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Sunaks plan is cruel and unworkable, but at the very least there may be concessions on victims of trafficking and children

Thu 27 Apr 2023 07.42 EDT

It is not only very telling but also grimly ironic how, over the course of a week, the government has had to respond to the crisis in Sudan and at the same time explain what its flagship asylum bill will mean.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace told the Commons defence select committee on Tuesday that the conflict could quickly become a humanitarian crisis. The next day at prime ministers questions, ahead of the third reading of the illegal migration bill, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak refused to say whether a child fleeing the conflict would be deported if they arrived in Britain on a small boat from France. Instead, he dodged the question and talked about how, in the last five years, other vulnerable children have been welcomed to the UK as refugees.

A few hours before, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, stated more pointedly that people fleeing Sudan would not be allowed to apply for asylum in the UK, nor would the government put in place a safe route for them to reach the country.

That, of course, is the reality of the illegal immigration bill. It slams Britains door in the face of those who have had no choice but to take dangerous journeys to reach safety. The UNHCR has named it for what it is: an asylum ban extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom. Its an indiscriminate approach that will see many thousands of refugees unfairly turned away. More than three-quarters of asylum claims assessed last year were found to be valid. In future, all of those will be automatically rejected. Men, women and children who could be you or me, if we were Sudanese, Afghan or Iranian.

The government appears to be cocksure about doing the right thing. But not necessarily so sure that it will stop the boats coming across the Channel. It is a complicated problem, where theres no single, simple solution that will fix it, Sunak has said, admitting it wont happen overnight. Conservative MPs privately are not only sceptical but doubtful that without far more safe routes, the arrivals will diminish. They see those routes as vital in providing an alternative to the dangerous journeys controlled by people smugglers.

No 10 gave a nod to this by accepting an amendment to the bill from Tim Loughton, Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, that states that plans to provide additional routes must be brought forward within six months of the bill passing. It remains to be seen if this will actually result in any meaningful expansion of safe routes, such as the provision of family reunion visas, which have declined by 40% compared with the pre-Covid level in 2019.

There are many senior Tory MPs who still remain very uneasy about what the bill means for both victims of modern slavery and children separated from their families seeking asylum. Theresa May is particularly angry about the legislation effectively dismantling the modern slavery provisions she brought in as home secretary. She is right that far more people, including vulnerable women and girls, will be left in slavery in the UK as a result. The former prime minister wasnt bought off by No 10s attempt to table an amendment that only tinkered with the modern slavery provisions in the bill, lambasting it as a slap in the face for those who care about the victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.

And despite calls to remove all separated children from the provisions of the bill by the childrens commissioner and senior Tories such as the former justice secretary, Robert Buckland, the government adamantly insists they need to be included to ensure what it believes will be a sufficient deterrent effect.

Its worth remembering that when she was home secretary, Priti Patel chose to exempt children from new legal provisions she introduced that mean any asylum claim by a person who has travelled through a so-called safe third country is inadmissible. The word in Westminster is that she is very uncomfortable with imposing an asylum ban on unaccompanied children, which speaks volumes about the extremity of the governments approach.

The House of Lords is expected to cause considerable unease for the government and will no doubt seek to slice and dice the bill into something it sees as far more palatable. Multiple government defeats are likely. But the prime minister wants the bill in law for when parliament rises in July for summer recess. There are likely to be some concessions, for instance, over time limits on the use of detention for children and families and on the proposed changes to the protections and support for victims of modern slavery.

Dont expect the meat of the legislation to change, though. Stopping the boats is a top priority for Sunak, and he sees the asylum bill as a critical part of the equation. It is, however, a high-risk political strategy, not least given the fact that it plays up expectations when the chances of it actually delivering an end to Channel crossings are low.

An analysis by the Refugee Council has found that, in the first three years of the legislation coming into effect, up to 190,000 people will have had their asylum claims deemed inadmissible but wont have been removed. They will be left destitute, unable to work, and reliant on Home Office support and accommodation indefinitely. This will come at a huge cost about 9bn will be spent over three years on locking up refugees in detention centres and accommodating people who cant be removed to other countries.

Its difficult to see how the bill will do anything to actually stop the boats; instead it will undoubtedly make matters much worse, causing further human misery. The conflict in Sudan graphically illustrates that addressing global refugee movements requires the government to join forces with other western nations and the UN to focus on increasing foreign aid and improving conflict resolution. Neither is happening. Without addressing the so-called push factors, the numbers seeking safety in the UK and Europe will not reduce, but are likely to increase.

As the government ramps up its rhetoric against people seeking asylum, we must not forget there are other ways to navigate what is undoubtedly a global challenge. Instead, the UK is resorting to divisive, unfair and inhumane laws that will indiscriminately lock up men, women and children and seek to kick them out of the UK.

Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council

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Multiple government defeats are likely when the illegal immigration bill heads to the Lords - The Guardian

Audio articles on Wilson County News made possible by C Street Gift Shop in downtown Floresville!

When President Biden took office, he immediately rolled out the red carpet to illegal immigrants. He issued orders that stopped most illegal crossers from being detained until they could be deported. Potential migrants around the world got the message and have crossed the border illegally in historic and disastrous numbers.

Reports show that Texas has spent $4.4 billion over two years to combat and deal with illegal immigration as Gov. Abbott and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick denounce the waves of illegal immigration Texas has experienced under President Biden as an invasion.

Yet for all the effort and money spent, neither official has supported the one measure that would dramatically reduce illegal immigration in the Lone Star state mandatory E-Verify.

E-Verify is the federal online system that allows employers to instantly determine whether new hires are authorized to work in the United States. In order to get a job in this country, an individual needs a Social Security number or other identifier that confirms work authorization. E-Verify simply confirms whether the documentation given by a new employee information already required in the I-9 form every employee fills out when hired is genuine and belongs to the person using it.

If the information doesnt match existing records, E-Verify indicates usually in a matter of seconds that there is a problem. This may mean that a person legally allowed to work in the United States forgot to let Social Security know of a name change after marriage or another similar circumstance, easily corrected. Or it may indicate that a person illegally in the United States is trying to gain employment.

When Congress first passed legislation in 1996 under the Clinton administration creating E-Verify, it made the use of this scalable system voluntary for American businesses. In 2009, the Obama administration began requiring federal contractors and their subcontractors to use E-Verify, implementing an executive order issued at the end of George W. Bushs presidency.

Numerous states already mandate that employers use E-Verify. And many corporations, especially large ones like Apple, Exxon, and General Motors, use E-Verify to keep themselves from accidentally hiring illegal immigrants.

Today, E-Verify is used to check the legal status of more than half of all new hires in the country each year. The problem is that illegal immigrants apply to companies that do not use E-Verify. Unscrupulous businesses wont use E-Verify unless forced to by either state or federal governments.

Arizona was the first state that required all employers to use E-Verify, a law that was upheld by the Supreme Court. Other states have followed suit, including Alabama, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, and Mississippi. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that these states saw substantial reductions in illegal immigrant employment.

Yet for all their frenetic activity to police their borders, Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick have never endorsed an E-Verify law for Texas. Unlike building walls and sending troops, mandating E-Verify would cost the state almost nothing and would turn off the jobs magnet that exists in Texas.

Raised in Texas, Jim Robb is Vice President for Strategies and Data at NumbersUSA, an immigration policy group, and author of Political Migrants: Hispanic Voters on the Move. This piece originally ran in Focus Daily News.

NOTE: Items posted to the WCN Blog Pages are the opinions of the writer, and do not necessarily the opinion of the Wilson County News, its management, or staff.

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To stop illegal immigration, Texas must pass mandatory E-Verify - Wilson County News

John Curtice analyses UK in a Changing Europes latest Redfield and Wilton Strategies Brexit tracker poll, examining the relationship between public attitudes towards illegal immigration and voting intention.

The UK government has concerned itself with addressing what it terms illegal migration, in particular those who cross the English Channel with the aim of claiming asylum in the UK. Last year, it introduced a policy of transferring asylum seekers to Rwanda for their claim to be settled there, though as yet that policy is still the subject of litigation in the courts.

This week the Commons has passed legislation that would bar those who enter the UK via an unauthorized route from being able to seek asylum. Meanwhile, at the beginning of this year the Prime Minister made stop the boats one of his governments five key targets, whose achievement, he hopes, will improve his partys poor position in the opinion polls.

But is such a policy likely to be electorally effective? Even if the government does succeed in stopping the boats from crossing the English Channel, would that achievement be likely to help the Conservatives at the ballot box? We address this question using data collected as part the latest Brexit tracker poll by Redfield and Wilton Strategies for UK in a Changing Europe.

There is certainly little sign in the latest poll that the governments renewed emphasis on the issue has persuaded people that illegal immigration is being reduced. One question that Redfield & Wilton have asked regularly since February last year reads as follows:

In your opinion, has the level of illegal immigration into the United Kingdom gone up, gone down, or not changed much since the UKs departure from the European Union?

As the table below shows, during the last year consistently more than two in five voters took the view that illegal immigration has gone up since the UK left the EU. However, the figure edged closer towards a half in late 2022 and then rose by ten points to 56% shortly before Christmas an increase fuelled perhaps by media reports that the number of migrants crossing the Channel was heading for a record annual total.

The proportion who believe that illegal immigration has gone up did fall back to below a half in February, not long after Mr Sunak promised to stop the boats, but it has now moved above the 50% mark again. It may be early days, but so far, at least, the governments promises of action have not persuaded voters that anything has changed in practice.

Table: Perceptions of the level of illegal immigration since the UK left the EU, February 2022 April 2023

Source: Redfield & Wilton

Of course, voters may not necessarily blame Brexit itself for the perceived increase in illegal immigration. However, many do. In the two polls it has conducted this year, Redfield and Wilton have also asked:

In your opinion, with the United Kingdom outside of the European Union, is illegal immigration into the United Kingdom higher, lower, or similar to what it would be otherwise?

In the latest poll as many as 46% say that illegal immigration is higher than it would otherwise be because of Brexit, slightly up on the 42% who took that view in February. Only 10% believe it is lower.

These numbers suggest the government is being entirely rational in trying to reduce the flow of migrants across the Channel. Given the attention the issue has attracted, many voters have evidently noticed an increase in numbers. Moreover, this is particularly true of those who voted Conservative in 2019, 61% of whom believe that illegal immigration is higher than it was before the UK left the EU, compared with 53% among voters as a whole though only 44% of 2019 Conservative voters hold Brexit responsible.

However, if this issue has been costing the Conservatives votes, we would expect those 2019 Conservative voters who think that illegal immigration has increased to be less likely than those who do not share that view to say they would back the party again. But of such a pattern there is little sign.

True, only 54% of those 2019 Conservative voters who think that illegal immigration has increased since Brexit currently say that they would Conservative again at another election. But the figure is, if anything, even lower among those who say that illegal immigration has either fallen or that it has not changed much (49%). Meanwhile, at 49%, the level of continued loyalty among 2019 Conservatives who think that Brexit has resulted in higher illegal immigration is only marginally below that among those who think leaving the EU has either not made much difference or that it has occasioned a reduction in illegal immigration (56%).

If voters are not defecting from the Conservatives because of the level of illegal immigration, then it is doubtful they will be won back if the boats are indeed stopped. Meanwhile, the lack of any clear association between perceptions of what has happened to illegal immigration and willingness to vote Conservative again stands in marked contrast to the results of a similar analysis of voters perceptions of the overall impact of Brexit.

Only 43% of those 2019 Conservative voters who think that Brexit has had a negative impact on the UK (and one in four Conservatives feel that way) are currently minded to vote Conservative again compared with as many as 65% of those who believe leaving the EU has had a positive impact. Similarly, just 40% of those 2019 Conservative voters who say that the UK economy is weaker than it would be otherwise as a result of Brexit (one in three fall into that camp) are currently saying they will vote for the party again, well below the 68% figure among those who believe the economy is stronger.

Reducing the flow of migrants across the English Channel may be popular among the Conservative faithful. However, it is less clear that it will be effective at bringing less loyal supporters back into the Tory camp. To achieve that, Mr Sunak might find it more profitable to persuade more voters of the benefits of Brexit. After all, that is the prospect the party offered voters in 2019 when it promised to get Brexit done.

ByJohn Curtice, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe, Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Social Research, and Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde.

This blog is also posted on theWhat UK Thinkswebsite.

Excerpt from:
Chasing shadows from the sea? The electoral politics of illegal ... - UK in a Changing Europe

Democrats introduce a bill to prevent LGBTQ illegal immigrants from being held in custody and no- this is not a joke.

Im Tomi Lahren, more next.

Youve heard the expression where theres a will, theres a way, well for Democrats its more like, if theres any way they can speed up and exacerbate the crisis of illegals invading this country, theyll do it and theyll do it with a smile!

So heres a new one for ya, Democrats in the House and Senate introduced a new bill to give a free pass to..basically every Tom, Dick, Harry and Jose that comes across our border, illegally.

Its called the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act and yes, I too just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

This bill would make it harder to hold illegals in custody if they fall into what liberals deem a vulnerable category such as being gay, lesbian or transgender or those who dont speak English.

Theyve done it folks, Democrats have combined their two favorite things: illegal immigration and gay issues into one package thats sure to make the illegal immigration crisis even worse.

Im Tomi Lahren and you watch my show Tomi Lahren is Fearless at Outkick.com

Excerpt from:
Dems Introduce Bill to Help LGBTQ Illegal Immigrants Avoid Detention - FOX News Radio

A strange and destructive thing is happening at the border. The federal government is quietly abetting human smuggling, setting off an unprecedented wave of migration.

In just over two years, the Biden administration has released more than two million illegal aliens into the United States. Another 1.3 million have entered by evading the Border Patrol. Millions more are en route. Nearly all are exploited by the cartels, which control the smuggling routes and have grown large and powerful enough to challenge governments. Some of the migrants are trafficked, assaulted, abandoned, even tortured to death. It is a deepening crisis with serious social, economic, fiscal, and political implications. But first it is a humanitarian disaster, enabled by a federal government whose primary task is to prevent such things.

The Center has extensively covered this ongoing crisis, explaining in great detail the decisions made by the administration that triggered the record surge in migration and its subsequent reactions to the surge that have made the situation worse.

The explanation for these decisions is complex. Crudely simplified, those in charge are driven by an aversion to any policy enacted by the Trump administration. Undergirding this sentiment is a growing conviction that any restriction on immigration is immoral, an idea that has taken years to germinate and is far more entrenched than mere political disagreement. It is a disturbing and revolutionary idea that threatens the stability of the nation itself. And it is now embraced by a significant number of academics and politicians, particularly on the left, including many in the administration.

Given the radical nature and general unpopularity of such a position, the unquestioned right to come to the United States is being recognized under the guise of establishing a humane, orderly, and safe immigration system. By broadening the definition of asylum and the widespread use of parole, for example, the administration is maintaining the illusion of order while releasing millions of illegal migrants into the country.

The architects of these policies seem unfazed by the human suffering that has ensued. For example, the administration has lost contact with 85,000 children who recently crossed the border unaccompanied. Only about 37 percent of unaccompanied children are reunited with a parent and many end up working in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws. Despite the scope and severity of this problem, the White House has ignored repeated warnings.

Just last week, my colleague Jessica Vaughan testified at a congressional hearing on the surge of unaccompanied children. At that hearing, Department of Health and Human Services whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas revealed how the federal government has become the middleman in a vile multibillion-dollar trafficking operation. She told the committee that migrant children are being sold for sex and into debt bondage. She said there are apartment buildings where 20, 30, or 40 children are released and people who are simultaneously sponsoring children from multiple refugee sites using different addresses. She talked of enslaved Guatemalan children who can only speak Mayan dialects, unable to cry for help in Spanish or English. She pleaded for Congress to intervene.

For the current administration, it seems that the alienation and exploitation of tens of thousands of children is an acceptable trade-off for unrestricted immigration.

We saw glimpses of this mentality in action on our recent border tour. During an early morning visit to where the border wall ends in Yuma, on the edge of the Cocopah Reservation, we witnessed migrants from all over the world enter from Mexico and line up along the wall. Roughly 90 percent of the migrants that cross there are coming from countries other than Mexico. Piles of trash, including discarded passports and personal items, filled a gully just across the border. Every night hundreds, sometimes even thousands, arrive at that spot, bused on the Mexican side by smugglers who instruct them to head straight to the Border Patrol. American buses then take the migrants to a CBP tent facility, where they are fed and cared for. Most are promptly released into the United States, few questions asked. The juxtaposition of the orderly procession around the wall, erected just a few years ago, into the waiting buses prompted one of our guests to exclaim, Our country is having a nervous breakdown!

Behind the veneer of order lies chaos. At capacity, the Yuma tent facility costs more than a million dollars a day to operate. The local hospital has provided $20 million in uncompensated care to migrants in just the last few months. The produce industry in Yuma, which provides nearly all of the lettuce consumed in the United States and Canada in the winter months, has been forced to implement time consuming and expensive measures to prevent E. coli contamination, which is at an elevated risk due to the steady stream of migrants that hike through the lettuce fields, sometimes relieving themselves. And then there is the drug trafficking, which has become easier to do since Border Patrol agents are now busy greeting migrants. Jonathan Lines, a Yuma county supervisor, told us that every family in the area knows someone who has been harmed by fentanyl. The tragedies of the opioid epidemic are mounting.

To the west, San Diego Sector Chief Aaron Heitke told us that his agents are now apprehending around 1,000 migrants a day, sometimes in groups of 200 or 300. Each migrant pays a smuggling fee of $8,000 to $10,000 to get through on land or $10,000 to $15,000 to enter by boat via the Pacific. Every inch of the border is controlled by the cartels, and crossers who do not pay are severely punished. Border Patrol agents often care for migrants in desperate situations and sometimes even deliver babies. This year they have already seen 157 nationalities. Heitke said that when they release a migrant from a given country into the United States, a lot more people from that country start arriving. He also told us that his agents have seized 1,000 pounds of fentanyl in the last two months.

Just south of the border, in the Mexican city of Mexicali, we visited three bustling migrant shelters filled with people from all over the world who have responded to Bidens La Invitacion. Unlike shelters we visited on previous trips, the three in Mexicali are not run by Christian churches and are at least loosely affiliated with the UNs International Office of Migration. One of the shelters lacked a roof and was in extreme disrepair. The man who was in charge, whom we had arranged to meet, was fired before our visit when it was discovered that he was profiting off of smuggling. In another shelter, which was crammed with people, dozens of children came out of their rooms to greet us. What will become of all these migrants is unknown.

The surge, however, is expected to get even bigger as Title 42 is set to expire this month. The public health order that allows expedited removal is still being used to deport a fraction of the migrants who are apprehended. The San Diego Sector, for example, sends back under Title 42 about 25 percent of the migrants they encounter. When that order expires, those deportations will no longer occur. There is a growing queue of migrants stretching deep into Central America, all waiting for the change in policy before they make their way to the United States.

One story from our trip stands out against the chaos and suffering of the surge. Our guide in Mexicali was a young man who migrated illegally to New Jersey as a teenager. After making the decision to leave his family, he was fortunate to find stable foster care and attend high school in the states. After high school, he worked at odd jobs and, for whatever reason, was one of the rare illegal aliens who got noticed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was deported. Recalling the experience, he told us that he made the decision not to illegally reenter the United States. Instead, he has established himself in Mexicali, enterprising and successfully employed with a family of his own. He explained that so many migrants force their way into the United States in search of the American dream, but often their stories do not have a happy ending. The current policies of our federal government almost ensure that this is so.

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Smugglers on the Border - Immigration Blog