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Keely Sullivan is a freelance journalist.

European conservatives go-to model for ending illegal immigration doesnt look so solid anymore. For the first time in decades, a court in Australia has freed an inmate from the Pacific nations zero-tolerance immigrant detention system, calling into question the legal foundation of how it handles asylum seekers.

European migration hawks have long eyed Australias approach because it worked. Though decried by human rights advocates, the systems supporters note that Australia has had next to no illegal sea arrivals since 2013. Instead, migrants intercepted at sea have often been diverted to processing camps on the Pacific islands of Manus and Nauru, stranding them there with no guarantee of release.

A lawsuit filed by Ahmed Mahmoud, a 29-year-old Syrian national, calls that system into question. A former legal resident of Australia who had lost his visa after an assault conviction in 2011, Mahmoud was freed from the system after nearly six years, after a court ruled that his long-term detention was illegal. He had bounced between 11 different detention centers including Christmas Island, halfway between Australia and Indonesia in the Indian Ocean.

Opponents of Australias system say Mahmouds case AJL20 vs. Commonwealth of Australia sets a precedent with important implications for how long Australia can keep asylum seekers in detention.

Any time that the court expresses limitations on the governments power to detain people is so important, said David Burke, legal director for Human Rights Law Centre. The case, he added, was effectively a clarification of the limits of when the government can do that. The case was decided in September. The Australian government is currently appealing the ruling.

The ruling is restricted to Australia, but critics of the countrys immigration policy say they hope it will cause Europeans looking to the country to reconsider.

The idea of stopping immigration by outsourcing responsibility to other countries has been gathering steam on the Continent. In a December 2016 interview with POLITICO, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz then foreign minister endorsed the Australian approach and called for the EU to impose a similar system. In the U.K., Home Secretary Priti Patel has also advocated for an Australia-style system that included offshoring illegal refugee arrivals to Britain.

And in 2018, citing the ongoing migrant boat traffic in the Mediterranean, the EUs General Secretariat of the Council urged the European Council and Commission to study the feasibility of an offshore model similar to Australias.

The country that has taken the most practical steps so far to set up such a system is Denmark, where Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye signed an agreement with the Rwandan government widely-viewed as the first step toward opening an overseas asylum processing center there, 9,000 kilometers from European shores.

But while the system appeals to politicians hoping to look tough on migration, human rights advocates say it takes an unacceptable toll on those caught in the system.

Amnesty International has called Australias system a deliberate abuse of cruelty and a nightmare for asylum seekers, who have alleged physical abuse, sexual assault and insufficient medical care. Harsh detention policies have some populist appeal, particularly around election time, said Graham Thom, a refugee advocate with Amnesty International Australia.

A 2018 UNHCR finding noted a pervasive sense of helplessness and hopelessness among asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island, citing declining mental health, insufficient assistance with bureaucracy, rough living conditions and uncertainty.

Copying Australia would be difficult in Europe, said Lina Vosyliute, a research fellow at Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS). Where Australian law is not always adhered to in offshore locations under the Australian system, EU laws and jurisdiction would be under an EU offshore system, including due process and human rights protections.

Wherever EU money is going, EU values and obligations are following, Vosyliute said.

The Australian offshore model currently offers no path to residency for refugees, who are instructed to settle permanently in a third nation, seek asylum elsewhere or return to their home country. If they cant or wont, they are left indefinitely in internment. The average length of detention in Australia has risen from four months to nearly two years since 2013.

I have met people in detention who havent got a lawyer for half a decade, said Alison Battisson, the lawyer representing Mahmoud. Its unlikely such a system would be ruled legal under EU law.

Opponents of the Australian system say they will use the Mahmoud decision to slow momentum for offshoring in Europe. This wonderful system that youre trying to promote does have cracks in it, said Judith Sunderland, associate director for Human Rights Watchs Europe and Central Asia division. We would certainly try to use it to shift the debate.

The decision would set the precedent for maybe Danish officials, who are thinking to do something like Australia did, said Vosyliute. This could be a good indication that its a no go for policymakers.

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Doubts rise over Australias offshore handling of refugees - POLITICO Europe

The American Farm Bureau Federation joined all 50 state Farm Bureaus and Puerto Rico Farm Bureau in sending a letter today urging the Biden administration to address the surge of undocumented immigrants entering the United States. The increase in illegal immigration is severely impacting farm and ranch families, putting property and personal safety at risk. The letter was sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

We have been listening to the concerns of our members and hearing how their livelihoods are being affected by the surge on the border, the letter states. They (farmers) shared how their crops and property are being damaged, which in turn has caused financial hardship. For example, these landowners are experiencing cut fences, destroyed crops, compromised water sources, vandalism, litter on their property and more. Most importantly, the security and safety of these families are at stake given the current circumstances.

The letter points out that local and state border security resources have been exhausted, leaving little help for farmers and ranchers. It highlights the problem of human smugglers, known as Coyotes, explaining that landowners live in fear while Coyotes reap a windfall from leaving people destitute.

Human smugglers (Coyotes) are making false promises and doing whatever it takes to get paid and get away, including jeopardizing lives and property, the letter continues. In their desperation to evade law enforcement, Coyotes abandon people, steal vehicles, vandalize property and threaten the safety and livelihoods of farmers and ranchers. They are often criminals who smuggle drugs and firearms into the country, frequently leaving them on farmers and ranchers property, causing unrest for farm and ranch families.

The letter asks the federal government to provide additional resources to secure the U.S. border.

Read the full letter.

Contact: Mike TomkoDirector, Communications(202) 406-3642miket@fb.orgBailey CorwineMedia Relations Specialist(202) 406-3643baileyc@fb.org

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Farm Bureau Urges Administration to Address Surge of Undocumented Immigrants - Farm Bureau News

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All eight Democratic mayoral candidates -- Ray McGuire, Maya Wiley, Andrew Yang, Scott Stringer, Shaun Donovan, Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia and Dianne Morales -- during the second mayoral debate on June 2, 2021.WABC-TV

Every single one of the eight Democrats running for mayor vowed to protect illegal immigrants from deportation, solidifying the Big Apples often infamous status as a sanctuary city.

The mayoral wannabes doubled down on current Mayor de Blasios approach of barring local authorities from reporting the immigration status of residents to federal authorities during their second televised debate on WABC-TV Channel 7 Wednesday.

We have to be a true sanctuary city. We have to live up to our values, which means making investments in our families regardless of documentation, said former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who recently moved into the top tier of candidates.

Garcia said she worked to provide free food to needy New Yorkers during the coronavirus pandemic, regardless of their immigration status.

Were a sanctuary city, this is about respect, its about dignity, its about support, its about those who have allowed the city and sacrificed for this city to be where it is as we managed through COVID, said former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire.

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, the son of legal Taiwanese immigrants, said, I appreciate anyone who comes to this country or New York City for a better life.

And Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said migrants were his neighbors growing up in Queens.

My mother worked two jobs to provide for the six of us and we had a group of undocumented residents that lived in our community, Adams said.

The other candidates city comptroller Scott Stringer, former Obama housing secretary Shaun Donovan and nonprofit leader Dianne Morales also voiced their support for the Big Apple as a sanctuary city.

De Blasio repeatedly tangled with former President Donald Trump over the policy with Trump threatening to withhold federal funding from the city until a judge blocked the move.

Given that the vast majority of the citys voters are registered Democrats, the winner of the Democratic mayoral primary on June 22 will most likely succeed de Blasio at City Hall.

Read the rest here:
Next mayor wants NYC to be even more of a 'sanctuary' for illegal immigrants - New York Post

Tunisian President Kas Saed has warned that Europe can only stem the flow of migrants reaching its shores by helping to improve conditions in the countries that they are leaving.

Saed told Euronews that an approach to migration that only deals with security - preventing people from reaching Europe - would ultimately fail to solve what is a global crisis.

On the sidelines of meetings in Brussels, Euronews sat down with Saed to discuss the partnership that his country has with the EU to slow the flow of migrants to Europe and other issues.

Kas Saed: "I have talked about this topic on several occasions, about illegal or legal migration.

Many people talk about a solution to solve the problem based on security. But it's very clear that this option is not enough to curb the migratory wave.

If those illegal immigrants had fulfilled their ambition to live well and to make their dreams come true, and had the same opportunities European citizens have in their countries, the immigration issue would not be raised. It is better to find out about the real reasons for immigration rather than analysing the phenomena.

Many illegal immigrants who reach Europe from Tunisia and North Africa are exploited by criminal organisations: they are forced to do illegal work, which violates their rights as refugees.

We must also talk about the legal migration of academics and other high-skilled workers. For example, in the past year only, nearly five hundred doctors went to Europe."

"To fight these networks in Tunisia, but also in Europe, you need to look at those who welcome them. Who receives them when they turn up to work in the fields or in factories, or even on the black market? Who exploits them and who benefits from it? It's here in Europe.

These migrants are forced to work illegally, so it is absolutely necessary to combat human trafficking networks within Europe as well. There will be no security and no peace here unless we eliminate the causes that led to this illegal migration. Some illegal immigrants were forced to do so because they had lost all kind of hope, they had no dream."

"There are agreements with a number of European countries and with the EU regarding this matter of creating jobs for youth. I told them: 'We should find a new mechanism in order to build justice within the world'."

"Yes, they listened to us. I'm talking here about operational solutions. In Tunisia, we tried different action plans for vaccination, but there are still insufficient and ineffective.

In recent days, we've had alarming signals coming from different regions in Tunisia that were suffering from oxygen shortage and lack of medical supplies, but we've managed to get the situation under control. These catastrophic situations can be treated with a global approach to assistance, not just within one country."

"Tunisia is not a country targeted by terrorism on a daily basis, ours is a safe country. We protect our society by establishing a platform of cultural values aimed at protecting citizens from becoming involved in terrorism -- which mainly threatens people who are victims of a certain intellectual precariousness."

"We respect every country in its freedom to take decisions, we do not want to interfere in other states' decisions at all. They are free, but we are also free to take our own decisions."

Read more:
Europe must tackle the real causes of migration, says Tunisia's president - Euronews

Austin, TX, June 2, 2021 On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that he had declared a state of disaster in many of the counties along the states border with Mexico, alleging that the Biden administration has shown unwillingness, ambivalence, or inability to enforce federal immigration laws.

The disaster declaration, which says President Bidens border policies have caused a humanitarian crisis in many Texas communities along the border, came the same day former President Trump endorsed Abbott for reelection.

No governor has done more to secure the border and keep our communities safe than Governor Abbott, Trump stated in his endorsement.

By declaring a state of disaster in these counties, Texas will have more resources and strategies at our disposal to protect landowners and enforce all federal and state laws to combat criminal activities stemming from the border crisis, the governors office said in a press release.

The disaster proclamation covers Brewster, Brooks, Cameron, Crockett, Culberson, Dimmit, Duval, Edwards, El Paso, Goliad, Gonzales, Hidalgo, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Kenedy, Kinney, La Salle, Lavaca, Maverick, McMullen, Pecos, Presidio, Real, Reeves, Starr, Sutton, Terrell, Uvalde, Val Verde, Webb, Willacy, Zapata, and Zavala Counties, some of which have already declared their own states of disaster locally.

Among the grievances listed in the document, Abbott said the federal government under Biden has enabled escalating violence from cartels and implemented policies that feed into human trafficking. The proclamation also mentions the worsening fentanyl crisis in Texas.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission also must cancel the state licenses of childcare centers that shelters or detains unaccompanied minors. The Biden administration has faced backlash for failing to fully plan for the care of illegal aliens and unaccompanied children.

Abbotts proclamation, which notes that securing the international border is the federal governments responsibility, says that the State of Texas has spent $3.5 billion to supplement border security. He also touted the progress of Operation Lone Star, which has resulted in 1,300 criminal apprehensions, enforcement action against 35,000 illegal aliens, and the confiscation of 10,000 pounds of drugs and 100 firearms, according to the proclamation.

Abbott, who cited the Texas Disaster Act of 1975 for his authority to issue the proclamation, ordered, [T]o the extent that the enforcement of any state statute or administrative rule regarding contracting or procurement would impede any state agencys emergency response that is necessary to protect life or property threatened by this declared disaster, I hereby authorize the suspension of such statutes and rules for the duration of this declared disaster.

Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City), who repeatedly sought during the regular legislative session to advance proposals to finish construction of former President Trumps border wall project, lauded Abbotts move but expressed regret that the governor did not do it sooner.

I am glad he did it. I just wish he would have done it while we were in session and we could have done something to help, Slaton wrote in a text message to The Texan. Like build the wall and send the invoice to DC. This has been a terrible situation long before he declared it.

Republican Don Huffines, a former state senator running against Abbott, has been among Abbotts most outgoing critics for his handling of the border crisis. Huffines recently touted the endorsement of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, who called Abbott a fraud.

Chad Prather is also running for governor in the Republican primary.

Update: This story has been updated with a statement from Rep. Bryan Slaton.

A copy of Abbotts disaster declaration can be found below.

Excerpt from:
Texas Declares State of Disaster in Border Counties Over Illegal Immigration - The Texan