citizens on EU territory. Also, the social inclusion of EU citizens is not among the Schengen requirements," Mr Baconschi told Evenimentul Zilei.
     France's EU affairs secretary Pierre Lellouche has previously told France Info and RFI that his country has doubts about Romania's accession to the Schengen area, precisely because of the crimes committed by its citizens of Roma ethnicity. ...
     France is certainly not the only western European country where the Roma community is being stigmatised and pushed back. Two years ago, Italy had taken similar steps after several crimes were allegedly committed by Roma and even allowed for vigilante patrols to be established in the local communities.
     And Germany is set to deport 12,000 Roma to Kosovo in the coming years, writes Der Freitag, in a deal that Pristina accepted "under pressure" last April. ...
     In Denmark, the city of Copenhagen earlier this month asked for government assistance, including the use of force, in order to expel the 200 to 400 Roma who live there. "The situation is untenable," the mayor of the Danish capital said, arguing that the number of burglaries has risen in the neighbourhoods where they have taken up residence.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – CITIZENSHIP, USA
U.S. Immigration Fight Widens to Native Born
Miriam Jordan, Jean Guerrero and Laura Meckler
The Wall Street Journal, 30 July 2010.

     The immigration debate is reviving the explosive idea of denying citizenship to children born on U.S. soil if their parents are in the country illegally.
     A U.S. senator and a state lawmaker in Arizona, both central players in the battle over immigration law, separately proposed this week that "birthright" citizenship be denied to the children of illegal immigrants. They said the change would help stem the flood of illegal border crossings. ...
     Immigration-rights activists say citizenship isn't a significant driver of illegal immigration, because a child has to reach age 21 to petition for permanent legal residency for his or her parents. ...
     At issue is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, enacted in 1868 to ensure that states not deny former slaves the full rights of citizenship. It states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." ...
     Mr. Pearce, like some other proponents of the change, argued that the amendment as written doesn't apply to illegal immigrants. Because illegal immigrants aren't "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S., as the amendment requires, they fall outside its protection, these people argue. A group of House lawmakers made a similar argument when they tried to pass legislation changing the birthright principle in 2005.
     "When it was ratified in 1868, the amendment had to do with African-Americans; it had nothing to do with aliens," Mr. Pearce said. "It's got to be fixed."
     Given the controversial nature of this proposal, successfully amending the Constitution would be considered a long shot. It requires a vote of two-thirds of the House and of the Senate, and must be ratified by three-fourths of state legislators.
     A change in state law redefining who is a citizen would likely draw a legal challenge, as did Arizona's effort to change state immigration law.
     Under Mr. Pearce's proposal, Arizona would refuse to issue a birth certificate to any child unless at least one parent could prove legal presence in the U.S. "The 14th Amendment has been hijacked and abused," Mr. Pearce said. "We incentivize people to break our laws."
     The U.S. is home to about 11 million illegal immigrants. There are nearly four million whose children are U.S. citizens, according to a 2009 report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
[Site link]

DIVERSITY PROMOTION – NAVY, USA
High seas segregation: The Navy is listing dangerously in politically correct water
The Washington Times, 30 July 2010.
[Leading article]

     The Navy wants to judge sailors by the color of their skin, not the content of their seamanship.
     The latest national security leak is a shocking e-mail from a Navy admiral on "Diversity Accountability." The message, sent to a list of other flag officers, notes that "a change in focus of this year's diversity brief is the desire to identify our key performers (by name) and provide insight on each of them." Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, who apparently originated this order, "is interested in who are the diverse officers with high potential and what is the plan for their career progression. He may ask what is being done within to ensure they are considered for key follow on billets within the Navy."
     The message specifies, "This list must be held very closely but will provide ready reference to ensure we are carefully monitoring and supporting the careers of the best and the brightest the Navy has to offer." That is, the best and the brightest provided a sailor is one of the euphemistically "diverse." If you are a white male, it might be time to set sail and seek opportunities elsewhere.
     In practice, the Navy will be creating a list of privileged "diverse" officers who will enjoy special benefits and career mentoring not available to people of the wrong race, as well as a virtual guarantee of fast-track access to the highest reaches of command. Fifty-six years after the Supreme Court struck down the concept of "separate but equal" treatment of races, the U.S. Navy is erecting a wall of segregation between what will amount to two parallel promotion systems: one for the "diverse" and another for the monotone. If this isn't illegal, it should be. ...
     In the contemporary naval bureaucracy, this type of politically correct nonsense has run out of control like a loose cannon on deck. The Naval Academy lists racial diversity as the "highest personnel priority," apparently even over the mission of educating future Navy leaders for warfare on the high seas. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made achieving diversity a "strategic imperative" when he was chief of naval operations. Call us old-fashioned seadogs, but we'd prefer that the Navy's top priority be fighting and winning our nation's wars rather than engaging in social experimentation.
[Site link]

BENEFITS AND COSTS – HOUSING
Nearly 100,000 new homes must be built every year for immigrants
Daily Mail, 29 July 2010.

     Nearly 100,000 new homes must be built every year just to provide housing for immigrants, ministers disclosed yesterday.
     Four out of every ten new houses or flats built to cope with the rising population will go to a migrant, they said.
     Over a 25-year period, immigrants will require 2.5 million extra homes unless the Government meets its pledges to bring about a major reduction in numbers arriving to live in Britain.
     Communities Department spokesman Andrew Stunell said estimates of housing demand and the expected level of housing required by immigrants were prepared in March 2009, but only now revealed.
     He said in a Commons written answer: 'It is estimated that net international migration could account, on average, for 40 per cent of the net growth of households in England over the projection period from 2006 to 2031.'
     The housing projections from the Communities Department say that at current birthrates and expected rates of immigration, 252,000 new homes a year will be needed each year until 2031.
     Of these, 36,000 will be needed because there will be more people living alone and fewer couples and families, and 116,000 because of rising birthrates.
     The remaining 100,000 will be needed to house migrants, based on 2006 population figures.
     At present the Office for National Statistics estimates that net immigration will run at 180,000 a year for the foreseeable future.

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – FRANCE, GYPSIES
Sarkozy accused of racism for ordering closure of 300 illegal gypsy camps and expulsion of Roma after riot
Daily Mail, 29 July 2010.

     French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of racism after ordering authorities to dismantle 300 gypsy camps and expel illegal Roma immigrants.
     His actions come a week after riots between gypsies and police in which a young man was shot in the Loire Valley.
     In response to the trouble, Mr Sarkozy called a government meeting yesterday and he said those responsible for the clashes would be 'severely punished'.
     He ordered the government to crackdown on all illegal Roma immigrants, almost all of whom have come from Eastern Europe.
     He said illegal Gypsy camps 'will be systematically evacuated', calling them sources of human trafficking, exploitation of children and prostitution.
     He also pushed for a change in France's immigration law to make such expulsion easier 'for reasons of public order'.
     It comes after last week's riot in the small Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan where dozens of gypsies armed with hatchets and iron bars attacked the police station, hacked down trees and burned cars.
     The riot erupted after a gendarme shot and killed a traveller who had driven through a checkpoint.
[Site link]

ASYLUM – EMPLOYMENT
Up to 45,000 failed asylum seekers given right to work in Britain by Supreme Court
Jack Doyle
Daily Mail, 29 July 2010.

     Tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers were granted the right to work in the UK yesterday in a landmark court ruling.
     It affects around 45,000 whose applications have already been rejected at least once, but who have not been deported.
     Home Office officials argued that an EU directive - which gives asylum seekers the right to work after 12 months - should not apply to them because it would encourage applicants to abuse the system by making repeated claims.
     But the Supreme Court ruled that failed asylum seekers whose cases have not been dealt with after 12 months must be given access to jobs.
     Many of those affected are part of Labour's backlog of 450,000 asylum claims - which are still being processed.
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think tank, said: 'There has been a succession of court decisions which take no account of the real world in which our Home Office has to operate.
     'It is no service to genuine refugees to make the asylum system progressively more open to abuse. Yet again EU directives have unintended and unwelcome consequences for Britain.'
     Reacting to the judgment, Tory ministers said they were considering restricting the asylum seekers to industries in which there was already a proven shortage of workers.
     Immigration minister Damian Green said: 'This judgement will only have a short-term effect. The long delays in the asylum system will be resolved by the summer of next year when all the older asylum cases are concluded.'
[Site link]

ASYLUM – COSTS
Asylum target to be scrapped
Daily Telegraph, 29 July 2010.

     An asylum target to deal with most cases within six months is to be scrapped, it can be disclosed.
     The move will form part of a review of the asylum system to be announced by Damian Green, the Immigration Minister, today.
     A target to deal with three quarters of asylum claims within six months is already being missed but Mr Green will say the decision is designed to speed up cases rather than lead to further delays.
     He will propose to cut the £500 million annual bill to support asylum applicants as part of the eight-month project to assess how the system can work more effectively.

RACISM – USA, POLITICS
Left Admits: Racism Charges Against Tea Parties a Tactic, Not a Truth
National Center for Public Policy Research, 29 July 2010.

     Members of the Project 21 black leadership group are condemning the left's false use of the accusation "racist" as a political tactic, saying they recognize the strategy from the teaching of left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky.
     Former U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman Mary Frances Berry, a long-time prominent liberal activist, has admitted in an interview with Politico that the left is trying to smear the tea party movement as "racist" for strategic reasons, not out of genuine concern that the movement is itself racist.
     Berry called the tactic an "effective strategy" and chose not to denounce it. ...
     Berry, now the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and History at the University of Pennsylvania, was asked, "will branding the tea party 'racist' work?"
     Berry replied:
     Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one's opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness. ...
     Left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky, whose tactics have been studied and followed by Barack Obama and his followers, taught his activists to "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." The Tea Party movement has unnerved the left and energized supporters of smaller government, causing the left to target it, as per Alinsky's method, with bogus racism charges.
     The Politico interview with Berry is available at http://www.politico.com/arena/bio/mary_frances_berry.html.
[Site link]

CRIME – MARRIAGE, BORDER CONTROLS
Sham marriages on 'unprecedented scale'
Tom Pugh
The Independent, 29 July 2010.

     The scale of the sham marriages was on an unprecedented scale involving "classic exploitation" of foreign nationals desperate to stay in the UK, investigators said.
     Cash-strapped Eastern Europeans were promised sums of up to £3,000 to marry Africans to help them gain residency in the UK and a chance of a better life.
     Through gaining indefinite leave to stay in the UK, the Africans, mainly from Nigeria, would be able to enjoy Britain's education, healthcare and social benefits systems.
     A large proportion of the Africans who went through with the sham marriages had arrived lawfully in the UK, either through the asylum process or by gaining a student visa.
     Investigators said it was when they had "reached the end of the line" in their legal applications and appeals to stay in the UK permanently that they went through the sham marriage process.
     Files recovered as part of the inquiry showed that, in some cases, Africans were already married and had children in their homeland.
     Detective Inspector Andy Cummins, of the UK Border Agency's (UKBA) South East region immigration crime team, said: "In the majority of the cases, the reason that most went through with the marriage process was not for love, it was to assist in their application to residency into the UK." ...
     Officers working on Operation Gomozia arrested the Rev Alex Brown on June 30 last year, along with Buchak, an illegal immigrant and gambler who used the alias Kaido Maesalu.
     Further investigations identified pastor and solicitor Michael Adelasoye, who had worked as an immigration adviser at several firms of solicitors.
[Site link]

CRIME – MARRIAGE, BORDER CONTROLS
Vicar guilty of 360 sham weddings
Jennifer Cockerell
The Independent, 29 July 2010.

     A vicar was found guilty today of conducting hundreds of sham marriages to help illegal immigrants gain residency in Britain.
     The Rev Alex Brown, 61, conducted 360 fake ceremonies at the church of St Peter and St Paul in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, between July 2005 and July 2009.
     Co-defendent Vladymyr Buchak was also convicted at Lewes Crown Court of conspiring to breach immigration laws by paying Eastern Europeans up to £3,000 each to marry Africans, mainly from Nigeria.
     They were caught after the UK Border Agency investigated the bogus marriages.
     The jury is still deliberating on a third defendant.
     During the seven-week trial, jurors heard that Brown presided over a total of 383 marriages during the four-year indictment period, a staggering 30-fold increase on the 13 he had conducted over the previous four years.
     They were told that Buchak, 33, a Ukrainian national who had himself been living illegally in the UK since at least 2004, was responsible for "cajoling and persuading" the Eastern Europeans into the marriages of convenience.
     He preyed on migrant workers who were living in the area and were desperate to earn money by offering them large cash sums to wed Africans to allow them to obtain the documents to live and work in the UK.
     Jurors were shown photocopies of the marriage register at the church which showed that 360 out of the 383 weddings during the period involved Eastern Europeans marrying African nationals, mainly from Nigeria.
     It was also apparent that, of the hundreds of people who had got married, they all seemed to live in the surrounding streets of the parish, with 90 couples registered as living in one road alone and 52 in another.
     In some instances there were even several brides and grooms claiming to live in the same house and jurors were told that most of those involved in the marriages had given false addresses.
[Site link]

POLITICS
Coalition split on migrants cap casts shadow over India trip
Rosa Prince and Andrew Porter
Daily Telegraph, 28 July 2010.

     The Coalition was under its greatest strain since coming to power last night after David Cameron and a senior Liberal Democrat Cabinet Minister clashed publicly over the Government's plan to introduce a cap on immigration.
     During a joint trade visit to India, the Prime Minister and Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, effectively agreed to disagree over what had been a key policy for the Conservatives during the general election, but which was opposed vociferously by the Lib Dems. ...
     Mr Cable, who was in the party, warned that the mission would be futile unless the Government scrapped the proposed annual limit on immigration from outside the European Union. ...
     Mr Cable briefed Hindu Business Line that he would fight to have the cap scrapped, saying he wanted as "liberal an immigration policy as it's possible to have".
     "We are arguing, within government, about how we create the most flexible regime we can possibly have, but in a way that reassures the British public," he added.

POLITICS
David Cameron to offer India direct say on immigration policy
Nicholas Watt
The Guardian, 28 July 2010.

     David Cameron is to offer India a direct say in drawing up Britain's new immigration policy as Downing Street responds to fears in New Delhi that a proposed cap will harm trade links.
     In a sign of what the prime minister will today describe as a new "spirit of humility" towards India, Downing Street is making it clear that Britain will consult Delhi over a proposed new cap on non-EU immigration.
     Cameron's trip to India, which he will launch today with a speech to business leaders in the hi-tech centre of Bangalore, had threatened to be overshadowed by concerns in Delhi about the cap.
[Site link]

POPULATION
Immigration sees UK's population growth outstrip the rest of Europe
Steve Doughty
Daily Mail, 28 July 2010.

     This country gained more people last year thanks to immigration and rising birth rates than anywhere in the continent. ...
     The Eurostat analysis showed that Britain's population rose by 412,000 in 2009, up 182,000 because there were more immigrants than emigrants, and up by 231,000 because of rising birth rates.
     Much of the new baby boom is a result of immigration, and one in four children born last year was born to mothers who were themselves born abroad. ...
     Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch think tank, said: 'This is further confirmation that the population of the UK is rising extremely fast, mainly due to immigration, which accounts for two thirds of the projected population growth of the next 25 years.
     'There are always arguments in favour of immigration. But the majority of people are clear that immigration needs to be brought down. The Government would do well to stick to the promises they have made to the electorate.'
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – FILMS
Bye bye, UK Film Council
Paul Hoffman
Daily Telegraph, 28 July 2010.
[Letter to the Editor]

     I'm delighted that Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, has decided to annihilate the UK Film Council (report, July 27). It was secretly hated by many in the film industry. ...
     Had the first Harry Potter novel been presented as a screenplay to the council, it would either never have seen the light of day or it would have been carefully rewritten on the orders of the council's apparatchiks so that Potter would have become a streetwise break-dancer in a tough inner-city school with a pregnant girlfriend. The council's alleged successes can mostly be put down to the fact that even those who loathed it had to go to it for money.

REPATRIATION/DEPORTATION – MIGRANTS' RIGHTS
Having a better immigration system also means returning immigrants
Tim Finch, Head of Migration, Equalities and Citizenship at the Institute for Public Policy Research
Liberal Conspiracy [website], 28 July 2010.

     You know government policy is in trouble when on the same day it is attacked by both a High Court judge and its own independent inspector.
     That is what happened yesterday to the Home Office over important aspects of their returns policy – with the High Court ruling the fast track deportation process 'unlawful' and the Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency criticising the use of dawn raids and the treatment of families.
     But it is just too easy for people who want a more sympathetic approach towards migrants to greet these developments as victories against those 'nasty' people in the Home Office.
     Of course it is important to use campaigns and legal challenges to stop the inequities and injustices that scar our immigration system. But the cause of migrants' rights is not going to be advanced just by frustrating the system. The system has to be changed.
     There is no point – as often happens in reports by academics and NGOs – coming up with visions for a perfect immigration system that delivers absolutely everything else, but which misses out a crucial element: return. It's a dirty word in some parts of the migration world but it needs to be confronted, so I will say it again: return.
     Any alternative system lacks all credibility if it does not include better and faster ways of returning migrants who are judged, after a fair hearing, to have no right to remain in the UK.
     Quite simply, the electorate demands that this happens – and the politicians and therefore the policy makers have to take that into account. They do not have the luxury of just ignoring mainstream opinion, as 'No Borders' groups and their ilk are happy to do.
     Moreover, the ability to return people who have entered illegally, violated their visas or been refused asylum is not just popular, it is right. There need to be safeguards so that people can challenge decisions of course, but in the end rules are the rules – and they should be applied and supported. Although a campaigner for migrants rights myself I have always found it difficult to deal with some in the migration sector who seem to glory in seeing immigration rules widely ignored or flouted.
     Fortunately there are some positive signs that the government and the migration sector are moving towards a more cooperative spirit around the sensitive issue of return – and related issues. The Still Human, Still Here coalition has been involved in long discussions with UKBA around the issue of asylum seeker destitution.
     More recently, a group of NGOs involved in the Outcry Campaign have been working with officials to come up with compromise solutions to end the practice of detaining children while ensuring that the government retains instruments to effect or facilitate family return.
     This is the way forward. The bitter battles over immigration of the last decade have been great for the lawyers, but done little in the long run to protect migrants or deliver a better immigration system. It is through discussion and negotiation that progress will really be made.
[Site link]

BORDER CONTROLS – VISAS
Slip-ups in checks on visas for Pakistanis
Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2010.

     Visa controls on applicants from Pakistan who want to settle in Britain have failed to protect the UK's border, a watchdog said yesterday.
     More than one in 10 applications that were approved should not have been, a test sample study showed.
     The UK Border Agency's independent chief inspector, John Vine, said the investigation into the handling of Pakistan settlement applications found "serious organisational failings" in the UK visa section and "a lack of rigorous scrutiny being applied to those who wished to settle in the UK".
     The agency "failed to fully meet both key strategic objectives of protecting the UK border and making fast and fair decisions", he said. ...
     Pakistan is the third largest source of applications to enter the UK.
     In 2009 there were 10,700 visa applications. Successful applicants can stay and work for two years, with the option to apply to stay permanently at the end of that.

CRIME – FRAUD
Gipsies' rights activist ran £3m benefits fraud
Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2010.

     A leading campaigner for gipsies' rights yesterday admitted masterminding a £3 million benefits fraud involving nearly 200 Romanians.
     Lavinia Olmazu, 30, and Alin Enachi, 29, her boyfriend, ran the scheme through which 172 Romanians claimed £2.9 million.
     Olmazu was working as an "inclusivity outreach worker" with Roma gipsies for Haringey and Waltham Forest councils in north London. ...
     The court heard that the couple "facilitated the obtaining" of National Insurance numbers under the guise of a charity called Roma Concern. ...
     Six other Roma gipsies, all jobless, were also arrested for their role in the fraud. ... They live in council properties in Tottenham, north London, and received jail sentences ranging from four months to two-and-a-half years.

EXTREMISM – ISLAM
Does the Prime Minister understand the 'Real Islam'?
Rod Liddle
The Spectator, 27 July 2010.

     The Prime Minister has decided that Turkey should be a member of the EU in order to form some sort of bridge with the rest of the Muslim world. He has also made the same mistake that the last government – and most apologists on the left made about Islam. He said of those people critical of Islam: 'They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists. They think the values of Islam can never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies or cultures.'
     In other words he is setting himself up as a Koranic expert, much as did Blair, in being able to adjudicate as to what is the "real Islam". Obviously the "Real Islam" isn't people blowing themselves up, although a large proportion of Palestinians, Afghans and so on would argue that it is, as would one or two cadres sitting tight in their Keighley or Tipton bedsits. But ok, let's give him that one. What about apostasy, then? The majority of Islamic states impose a penalty for giving up the religion, either through the state or sharia courts; imprisonment or death. Is this Real Islam or the "distorted version of the extremists"? It's certainly the practice of the overwhelming majority of Islamic countries, and cleaved to by all four major schools of Islamic thought, even the comparatively liberal Hanafi. What about gays? More than 30 of the 50 or so Islamic countries persecute homosexuals with anything ranging from fines to beheadings. Again, all four schools of Islamic thought believe homosexuality to be haram and thus worthy of punishment. Are they Cameron's fatuous "Real Islam", or the other kind? What about rights of women, rights of Christians to practice their faith AND proselytise, what about being allowed to whisper that Allah's a goon, or doesn't exist? What about the attitude towards Israel and, more pertinently, Jews in general? Cameron's "Real Islam" in truth consists of secular west Turkey and a few decent liberal Muslim organisations in the UK, a constituency which represents a minuscule proportion of the Ummah. You don't "understand" Islam by making this false dichotomy; it is not just presumptuous and ignorant, but also plain wrong.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – DISCRIMINATION
Burka ban is 'discrimination'
Daily Telegraph, 26 July 2010.

     Lawyers have warned a Tory MP he could face legal action if he follows through on a threat to refuse to meet constituents wearing burkas.
     Lawyers for Liberty have written to Philip Hollobone insisting that the Equality Act obliges him to avoid discrimination. ...
     The Kettering MP sparked a row earlier this month when he argued that he needed to be face to face with voters who wanted his help.
     He said he would "invite" anyone who did not wish to remove their veil to communicate with him is a "different way", such as by letter. Mr Hollobone is trying to bring in a private member's Bill to ban women wearing the burka and niqab face veils in public, after France introduced a similar rule.

DIVERSITY PROMOTION – DISCRIMINATION
Foreign office rejects middle-class men
Daily Telegraph, 26 July 2010.

     Able-bodied middle-class white men are barred from doing work experience at the Foreign Office.
     Under schemes introduced by Labour, only women, people from ethnic minorities and the disabled can apply for the £367-a-week positions.
     William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has been challenged to change the rules by Dominic Raab, a Conservative MP. ...
     Mr Raab said: "We surely need to scale back the unfair political correctness of the last government."

MULTICULTURALISM – EDUCATION
Science lessons that leave out Darwin and Galileo
Ben Leach
Sunday Telegraph, 25 July 2010.

     Schools have been issued with lesson plans that omit the names of some of the most celebrated scientists in history because they were white.
     They make no mention of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Galileo or Copernicus. Instead there are references to lesser-known black American scientists such as Elijah McCoy, Benjamin Banneker and George Washington Carver.
     Haringey council in north London, which issued the plans to teachers in its primary schools, says it wants to encourage "inclusive" learning by helping teachers to include African-Caribbean history and culture in their lessons.

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – USA, ARIZONA
Ariz. law comes after years of mounting anger
Amanda Lee Myers and Jacques Billeaud
newschannel5.com, 25 July 2010.

     As the days tick down until the Arizona immigration law takes effect, the state stands as a monument to the anger over illegal immigration that is present in so many places.
     The anger has been simmering for years, and erupted into a full-blown fury with the murder of a prominent rancher on the border earlier this year. The killing became a powerful rallying cry for immigration reform and the sweeping new law set to take effect Thursday, barring any last-minute legal action.
     But it does not tell the whole story about how Arizona got to this point. ...
     And the annual costs? About $600 million for educating illegal immigrants at K-12 schools, more than $120 million for jailing illegal immigrants convicted of state crimes and as much as $50 million that hospitals have to eat for treating illegal border-crossers, according to figures provided by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, Gov. Jan Brewer's office and the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.
[Site link]

BORDER CONTROLS – EDUCATION
Student visas surge under 'shambolic' points system
Jack Doyle
Daily Mail, 25 July 2010.

     Holes in Labour's disastrous points-based immigration system led to huge increases in the numbers of student visas handed out, startling figures revealed last night.
     The system was heralded as a crackdown on the number of migrants allowed into the UK, but the number of visas issued to some countries increased more than six-fold.
     Less than a year after it was brought in, ministers were forced to suspend applications from several countries, including Bangladesh and Nepal, because they were being used by economic migrants posing as students.
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch UK think-tank, said the revelations showed the points based system was 'a shambles'.
     The scale of the problems affecting the points system was never revealed in full before the General Election.
     However, figures released by the UK Border Agency under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the number of visas issued in Bangladesh increased by 745 per cent - rising from 448 in January 2009 to 3,339 in January of the following year.
     There was also evidence loopholes were being deliberately exploited - as applications shot up from 919 to 4,829 over the same period.
     Over ten months the total number of visas handed out to Bangladeshis rose six-fold from 3,380 to 21,226.
     Officials at the UK Border Agency admitted they found evidence the system was being abused by economic migrants posing as students and just ten months after it was introduced in April 2009, all applications for student visas were suspended in North India, Bangladesh and Nepal. ...
     India and Nepal saw applications more than double from 9,791 for the month of August 2008 to 24,035 in August 2009.
     The number of visas actually approved nearly doubled from 6,580 to more than 12,000.
     Across all countries sending students to the UK, student visa numbers went up from 208,800 to 273,445 in a year - a rise of 31 per cent. ...
     Immigration Minister Damian Green said: 'I am looking at this issue closely with a view to introducing new measures later this year to ensure that every student who comes to the UK is genuine.'
[Site link]

EXTREMISM – ISLAM, GOVERNMENT
Whitehall 'open' to extremists
Andrew Gilligan
Sunday Telegraph, 25 July 2010.

     The Government has opened the way for official links with Muslim extremists after Whitehall civil servants said radical groups could be a "safety valve" for people tempted by terrorism.
     The groups specifically named in leaked documents include al-Muhajiroun, which praised 9/11 as "magnificent", and Hizb ut Tahrir, which wants to turn Britain into an Islamic dictatorship.
     In the classified papers, presented last week to Coalition ministers on the Cabinet's home affairs committee, officials say a "clear assessment" had been made that individuals "do not progress" to violence through such
     groups. ...
     At least 19 terrorists convicted in Britain had links with al-Muhajiroun. These include Omar Khayam, who was sentenced to life in jail as leader of the fertiliser bomb plot, and Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the airliner liquid plot. He is also serving life. Al-Muhajiroun provided backing to Abu Hamza, the extremist cleric whose mosque in north London was a forming ground for other terrorists. ...
     The organisation was banned under Labour, but former members have regrouped under different banners. ...
     Hizb ut Tahrir claims that it opposes terrorism, and condemned the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. However, it regards integration as "dangerous", orders Muslims to keep apart from non-believers and says that "those [Muslims] who believe in democracy are Kafir", or apostates. ... ...
     The Whitehall documents admitted that a "minority" of terrorists was involved with non-violent extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun, stating that such groups "can foster a sense of Muslim isolationism from wider UK society, which may increase vulnerability to radicalisation".
     But in a "restricted" memorandum to Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, written on July 15, Robert Mason, one of his senior officials, said the papers presented "a clear assessment that individuals do not progress through non-violent extremist groups to violent groups ... Extreme groups may also provide a legal 'safety valve' for extreme views." ...
     The papers are understood to have been prepared with the involvement of Mohammed Abdul Aziz, a controversial paid ministerial adviser to the communities department. Mr Aziz is an honorary trustee of the East London Mosque, which has hosted dozens of extremist preachers, including Anwar al-Awlaki, a cleric cited as an inspiration by the perpetrators of 9/11 and many other terrorist attacks.
     The mosque is the headquarters of the Islamic Forum of Europe, a secretive fundamentalist network that believes in transforming "the very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed ... from ignorance to Islam". Mr Aziz is a former officer of the forum's youth wing.
[Site link]

BORDER CONTROLS
Border control in chaos after contractor sacked
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2010.

     Border controls designed to monitor every passenger coming in and out of the country were in disarray last night after the Home Office was forced to sack its contractor.
     Delays in the £750 million contract with Raytheon Systems Ltd mean up to 100 million passenger movements each year are still not registered by the e-Borders programme. ...
     It is also a blow to the fight against illegal immigration, crime and terrorism, as the system is key to checking the movement of individuals and whether migrants left the country when they were supposed to. ...
     The system was due to count 95 per cent of the estimated 200 million annual passenger movements into and out of the country by the end of this year. But the delays mean it is only covering half those movements.

RACISM – PREJUDICE, CRIME
JP is forced to apologise for saying migrant 'abused our hospitality'
Steve Doughty
Daily Mail, 23 July 2010.

     A magistrate has been forced to apologise for complaining that a foreign defendant was 'abusing our hospitality', it was revealed yesterday.
     The JP was punished by senior judges for having 'displayed prejudice' against people who are not British.
     A disciplinary board found the magistrate had failed to show 'the qualities of social awareness and sound judgement' expected of a court official.
     They even considered sacking him from the bench, it was revealed.
     Ministers in the Coalition government have previously used similar phrases about foreign criminals abusing British hospitality.
     The action against the magistrate brought a wave of protest from MPs and criminal law experts who questioned why the use of such a phrase about a defendant accused of crime was in any way insulting or biased. ...
     The magistrate was 'reprimanded' on the orders of Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge and ordered to ' undertake further training'.
     He was also removed from a mentoring list of JPs who help to train other magistrates. ...
     Criminologist Dr David Green of the Civitas think-tank said: 'the magistrate has been sent for "further training", which sounds to me like re-education as once practised by communist China and North Korea. ...
     Among politicians who have used the magistrate's phrase is Tony Blair, who as Prime Minister in 2006 wrote of 'foreign nationals' suspected of terrorism, 'if he then abuses our hospitality and threatens us, I feel he should take his chance back in his own home country'.
     A Home Office statement on crime last year said of foreigners: 'We will not tolerate those that abuse our hospitality by becoming involved in crime.'
     Last month Coalition Justice minister Crispin Blunt said in a Commons written answer: 'Foreign nationals who come to our country and abuse our hospitality by breaking our laws should face the full force of the law.'

MULTICULTURALISM – POPULATION
One baby in four born to migrants: Number of foreign-born mothers has doubled
Steve Doughty
Daily Mail, 22 July 2010.

     Almost a quarter of babies are born to immigrant mothers, an official breakdown showed yesterday.
     It found that 24.7 per cent of children born last year have mothers who were born abroad – and that their numbers have doubled since the late 1990s. ...
     The figures produced fresh warnings to ministers that immigration rates must be brought down to avoid the growing threat of overpopulation in Britain.
     Numbers of children born to mothers from outside the country have been growing fast in recent years as immigration has reached record levels.
     In 1998 there were 86,456 babies born in England and Wales to mothers born abroad. These mothers are considered likely to be long-term migrants by statisticians.
     Last year, the total had reached 174,400, according to the figures from the Office for National Statistics.
     Over the same period, the share of babies with foreign-born mothers rose from 13.6 per cent to 24.7 per cent.
     The rising proportion of children of migrant mothers is a result both of high levels of immigration and higher birthrates among newly-arrived families.
     Last year, the ONS calculated that women born in Britain will average 1.84 children each during their lifetimes, while women who came to this country from abroad will have 2.51 children during their lives. ...
     The breakdown of figures was published by the ONS yesterday in its final tally of births and birthrates in 2009. Overall, the number of babies born in England and Wales fell slightly from 708,711 in 2008 to 706,248 last year.
     The numbers of babies whose mothers were born abroad went up by around 3,500, from 170,834 to 174,400. The three most common countries of origin of foreign-born mothers are Pakistan, Poland and India.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – ISRAEL
Aharonovitch warns of influx of illegal African migrants
Yaakov Lappin
The Jerusalem Post, 21 July 2010.

     Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch has reiterated a warning over the influx of illegal African migrants into Israel, during a tour of the Egyptian border on Tuesday.
     "A thousand two hundred migrants come through here every month, enter Israel, and then Tel Aviv, Eilat and Ashdod. This is a serious shortcoming, which Israeli society is paying for," he said during the tour.
     The minister was briefed by an IDF commander and Southern District Police Chief Cmdr. Yohanan Danino.
     Aharonovitch lamented the delay in implementing a March government decision to set up a fence. ...
     On Sunday, Aharonovitch said that up to 2.5 million African migrants who are currently residing in Cairo "are waiting" to cross into Israel.
     The public security minister added that Ashdod had become a new center for illegal migrants, and that 2,000 had made their homes in that city.
     According to figures presented by Aharonovitch to the government, 155,000 illegal African migrants now live in Israel. Some 50,000 are based in Tel Aviv's central bus station area. Eight thousand migrants live in Eilat, and 7,000 live in Arad.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – EDUCATION, NATIONAL IDENTITY
Poodles where once we were British bulldogs
Judith Woods
Daily Telegraph, 21 July 2010.

     Now let me get this straight: irony is being axed from the primary school literacy syllabus because immigrants' children don't get it. ...
     Have we all gone mad? Our traditions are being trampled, our humour outlawed, ...
     As a nation, we're renowned for our tolerance, but if it continues, I fear our craven invertabracy will be our sole defining characteristic. ... It is time to draw a line under Labour's mea culpa culture and all this bending over backwards to accommodate anyone who turns up on our shores.
     Patriotism, said Samuel Johnson, is the last refuge of the scoundrel – but there's nothing shameful or inherently racist about taking pride in British values and expecting newcomers to fit in, rather than supinely adjusting our jokes and dress codes to make them feel more at home than we do. The irony, children, is that no one will respect us for it.

BIAS – MULTICULTURALISM, FREE SPEECH, HATE CRIME
Christians 'target for hate crime prosecutions'
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2010.

     White Christians are being unfairly targeted for committing hate crimes compared with minority groups, a report claims today.
     The study, from the Civitas think tank, argues that hate crime legislation is restricting freedom of speech and has effectively introduced a new blasphemy law into Britain by the back door.
     A foreword attached to A New Inquisition: religious persecution in Britain today suggests that prosecutors and police are unfairly singling out alleged crimes by white Christians.
     It says: "Some police forces and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] seem to be interpreting statutes in favour of ethnic and religious minorities and in a spirit hostile to members of the majority population, defined as 'white' or 'Christian'."

IMMIGRATION – EUROPEAN UNION, ROMANIA, MOLDOVA
Moldovans could get a passport to Britain
Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2010.

     Romania has opened a backdoor route entitling hundreds of thousands of migrants from Moldova, a former Soviet republic, to work and claim benefits in Britain.
     More than 900,000 Moldovans with an ethnic Romanian background have applied for passports from Romania, a European Union travel document that will allow them free movement into Britain.
     Up to 120,000 applications have already been cleared and 800,000 are pending, increasing fears of a mass migration from Moldova, one of Eastern Europe's poorest countries, which is sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine.
     Romania's president Traian Basescu has said all Moldovans who consider themselves Romanian, which takes in most of the country's 3.6 million population, should be able to "move freely both in Romania and the EU".

BORDER CONTROLS – COSTS, CRIME
Britain pays Calais migrants £3,500 to go home - before they even get here
Tom Harper
Mail on Sunday, 18 July 2010.

     British taxpayers have paid out more than £1 million to persuade hundreds of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to return home – before they even enter the UK.
     Foreigners attempting to cross the English Channel at the French port of Calais are offered free flights and awarded up to £3,500 to help start businesses back home.
     The Home Office-backed Global Calais Project has persuaded 468 'irregular migrants' to return to their countries of origin at a cost of £1.2 million to the UK Exchequer.
     Among those to take up the offer were 50 Afghans, 20 Sudanese, eight Libyans and five Indians – none of whom had a legal right to travel to or live in Britain.
     Last year, 281 illegal immigrants took advantage of the generous offer, a rate of more than five a week. The bizarre incentive is equivalent to 14 years' wages for a worker in Afghanistan.
     The Home Office claims the payout scheme, which began in 2007, helps avoid long, costly legal battles once the migrants arrive in the UK.
     The payments emerged in a Freedom of Information request to the Home Office by The Mail on Sunday. The department spent a year battling the release of the figures and agreed only after an intervention by the information watchdog.
     The Home Office also admitted paying out almost £80 million in resettlement grants to 21,506 people who had already reached the UK. The sum is equivalent to the annual salaries of 800 family doctors or 3,200 teachers. ...
     Taxpayer-funded repatriation schemes began under Labour in 1999 but were widened dramatically in 2005 when Ministers raised the maximum payout from £1,000 to £4,000 in an attempt to combat the soaring number of illegal immigrants.
     All the schemes are operated by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an independent body that organises migrant removals for governments around the globe. ...
     They offer to transfer them to Paris, pay for flights home and promise retraining or business grants of up to £3,500 if the migrants agree to halt their journey into the UK. The grants are distributed from IOM offices in the migrants' countries of origin once they return home.
     Charlie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover, said: 'There is a real risk that people will hear of this and it will create a bizarre incentive for people to try to smuggle themselves into Britain. The solution could be worse than the disease.'
     Back in Britain, the IOM administers other Home Office-backed schemes from its plush head offices in Westminster, Central London.
     The Voluntary Assisted Return and Reintegration Programme (VARRP) pays failed asylum seekers who are already in the country up to £4,000 to drop their appeals and return home voluntarily.
     Almost 17,000 failed asylum seekers from 122 countries have taken advantage of VARRP so far, including 1,597 Albanians, 289 Indians and 39 Poles.
     In total, the Home Office admitted paying the IOM a total of £79.2 million over the past five years.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – ISLAM
Burka ban ruled out by minister
Patrick Hennessy
Sunday Telegraph, 18 July 2010.

     Britain will not follow France by introducing a law banning women from wearing the burka, the immigration minister ruled last night.
     Damian Green said such a move would be "rather un-British" and run contrary to the conventions of a "tolerant and mutually respectful society".
     He said it would be "undesirable" for Parliament to vote on a burka ban in Britain and that there was no prospect of the Coalition proposing it.
     His comments will dismay the growing number of supporters of a ban. A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal.

BORDER CONTROLS – CRIME
The ban that means immigration officials cannot chase runaways
Rebecca Lefort and David Barrett
Sunday Telegraph, 18 July 2010.

     A "ludicrous" rule that prevents immigration officers from chasing illegal immigrants who run away is to be reviewed.
     Senior officials at the UK Border Agency (UKBA), which is charged with removing the estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Britain, are re-examining the operating guidance issued to its officers.
     A rulebook that governs how raids are carried out also instructs officers not to "patronise" suspects, to give them "body space", to maintain eye contact, and to adopt a "relaxed" and "non-aggressive stance".
     The ban on pursuits was introduced to counter fears that a chase could lead to either an immigration officer or a suspect being hurt. ... ...
     The UKBA removed 63,000 people from Britain in 2009-10.
     It can also be disclosed that criminal gangs are exploiting the Home Office's "points-based" visa system, introduced under Labour in November 2008, to bring new gang members into Britain through bogus businesses.
     The system puts responsibility on employers to "sponsor" migrant workers, but organised crime networks have set up fake companies to obtain work permits for foreign gangsters, according to a warning from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). ...
     The agency said that abuse of the work permit and student visa systems, along with bogus marriages, were now "common methods of abuse".

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – ISRAEL, NATIONAL IDENTITY
Netanyahu: Illegal African immigrants - a threat to Israel's Jewish character
Barak Ravid
Haaretz.com, 18 July 2010.

     Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the recent "flood of illegal workers infiltrating from Africa" into Israel was "a concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the country."
     Speaking at a meeting aimed at formulating Israel's immigration policy, Netanyahu said that most Western nations have already taken action to prevent similar dangers. "It is inconceivable that Israel, the one country that faces more threats than any other in the Western world, has no defined immigration policy to protect our national and security interests. The issue has been ignored for many years, and my aim is to bring it to an orderly and responsible legislation by the end of this year, during the winter seating of the Knesset."
     Six months ago, Netanyahu visited the area near the border between Israel and Egypt in order to examine the possibility of an Israeli fence along the border to prevent infiltrations. Netanyahu said this trip highlighted the need for such a fence. "The situation, from the point of view of terrorism and infiltrations, is more severe than I thought," he said.
     "We must man the region, and then it will be possible to minimize the terrorist infiltrations, as well as the smuggling of drugs and illegal workers," the prime minister went on to say. "If we don't move forward with construction of the fence, the problem will only get worse."
     "Infiltrations [into Israel] have become an entire industry," Netanyahu added.
     "The Egyptians are doing what they're doing, but we can't rely only on them. Egypt doesn't oppose the construction of the fence and everything is settled under the framework of the peace treaty [between Israel and Egypt]. A country's borders can't be penetrable – it is a national threat," Netanyahu concluded.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
More than 700 calls per month to immigration support service
BreakingNews.ie, 17 July 2010.

     The Immigrant Council of Ireland is receiving an average of more than 700 calls a month from migrants enquiring how to secure residency in this country.
     The agency said the steady level of demand for advice did not support speculation that many migrants were going home because of the recession.
     Chief executive of the ICI Denise Charlton said migrants were entitled to a "fair, transparent and efficient immigration system", but that Ireland "still had a long way to go in understanding who migrates to Ireland and how we can respond appropriately".
[Site link]

EXTREMISM – POLITICS
Geert Wilders to spread anti-Muslim movement to UK
Daily Telegraph, 16 July 2010.

     Geert Wilders, the controversial anti-Muslim Dutch MP, has said he is forming an international alliance to spread his message to Britain and across the West in a bid to ban immigration from Islamic countries.
     Mr Wilders will launch the movement late this year, initially in five countries: the US, Canada, Britain, France and Germany.
     "The message, 'stop Islam, defend freedom,' is a message that's not only important for the Netherlands but for the whole free Western world," Mr Wilders said at the Dutch parliament.
     Among the group's aims will be outlawing immigration from Islamic countries to the West and a ban on Islamic law.
     Starting as a grass-roots movement, he hopes it eventually will produce its own lawmakers or influence other legislators. ...
     Mr Wilders has won awards in the Netherlands for his debating skills and regularly stands up for gay and women's rights.
     But he rose to local and then international prominence with his firebrand anti-Islam rhetoric that has led to him being charged under Dutch anti-hate speech laws and banned from visiting Britain - until a court ordered that he be allowed into the country.
     He said he hopes to position the alliance between traditional Conservative parties and far-Right wing groups, saying that in Britain there is "an enormous gap" between the ruling Conservative Party and the far-Right British National Party.
     "The BNP is a party that, whatever you think of it, it's not my party - I think it's a racist party," Mr Wilders said.
     Mr Wilders, who calls Islam a "fascist" religion, has seen his support in the Netherlands soar in recent years, even while he has been subjected to round-the-clock protection because of death threats.
     His Freedom Party won the biggest gains in a national election last month, coming third with 24 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, up from the nine before the election.
[Site link]

EMPLOYMENT – DOCTORS
Patients in peril from foreign GPs
Rebecca Smith and Andrew Porter
Daily Telegraph, 15 July 2010.

     Foreign doctors working as out-of-hours GPs risked the lives of patients by mistakenly giving them overdoses despite repeated warnings they were a danger, a report concluded.
     ... The Care Quality Commission, which regulates health and social care, found that on at least two other occasions German doctors brought in by Take Care Now, the out-of-hours company that employed Dr Ubani, administered overdoses of the same painkiller, diamorphine.
     Fortunately, those overdoses were not fatal.
     The findings, published in a report today, raise questions again about the competence of foreign doctors covering shifts in Britain and the failure of managers to heed warnings. The report says the NHS must make sure that the competency of overseas doctors is properly tested before they are employed. ...
     The General Medical Council is frustrated at European legislation on the free movement of labour that prevents extra language and skills testing of EU doctors.

CRIME – CHINA
Beijing's migrants locked into gated villages at night
Cara Anna
The Washington Times, 15 July 2010.

     The government calls it "sealed management": China's capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock in a throwback to an older style of control.
     It's Beijing's latest effort to reduce rising crime, often blamed on the millions of rural Chinese migrating to cities for work. The capital's Communist Party secretary wants the approach promoted citywide.
     But some state media and experts say the move not only looks bad, but imposes another layer of control on the already stigmatized, vulnerable migrants.
     So far, gates have sealed off 16 villages in the sprawling southern suburbs, where migrants are attracted to cheaper rents and in some villages outnumber permanent residents 10 to 1.
     "In some ways, this is like the conflict between Americans and illegal immigrants in the States. The local residents feel threatened by the influx of migrants," e-mailed Huang Youqin, an associate professor of geography at the University at Albany, State University of New York, who has studied gating and political control in China. ... ...
     "Sealed management" looks like this: Gates are placed at the street and alley entrances to the villages, which are collections of walled compounds sprinkled with shops and outdoor vendors. The gates are locked between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. except for one main entrance manned by security guards or police, there to check identification papers. Security guards roam the villages by day.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION – EUROPEAN UNION
Brussels go-ahead for new wave of migrants
Macer Hall
Daily Express, 14 July 2010.

     Bureaucrats are planning to encourage more new migrants to come to the EU despite rising levels of unemployment, it emerged last night.
     Brussels officials are to simplify entry rules for workers heading to Europe to take up temporary seasonal jobs in farming, tourism and other industries.
     EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said: "We need immigrant workers in order to secure our economic survival."
     She claimed more were needed to fill "labour shortages".
     But her remarks are bound to provoke new concerns that Eurocrats are determined to press for ever higher levels of immigration.
     Last night, Home Office insiders insisted Britain would refuse to sign up to the latest overhaul of EU border controls.
     Mrs Malmstrom said: "We know unemployment rates are still very high in Europe. Paradoxically, at the same time there are labour shortages." She plans to speed up procedures for hiring managers, specialists and seasonal workers from outside the 27 EU member states.
     The EU lacks workers in certain sectors even though average unemployment is at 10 per cent, up from seven per cent before the crisis, commission officials said. Mrs Malmstrom – responsible for migration policies – has said the EU will continue to need extra workers in the next few years even though slower economic growth is putting pressure on some EU governments to curb the number of immigrants.
     An ageing population and low birth rates mean that migrant labour will be necessary to help EU growth in the long term.
     Mrs Malmstrom said: "In light of the demographic challenge the EU is facing, where our active population is forecasted to start falling already in 2013, we need immigrant workers in order to secure our economic survival.
     "I will continue to take more steps towards a more inclusive labour migration policy for the EU in the coming years."
     Under the proposals, which have to be approved by EU governments and the European Parliament, companies will be able to bring seasonal workers into the EU more quickly to address changing needs.
     Officials insist the measures are aimed at tackling the growing problem of illegal migrants working in a black economy. Thousands, many from Africa, are hired each year to do jobs such as harvesting tomatoes in Italy. ...
     And companies would benefit from simplified application procedures when bringing managers and specialists into EU branches of international corporations.
     A spokesman for Mrs Malmstrom said last night: "It is up to each member state to decide whether they need more seasonal workers and how many they should take. If they don't need more seasonal workers, of course that is their choice."
[Site link]

CRIME – SMUGGLING OF MIGRANTS
UNODC report presents data on smuggling of migrants from Latin America and Africa
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 14 July 2010.

     According to "The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment", there are an estimated 50 million irregular migrants in the world today.
     As a result of global inequalities and restrictive immigration policies, many workers from developing regions are willing to borrow heavily from their communities and risk their lives to access opportunities in more affluent countries. Since they cannot always do so legally, they often look for organized criminal groups to help them. Because such "services" are illegal, those who provide them have tremendous power over their charges, and abuses are commonplace.
     The Assessment examines two northward smuggling flows: from Latin America to North America and from Africa to Europe. While there are other major illegal migration flows in the world, including flows of undocumented migrants from East Africa to Yemen and routes through Central Asia to the Russian Federation and beyond, the flows to the United States of America and Europe are probably the most lucrative for smugglers.
     The largest number of apprehended migrants anywhere in the world are found along the southern border of the United States. About 3 million Latin Americans are smuggled illegally across that border every year. Since 90 per cent of them are assisted by smugglers, the total income for the smugglers is likely to be around 6.6 billion dollars per year. Some 88 per cent of the 792,000 illegal migrants apprehended in 2008 were Mexican nationals; almost all the rest were other Latin Americans. ...
     The dynamics of African migration to Europe are similar to those driving Latin American migration to the United States, except that the push and pull factors are even stronger. Some 55,000 migrants were smuggled from Africa into Europe in 2008, for a sum of about $150 million, by small groups of smugglers positioned along the route. Europe hosts the largest African-born population outside Africa, and remittances account for a significant share of GDP in many African countries. ...
     The Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 55/25, entered into force on 28 January 2004. The Protocol aims to prevent and combat the smuggling of migrants and to promote cooperation among States parties while protecting the rights of smuggled migrants and preventing the worst forms of exploitation. It is intended not to stop illegal immigration but rather to prevent organized criminal groups from exploiting the vulnerability of illegal migrants for profit.

POPULATION – MULTICULTURALISM
One in five Britons 'will be from an ethnic minority by 2051'
Jack Doyle
Daily Mail, 13 July 2010.

     One in five of the population will be from an ethnic minority by the middle of this century, according to a new report.
     Researchers concluded that the figure will rocket from the current rate of eight per cent - and that people from minority backgrounds will be living in more affluent areas.
     Just one in ten of the population was from an ethnic minority ten years ago.
     Researchers at The University of Leeds also concluded that the population of the UK could reach nearly 80 million by the middle of this century.
     Higher birth rates and people living longer as well as immigration would pushed the population to 78.8 million by 2051. ...
     Official statisticians have long projected the population would hit 70 million by 2029.
     But the new estimate, from independent researchers, shows increases potentially continuing into later decades. ...
     The academics produced a range of estimates according to different birth, death and migration rates.
     According to the highest projection, the population will reach 78,848,000 in 2051. ...
     The study predicts an increase in the number of Indians - nearly doubling from 1,432,000 to 2,672,000. There will also be sharp rises in numbers from Pakistan and Bangladesh. ...
     Project leader Professor Philip Rees said: 'The ethnic make-up of the UK's population is evolving significantly.
     'Groups outside the white British majority are increasing in size and share, not just in the areas of initial migration, but throughout the country, and our projections suggest that this trend is set to continue through to 2051. ...' ...
     Around 70 per cent of the current population increases are due to immigration - through direct arrivals or children born to them. ...
     Labour's supposedly 'tough' points-based system actually led to increases in the number of foreign workers and students cleared to live here.
     The number of non-EU migrants given work permits, or permission to carry on working in Britain, rose by 20 per cent, from 159,535 in 2007 - the year before points were introduced - to 190,640 last year, including dependents.
     The number of student approvals increased by a third, from 208,800 to 273,445 a year later.
[Site link]

POPULATION – MULTICULTURALISM
Minority group numbers set to rise to 20 per cent
Alistair Keely
The Independent, 13 July 2010.

     Ethnic minorities will make up a fifth of the population by 2051, according to research published today.
     According to experts from the University of Leeds, the ethnic minority share of the population will increase from 8 per cent (2001) to around 20 per cent. The UK population overall will rise to nearly 78 million, from 59 million in 2001. ...
     The team found striking differences in the growth rates of the 16 ethnic groups studied. White British and Irish groups are expected to be very slow-growing, while the Other White group is projected to grow the fastest, driven by immigration from Europe, the US and Australasia.
     Traditional immigrant groups of south Asian origin (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) will also grow rapidly in size.
     The research team investigated ethnic population trends at a local scale in the UK and built a computer model to project those trends under a variety of scenarios for the future. They used existing data on the 16 ethnic groups recognised in the 2001 census, along with demographic factors such as immigration, emigration, fertility and mortality.
     Project leader, professor Philip Rees, said: "Our results suggest that overall we can look forward to being not only a more diverse nation, but one that is far more spatially integrated than at present."
[Site link]

BENEFITS AND COSTS – ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, SOCIAL TIES
Britain, the walk on by capital of Europe
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 13 July 2010.

     Britain has become a "walk-on-by" society because of immigration and more women going to work, a report warns today.
     People are less willing to intervene to prevent anti-social behaviour than anywhere else in Europe, according to a former Downing Street strategist.
     Ben Rogers, the author, said changes to the character of the population, such as the impact of large inflows of migrants and more households where both the men and women worked, had led to a "loosening of social ties" and contributed to the apathy. ...
     The report, for the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, says Britain has a more serious anti-social behaviour problem than any of its main European neighbours.

EMPLOYMENT – NURSING
EU regulations mean an end to competence tests for foreign nurses
Murray Wardrop
Daily Telegraph, 12 July 2010.

     Competence exams for foreign nurses working in Britain are to be dropped due to European Union regulations, it has emerged.
     The Nursing and Midwifery Council is to stop administering the tests after being told that it could be sued by the European Commission. It is said that the safety checks breach EU law on the freedom of movement of workers. ...
     Currently, nurses from the EU must demonstrate that their skills are up to standard before they can obtain work in hospitals, surgeries or care homes.
     They must show either that they have undertaken at least 450 hours of nursing in their own country in the previous three years, or they must attend an intensive three-month course with regular tests of their knowledge and skills.
     The tests will still apply for nurses from outside the EU.
     Research has indicated that up to a quarter of nurses – more than 60,000 - - working in London are foreign, with the largest number coming from the Philippines. ...
     Roger Goss, a co-director of the campaign group Patient Concern, said: "This decision is outrageous. Undoubtedly, there is a risk that this will lead to an increase in deaths among patients.
     "There are bound to be mistakes and it simply cannot be right to take avoidable risks with patients' lives.
     ..."

DIVERSITY PROMOTION – EDUCATION, USA
How Diversity Punishes Asians, Poor Whites and Lots of Others
Russell K. Nieli
Minding the Campus, 12 July 2010.

     When college presidents and academic administrators pay their usual obeisance to "diversity" you know they are talking first and foremost about race. More specifically, they are talking about blacks. ...
     As a secondary meaning "diversity" can also encompass Hispanics, who together with blacks are often subsumed by college administrators and admissions officers under the single race category "underrepresented minorities." ...
     Asians, unlike blacks and Hispanics, receive no boost in admissions. ... Despite the much lower number of Asians in the general high-school population, high-achieving Asian students – those, for instance, with SAT scores in the high 700s – are much more numerous than comparably high-achieving blacks and Hispanics, often by a factor of ten or more. Thinking as they do in racial balancing and racial quota terms, college admissions officers at the most competitive institutions almost always set the bar for admitting Asians far above that for Hispanics and even farther above that for admitting blacks.
     "Diversity" came to be so closely associated with race in the wake of the Supreme Court's Bakke decision in 1978. In his decisive opinion, Justice Lewis Powell rejected arguments for racial preferences based on generalized "societal discrimination," social justice, or the contemporary needs of American society as insufficiently weighty to overrule the color-blind imperative of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. That imperative, however, could be overruled, Powell said, by a university's legitimate concern for the educational benefits of a demographically diverse student body.
     Virtually all competitive colleges after Bakke continued with their racial preference policies ("affirmative action"), though after Powell's decision they had to cloak their true meaning and purpose behind a misleading or dishonest rhetoric of "diversity." ...
     While almost all college administrators and college admissions officers at the most elite institutions think in racial balancing and racial quota-like terms when they assemble their student body, they almost always deny this ... Indeed, there is probably no other area where college administrators are more likely to lie or conceal the truth of what they are doing than in the area of admissions and race.
     Most elite universities seem to have little interest in diversifying their student bodies when it comes to the numbers of born-again Christians from the Bible belt, students from Appalachia and other rural and small-town areas, people who have served in the U.S. military, those who have grown up on farms or ranches, Mormons, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, lower-middle-class Catholics, working class "white ethnics," social and political conservatives, wheelchair users, married students, married students with children, or older students first starting out in college after raising children or spending several years in the workforce. Students in these categories are often very rare at the more competitive colleges, especially the Ivy League. While these kinds of people would surely add to the diverse viewpoints and life-experiences represented on college campuses, in practice "diversity" on campus is largely a code word for the presence of a substantial proportion of those in the "underrepresented" racial minority groups.
[Site link]

BORDER CONTROLS – EDUCATION
Judge opens door to 'bogus' students: Visa crackdown overturned by High Court
Steve Doughty
Daily Mail, 10 July 2010.

     Rules meant to stop immigrants falsely coming to Britain with student visas were overturned by a judge yesterday.
     The High Court decision will mean a flood of migrants entering the country in the guise of language students, politicians and migration analysts warned.
     Former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson laid down regulations earlier this year blocking students from coming into the country to start language courses unless they already spoke English to a good standard.
     But Mr Justice Foskett said that the rules had been wrongly established through changes to existing guidelines.
     There should have been a legally binding change to the rules approved by Parliament, he found.
     The decision was a victory for language schools headed by the English UK group, which represents 440 schools and colleges based on the south coast, London, Oxford and Cambridge. ...
     Last year 273,445 students were given visas to come to Britain for courses, nearly 50,000 more than in 2008.
     Critics say that many cheat the system to get into the country and stay permanently.
     Apart from abuses by migrants who have no intention of attending the courses for which their visas are granted, the student system is also thought to have been exploited by women looking to bring husbands into the country.
     In March Mr Johnson made it more difficult to get a visa under Labour's 'points based' system by raising the level of English required for those looking to come on English language courses to 'intermediate' from 'elementary'.
     Home Secretary Theresa May will now have to choose whether to remake the Labour rules – this time ensuring they have been correctly approved by MPs – or to postpone changes until wider reforms of the immigration system are pushed through. ...
     But shadow immigration minister Phil Woolas, who was Immigration Minister when the rules were brought in, said: 'If the Government is serious about tackling illegal immigration it will mount an immediate and robust appeal against this decision.
     'This follows on from the decision of the new Home Secretary to drop the English language requirement for spouses and families of asylum seekers. For all its bluster, the Conservative-led government already appears to be losing its grip on immigration policy.'
     Sir Andrew Green of the Migrationwatch think-tank said: 'Student visas are a huge gap in our immigration system. The previous government's points-based system, still in effect, has led to a flood of applications from India, Bangladesh and Nepal, often from people with completely inadequate English for the course they clam to be joining.'
     'It is now absolutely essential that this massive loophole be closed by whatever formalities are necessary,' he added.
[Site link]

ASYLUM
Gay refugees have right to cocktails and Kylie, says judge
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 8 July 2010.

     Homosexual asylum seekers should be free to come to Britain to enjoy "Kylie concerts and exotic cocktails", the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. ...
     Lord Rodger made his comments as he and four other Supreme Court justices unanimously ruled against a Home Office policy of rejecting asylum claims from homosexuals on the basis that they could avoid ill-treatment in their homeland by being discreet. The policy breached their "fundamental rights".
     Theresa May, the Home Secretary, accepted the ruling and announced the immediate end of the policy.
     The Supreme Court indicated that Britain could expect to see "more and more" foreign homosexual men and women seeking protection here because of the "huge gulf" in attitudes between societies. The decision raised concerns that some asylum seekers may falsely claim to be homosexual in the hope of being granted shelter. ...
     Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "It is hugely encouraging that the Supreme Court has today ruled in favour of gay asylum seekers."
     But Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "This could lead to a potentially massive expansion of asylum claims as it could apply to literally millions of people around the world."

BORDER CONTROLS
Illegal migrants sneak in through minor ports
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 7 July 2010.

     Illegal immigrants are slipping in at ports unmanned by immigration officers, the border agency watchdog said yesterday.
     There are only enough officers at Holyhead in Wales to cover one in four shifts, ...
     Other minor ports in Wales and the South West are not manned at all, a report by John Vine, the chief inspector of the UK Border Agency found.
     The lack of security raises the prospect that terrorists could be exploiting the gaps to get into Britain. One anti-immigration campaigner said the agency had "left the side door to Britain wide open".
     An inspection of border agency operations in Wales and the South West found some of the 17 airports and seaports in the region had limited or no immigration officers.
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: "This is astonishing. Yet again the public have been systematically misled about the effect of our border controls."

TERRORISM – ISLAM
We have not learnt the lesson of the July 7 suicide bombing
Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion
Daily Telegraph, 6 July 2010.

     To coincide with the fifth anniversary of July 7 this week, the Centre for Social Cohesion is releasing Islamist Terrorism: the British Connections.
      ...
     The idea that lack of opportunities, poverty or lack of education are more than an aggravating factor is not supported by the findings. ...
     And the idea that a terrorist cannot to some extent be racially profiled is also wrong. Government should not ignore facts because they are difficult. Almost half of those convicted were of south-central Asian ancestry (46 per cent) – though this is lower than the percentage of Muslims in the UK who have such ancestry. But apologists for jihadis often try to claim that profiling is counter-productive. In fact, as one arm of surveillance, it can be very productive indeed.
     The Intelligence and Security Committee inquiry into the July 7 bombings, published in May last year, queried the lack of a database like the one we have produced, concluding: "The Committee is both disappointed and concerned that such a simple, yet essential, piece of the evidence base – the successful conviction of terrorists – was not only unused, but was not even available." ...
     ... Our Security Service's efforts have been hugely successful – since September 11, 2001 a major plot has been thwarted nearly every year – but politically, this country's policy for dealing with radical Islam has gone off at a terrible tangent and may actually be storing up problems for the future.
     It started with Tony Blair who, in the wake of the London bombs, said he would change "the rules of the game". But the rules did not change. ...
     Instead of arguing the case for our values and the non-negotiability of our way of life, Blair and his colleagues treated the radicalisation of young Muslims as a theological issue. Via the "Prevent" strategy, millions of pounds were poured into programmes designed to encourage a different version of Islam from that of some radical ideologues. ... In many cases, both here and abroad, the government decided to ally with those who were political opponents of violent groups, but who were themselves only opposed to violence in particular contexts. ...
     ... A whole department dedicated itself to pumping out the lie that the problem was not Islamist extremism, but "violent extremism"; not jihadism but what the home secretary at the time of the Glasgow airport bombing and the attempted bombing in Haymarket, Jacqui Smith, requested be re-termed "anti-Islamic activity".
     This was all part of a concerted attempt to placate Muslim demagogues who teach grievance, as well as ordinary Muslims who might feel under pressure, by pretending that absolutely anybody could become a suicide bomber – a pretence that allows Muslim leaders and communities off the hook entirely.
      ...
     Our police and Security Service continue to do the hard work of preventing actual attacks, and have been remarkably successful. Yet for the past five years the major political parties have failed in their principal task, which should be to argue for British values. MPs who have spoken out frankly have been silenced or reprimanded by their parties. Outspoken critics of radical Islam have been sidelined or ignored.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – EDUCATION
Primary school forced to buy computer translator because half of its pupils don't speak English
Daily Mail, 6 July 2010.

     A primary school where more than half of pupils are non-English speaking has become the first in Britain to give every child a computerised translator.
     Around 60 per cent of the 384 pupils at Manor Park Primary School in Aston, Birmingham, now communicate with teachers using the software.
     Pupils type in questions into the computer using their native language which is then translated verbally into English for the teacher.
     In reverse, teachers' words can be translated back into 25 different languages.
     The primary school is the first in Britain to give the 'Talking Tutor' computer software to every pupil.
     English-speaking students also use the translator in order to communicate with their foreign classmates. Headteacher Jason Smith said the technology was 'invaluable'.
     He said: 'This is a tool. It is not a replacement. It is the sort of tool that we can use to engage with children who have recently arrived in the country and have very little spoken English.
     'It can vary, but at any one time we have 30 plus languages being spoken at the school, so this is invaluable to us. ...
     The school pays £700 per annum for the software which comes with on-screen avatars based on the ethnic background of the pupils. The avatars includes an Asian man, a white Eastern European and a black African man.
     Plans are also in the pipeline to include a Chinese woman avatar and there are even proposals to develop a Burka-wearing Muslim.
     The software, developed by Lincoln-based firm EMAS UK cost more than £2.5 million to produce. ...
     The school started using the translator - which is 95 per cent accurate - in every classroom two weeks ago. ...
     The latest figures from the Department for Education show 905,610 children in the UK do not speak English as their first language - a rise of 42,750 since last year.
     In Tower Hamlets, east London, 78 per cent of children are non-English speakers - the highest area in the UK.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – USA, COST, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Illegal Immigration a $113 Billion a Year Drain on U.S. Taxpayers
Federation for American Immigration Reform, 6 July 2010.

     A new study released today by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates that illegal immigration now costs federal and local taxpayers $113 billion a year. The report, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, is the most comprehensive analysis of how much the estimated 13 million illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children cost federal, state and local governments.
     The cost estimates are based on an extensive analysis of federal, state and local spending data. The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers examines dozens of government programs that are available to illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children, both legally and fraudulently. The report provides detailed analysis of the impact of illegal immigration on education, health care, law enforcement and justice, public assistance, and other government programs.
     The report also accounts for taxes paid by illegal aliens about $13 billion a year, resulting in a net cost to taxpayers of about $100 billion. However, the study notes that government at all levels would likely have realized significantly greater revenues if jobs held by illegal aliens had been filled by legal U.S. residents instead.
     Federal spending on illegal aliens amounts to $29 billion, ... lion's share of the costs of illegal immigration is borne by state and local taxpayers an estimated $84.2 billion. ... ...
     The $113 billion in outlays for services and benefits to illegal aliens and their families represents an average cost to native-headed households of $1,117 a year. ... ...
     Granting amnesty to illegal aliens, as President Obama and others propose, would not significantly increase tax revenues generated by current illegal aliens. However, over time, amnesty would dramatically increase public costs as newly-legalized aliens become eligible for all means-tested government programs.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – USA, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Justice sues to halt Arizona law on illegals
Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times, 6 July 2010.

     The Obama administration sued Tuesday to stop Arizona's new immigration law in a move that escalates President Obama's involvement in the thorny issue and stacks him against a majority of Americans who support the law. ...
     In the challenge, Justice Department attorneys said Arizona's law violates the Constitution by trying to supersede federal law and by impairing illegal immigrants' right to travel and conduct interstate commerce. They argued that only the federal government can write immigration rules. ...
     The government is asking a court to block the law from taking effect July 29.
     The law requires police to check the legal status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally whom they encounter while enforcing other laws already on the books. ...
     In a broad speech last week calling for immigration reforms, Mr. Obama called Arizona's new rules "unenforceable."
[Site link]

TERRORISM – ISLAM
Two thirds of terrorists in Britain are home-grown
Duncan Gardham
Daily Telegraph, 5 July 2010.

     Most terrorism in Britain is committed by home-grown terrorists, a survey of those convicted of offences over the past 10 years suggests.
     Profiles of 124 individuals convicted of terrorism offences linked to Islamic extremism since 1999 showed that 69 per cent held British nationality, a report found.
     Robin Simcox, the co-author of the study for the Centre for Social Cohesion think-tank, said: "There are clear trends emerging with those involving themselves in terrorist activity in the UK. It is crucial this is recognised and then acted upon by the relevant authorities." ...
     Douglas Murray, of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: "The report proves how great a threat violent Islamism poses to the world – and the fact that Britain is at the centre of this global struggle." ...
     The survey found that 46 per cent of offenders had their origins in south Asia including 28 per cent of Pakistani heritage, of whom at least 80 per cent were British nationals. ...
     The next most common origin for offenders was Somalia, accounting for six per cent, demonstrating a growing threat from east Africa.

RACISM
Racism has shades of grey
Simon Woolley
The Guardian, 5 July 2010.
[The author is the director and one of the founders of Operation Black Vote]

     It's said that the Inuit people have more than 50 words to describe snow. In one of the most contentious debates taking place in modern Britain, though, we have only one crude term to describe a whole range of individual and institutional practices and prejudices: "racism". This often blunt instrument becomes even more problematic when we consider that to be labelled a racist is only marginally better than being called a paedophile or murderer.
     Last year Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, angered many equality campaigners by declaring that the label "institutional racism" was "no longer a useful term". Phillips calculated that if he was able to park the definition – and in so doing remove the common emotive response, "you're just playing the race card", or "we're not racist" – one could have a meaningful conversation about how to make progress. The danger of this trajectory, of course, is that without clear terminology the issue you seek to address can be sidelined. Whichever way we look at it, it's complicated. ...
     Racism comes in so many different shapes and sizes it is astonishing that a nation which prides itself in the spoken word hasn't developed a meaningful vocabulary to express these nuances. At one extreme we have last year's brutal murder of 30-year-old Kunal Mohanty, stabbed and left to die while his assailants racially abused him and celebrated as if scoring a goal; the other end of the spectrum might be the taxi driver who refuses to pick up a black man at the roadside. ...
     But for all the examples of individual bigotry and prejudice, the most profound impact is at an institutional level. And again this is an area hampered by ineffective means of expression. ...
     And when the EHRC reported the discrepancies in police stop-and-search rates by ethnicity, it stopped short of calling the force racist because it feared the use of certain language would have immediately closed down the much-needed debate.
     The limitations of language are not only unfair to those individuals such as Ron Atkinson, but also for black and Asian people who from time to time would like to challenge a comment, an incident or an institution but feel the term racism is far too provocative.
     ... In this environment, now more than ever we need a better understanding of the multifaceted nature of racism, and a language to help us avoid the polarised positions that have dogged the debate so far.
[Site link]

ASYLUM – REFUGEES
Living in Limbo: The Asylum Problem
Krista Mahr and Tanjung Pinang
Time, 5 July 2010.

     According to the U.N., there were over 15 million recognized refugees around the world at the beginning of 2009, and another 826,000 asylum seekers. More than half of the world's refugees are in Asia and another 22% are in Africa; both regions where many governments are ill-equipped, legally and economically, to handle the volumes of people requesting protection in their borders. The 59-year-old Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was designed to help Europeans dispersed during World War II return home in an orderly fashion. Now it's charged with aiding the millions who sweep the earth as they flee bloodshed, repression or poverty. ...
     The world's humanitarian resolve, so evident after 1945, is weakening as governments throw up higher walls to both keep out economic migrants and ramp up security. In some countries with high influxes of refugees and those seeking asylum – such as Italy, Indonesia and Malaysia – nearly 90% of the population favors more stringent restrictions on immigration, according to a 2007 Pew Research Center poll. ... Indeed, the very definition of refugee is no longer adequate for the vast ranks of those who are fleeing wretched or violent states but are driven, rather, by a desire to better themselves economically. ...
     Once they're away from their home country, refugees can expect to wait. For most, finding a new home in a third country is a distant dream. No state is obligated to offer permanent homes to refugees in transit countries; in 2008, the UNHCR helped 88,000 people resettle out of the 10.5 million recognized refugees that it works with (and that doesn't count the many more whose applications for that legal status are pending). ... ...
     Today, 147 countries have agreed to international standards for processing people who claim asylum at their borders, but Indonesia is not among them. It does not have laws distinguishing asylum seekers from illegal immigrants. In fact, while most of Europe, Africa and Latin America has signed the 1951 treaty, only a handful of Asian nations recognize global refugee rights, even though millions under the UNHCR's mandate are in the region. ... ...
     ... With more agreements like the one between Italy and Libya likely to be struck, asylum claims to Europe are dropping – down to 287,000 in 2009 from 445,000 a decade earlier. Since Italy started taking a tougher stance last year, the number of Eritreans taking an alternate route to Europe via Turkey to Greece, where asylum infrastructure is less developed, has doubled. "When you close the door, someone tends to open a window. If you close the window, someone will dig a tunnel," says Guterres of the UNHCR. "Smugglers are well informed."
[Site link]

RACISM – MEXICO
Racism in Mexico rears its ugly head
Tracy Wilkinson
Los Angeles Times, 5 July 2010.

     Every morning during television coverage of the World Cup, on the Mexican equivalent of the "Today" show, co-hosts chat, trade barbs and yuck it up. Behind them, actors in blackface makeup, dressed in fake animal skins and wild "Afro" wigs, gyrate, wave spears and pretend to represent a cartoonish version of South Africa.
     Yes, in the 21st century, blackface characters on a major television network.
     But this is Mexico, and definitions of racism are complicated and influenced by the country's own tortured relationship with invading powers and indigenous cultures.
     Many Mexicans will say they are not racist and that very little racism exists in Mexico, a nation, after all, of mestizos, who are of European and indigenous blood.
     As proof, they point to the fact that slavery was ended in Mexico decades before it was abolished in the United States, and that Mexico never institutionalized racism the way the U.S. did with its segregationist laws that lasted into the 1960s. ...
     But the full truth is that racism is alive and well in Mexico. It is primarily directed at indigenous communities who account for as many as 11.3 million people, or roughly 10% of the national population. The indigenous remain disproportionately mired in poverty and denied work, political access, education and other rights.
     And there is a smaller community of black Mexicans, Afro Mexicanos, many descendants of slaves first brought to the region by Spanish conquerors in the 16th century.
     Often referred to by academics as the "third race" and concentrated in the coastal states of Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero, they have been fighting for years for recognition as a distinct ethnic group, to be included in history books and to be given opportunities to transcend poverty.
     "Racism in Mexico is covered up," said Ricardo Bucio, head of the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination, which has protested the blackface TV caricatures. "There is a lot of denial about it."
     Or, as columnist Katia D'Artigues once put it: "Although subtle, discrimination has become something invisible in our society. We no longer see it, or we consider it normal!"
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – ISLAM, SHARIA LAW
What isn't wrong with Sharia law?
Maryam Namazie, spokesperson of Iran Solidarity and One Law for All
The Guardian, 5 July 2010.

     Now a report, Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights, reveals the adverse effect of sharia courts on family law. Under sharia's civil code, a woman's testimony is worth half of a man's. A man can divorce his wife by repudiation, whereas a woman must give justifications, some of which are difficult to prove. Child custody reverts to the father at a preset age; women who remarry lose custody of their children even before then; and sons inherit twice the share of daughters.
     There has been much controversy about Muslim arbitration tribunals, which have attracted attention because they operate as tribunals under the Arbitration Act, making their rulings binding in UK law.
     But sharia councils, which are charities, are equally harmful since their mediation differs little from arbitration. Sharia councils will frequently ask people to sign an agreement to abide by their decisions. Councils call themselves courts and the presiding imams are judges. There is neither control over the appointment of these judges nor an independent monitoring mechanism. People often do not have access to legal advice and representation. Proceedings are not recorded, nor are there any searchable legal judgements. Nor is there any real right to appeal. ...
     An example of the kind of decision that is contrary to UK law and public policy is the custody of children. Under British law, the child's best interest is the court's paramount consideration. In a sharia court the custody of children reverts to the father at a preset age regardless of the circumstances. In divorce proceedings, too, civil law takes into account the merits of the case and divides assets based on the needs and intentions of both parties. Under sharia law, only men have the right to unilateral divorce. If a woman manages to obtain a divorce without her husband's consent, she will lose the sum of money (or dowry) that was agreed to at the time of marriage.
     There is an assumption that those who attend sharia courts do so voluntarily and that unfair decisions can be challenged. Since much of sharia law is contrary to British law and public policy, in theory they would be unlikely to be upheld in a British court. In reality, women are often pressured by their families into going to these courts and adhering to unfair decisions and may lack knowledge of their rights under British law. Moreover, refusal to settle a dispute in a sharia court could lead to to threats, intimidation or isolation. ...
     The report recommends abolishing the courts by initiating a human rights challenge and amending the Arbitration Act as Canada's Arbitration Act was amended in 2005 to exclude religious arbitration.
     The demand for the abolition of sharia courts in Britain, as elsewhere, is not an attack on people's right to religion; it is a defence of human rights, especially since the imposition of sharia courts is a demand of Islamism to restrict citizens' rights.
[Site link]

EMPLOYMENT
Loophole lets in migrant workers
David Barrett
Sunday Telegraph, 4 July 2010.

     The Government's immigration cap has been criticised a "sham" as new figures disclose that companies will be able to bypass the restriction to bring in thousands of foreign workers.
     Theresa May, the Home Secretary, announced last week that the number of migrant workers coming to Britain from outside the European Union would be limited to 24,400 a year, fulfilling a Conservative manifesto pledge.
     However, the Home Office has admitted that the interim cap will not apply to a system known as "intra-company transfers", or ICTs, which allows firms to bring in non-EU nationals who are already on their payroll.
     Figures obtained by this newspaper show the extent to which companies are able to use the ICT system to import foreign staff on a massive scale.
     One Indian company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), sponsored 4,600 of its employees to come to Britain in 2008 through ICTs, according to Home Office data.
     Although there is no suggestion that TCS has broken the rules, the scale of immigration from India through ICTs is startling. Another Indian company, Infosys Technologies Limited, sponsored 3,235 people to come to Britain in the same year, while a third, Wipro Technologies, brought in 2,420.
     While the Home Office has said there were 30,000 arrivals under the ICT system last year, this was down from a total of 46,000 the previous year – suggesting that the use of ICTs could rise again when the global economy recovers. In 1992 there were only 7,000.
     Indians make up 70 per cent of those brought to Britain on ICTs. Others were from nations including the US, South Africa, Japan and China.
     Although the system is intended to help companies that cannot recruit suitable candidates within Britain, critics claim that in practice much of the work could easily have been done by Britons.
     The Home Office has disclosed the names of about 20,000 employers registered to bring skilled migrant workers into Britain on so-called "Tier 2" visas. Names on the list, published on the UK Border Agency website last week, range from Chelsea Football Club and Conservative Campaign Headquarters to hundreds of Thai restaurants, Indian takeaways and kebab shops.
     Of the companies on the list, about 4,700 are permitted to use ICTs. Yet the UK Border Agency has only 125 staff responsible for visiting sponsor companies and keeping checks on them. ... ...
     One British IT worker told The Sunday Telegraph how his contract at Lloyds TSB was cut short after the bank hired a dozen Indian trainees through the ICT system. ...
     The IT specialist, who has 20 years' experience in the industry, said use of ICTs was widespread in the banking industry. "ICTs are used to bring large numbers of people in for the purposes of cheap labour," he said. ...
     A spokesman for Lloyds TSB declined to comment on the claims. ...
     Peter Skyte, of the trade union Unite, said: "Our prediction is that the ICT will remain after the interim period because of pressure from multinationals and from embassies.
     "We are very concerned about displacement of UK resident workers and its potential for undercutting pay rates."

POLITICS
Labour's 'cover-up' on immigration
Patrick Hennessy
Sunday Telegraph, 4 July 2010.

     Labour was accused of a pre-election cover-up on immigration last night after it was disclosed that the previous government sat on a report that criticised its policies.
     Ministers accused John Denham, the former communities secretary, of trying "to bury the truth" about immigration in an attempt to his party in office.
     The report, The Drivers of International Migration To and From the UK, written by the respected National Institute of Economic and Social Research, was given to ministers six weeks before the start of the election campaign.
     It found that net immigration to Britain rose by 169,100 people a year between 1992-1995 and 2004-2007, with the vast majority of new entrants coming from Asian countries.
     Just over half the increase (51.2 per cent) was accounted for by "UK immigration policy relative to other hosts", while 26.7 per cent arose from the "relaxation of UK immigration policy from 1997".
     If published, the report would have reignited the row over the so-called "open-door" immigration policy pursued by Labour until it began phasing in its "points-based" system in 2008. Yet the Department of Communities and Local Government decided not to publish it.
     Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, described the report, which cost the then Government £40,000, as a "skeleton in the closet", and added: "Clearly there was an orchestrated cover-up by John Denham to bury the truth about immigration. On the eve of the election, Labour Ministers were doing anything to try and guarantee their political survival."
     Last night Mr Denham demanded to know what Mr Pickles's evidence was for his "cover-up" claim. He said he did not remember receiving the report as communities secretary.

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – AUSTRALIA, RACISM, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Australian PM's immigration vows
Yahoo!, 4 July 2010.

     Australia's new Prime Minister Julia Gillard Sunday vowed not to let "political correctness" get in the way of tackling immigration, signalling a tough line on the issue.
     Gillard, ..., said people should not be called racist for raising concerns about asylum seekers.
     "I certainly dismiss labels like intolerant or racist because people raise concerns about border security, but we've also got to be very alive to the complexity of this and that there's no quick fix," ...
     "There's a temptation for people to use these labels and names to try and close down debate and I'm very opposed to that. People need to be able to have honest discussions.
     "So any sort of political correctness, or niceties that get in the way, I think, need to be swept out of the way."
     The Welsh-born Gillard, whose parents emigrated to Australia in 1966, has made it a top priority to slow the steady flow of asylum seeker boats that plagued the Rudd government.
[Site link]

MULTICULTURALISM – RACISM, POLITICS
Politicians finally hear the people say 'enough'
Melanie Phillips
The Australian, 3 July 2010.

     Voters in Australia and Britain have had their fill of out-of-control multiculturalism.
     At first blush, Julia Gillard's volte-face over immigration would seem to be as unlikely as Osama bin Laden singing the Star Spangled Banner or Richard Dawkins taking holy orders.
     Here is a politician with a solid pedigree on the "anti-racist" Left rejecting former prime minister Kevin Rudd's call for a "Big Australia" formed by continuing large-scale immigration.
     Instead, Gillard has said she understands the anxieties of folk in western Sydney, western Melbourne or the Gold Coast growth corridor in Queensland.
     As for the boats of asylum-seekers, Gillard has made clear she wants to be even more effective in stopping them in order to protect "our sanctuary" and "the Australian way".
     In other words, Gillard is signalling that she sympathises with the concern that large-scale immigration and multiculturalism are threatening Australia's core values and identity, a position the Left denounces as bigotry. ...
     In Britain even more than in Australia - where at least John Howard or Tony Abbott have tackled such issues - race and culture have long been totally taboo. No debate has been possible about whether mass immigration might be a bad thing for communities or the country as a whole.
     Even to question this has been to invite instant denunciation as a racist from the dominant left-wing intelligentsia, for whom anti-racism has long been their signature creed. ...
     So Britain is being steadily Islamised, with more than 1700 mosques, the development of a parallel jurisdiction of sharia law in Muslim enclaves, banks offering sharia financing, extremists given free rein on campuses and relentless pressure to suppress and censor any criticism of Islam or the Muslim community.
     In parts of Australia too there are similar worries about the growth of the Muslim community, the pressure not to criticise any aggression it may display and the simultaneous onslaught upon Australian values by the likes of [Muslim cleric] Sheik Hilaly. ...
     So Gillard is now humming the same tune, saying she sympathises with voters' desire for strong management of Australia's borders, and pledging "sustainable population" increase with the "right kind of immigrant". ... ...
     For the doctrines of anti-racism and multiculturalism have not ended intolerance, prejudice or discrimination. They have instead institutionalised reverse discrimination and up-ended truth, morality and justice.
[Site link]

IMMIGRATION ABROAD – USA, POLITICS
Obama Fails to Square the Illegal-Immigration Circle
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review, 2 July 2010.

     There was very little new in the president's speech – certainly not his tired hope-and-change trope of blending legal and illegal immigration ("The scientific breakthroughs of Albert Einstein, the inventions of Nikola Tesla, the great ventures of Andrew Carnegie's U.S. Steel and Sergey Brin's Google – all this was possible because of immigrants"). There is broad public support for the former but not the latter – so he had to imply that those who oppose massive illegal immigration are unappreciative of the great contribution of legal immigrants. (And note his use of euphemism in "11 million undocumented immigrants"– as if immigrants simply forgot their documents upon entry.)
     Confusion was thematic, and evident in, e.g., the idea that "being an American is not a matter of blood or birth. It's a matter of faith. It's a matter of fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear." If so, anyone in the world with the requisite beliefs and virtues would be an American. ...
     It is disturbing to hear a president confess that he cannot enforce the law or secure the border. ("But our borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols. It won't work. Our borders will not be secure as long as our limited resources are devoted to not only stopping gangs and potential terrorists, but also the hundreds of thousands who attempt to cross each year simply to find work.") I hope the Taliban are not listening to that admission. ...
     The president likes the passive voice and the use of abstraction, which suggest that illegal aliens are guided not by their own choices but by impersonal forces: "Crimes go unreported as victims and witnesses fear coming forward. And this makes it harder for the police to catch violent criminals and keep neighborhoods safe. And billions in tax revenue are lost each year because many undocumented workers are paid under the table." Note the absence of any reference to thousands of illegal aliens who commit crimes or the mounting cost of incarcerating them, which in California, for example, is nearing $1 billion a year.
     Of course, tens of billions are also lost in the remittances that illegal aliens send south of the border.
[Site link]

BENEFITS AND COSTS – CRIME, HOUSING, CONGESTION, COHESION
Migrants' impact on crime to be checked
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 1 July 2010.

     The impact that migrants have on crime, housing and even traffic congestion will be considered when ministers set an annual cap on immigration, it emerged yesterday.
     Pressure on public services and cohesion will also be factored in to the final limit.
     The Government has promised to impose a cap and the Migration Advisory Committee will consult on where the limit is set. The body confirmed yesterday that it would not just consider the economic impact of migrants but also social pressures. The committee will spend the next three months attempting to quantify such factors before presenting a report to ministers in September.
     The committee also warned that limits on foreign workers, which can only be imposed on those from outside the EU, would only help to reduce net migration "up to a point".

Recent news and views

Recent news and views (this page, above).
These extracts are ones not yet included in any of the following pages which are updated less often than this page.

Selected news and views in date order

News and views - selected extracts in date order (seld.htm).
These are the more notable or substantial items, omitting ones that are more lightweight or ephemeral. These can be found also in the main collections shown in the pages described below (bydate.htm and bysub.htm), but are copied here for those who want to skip the less important material. Some items are, of course, borderline but have to be either included or excluded. The extracts are in reverse date order, so the latest are at the top of the page. In the two summary lists described below the titles of these selected items are shown in bold.

News and views in date order

Extracts of news and views in date order (bydate.htm).
Extracts of news and views in reverse date order, so the latest are at the top of the page. Items that are less important or more ephemeral are included along with those that are more notable. If you prefer to read by starting at an earlier date and working forwards, you can do so either by using the "Up" links provided or by going through the summary list (see below) in the desired order and using the hyperlink from each item there to the relevant extract.

List of items in date order (dlist.htm).
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News and views in subject order

Extracts of news and views in subject order (bysub.htm).
These are the same extracts as given elsewhere in date order, but they are presented here by subject. To avoid having too many subject headings, 'multiculturalism' here includes multiracialism and multiethnic issues; 'population' includes overpopulation.

List of news and views in subject order (sublist.htm).
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Publications

A list of some publications on immigration and related matters (pubs.htm).

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Links to relevant other sites of possible interest (sites.htm).