The Southern Border Problem

IMMIGRATION

There’s A National Emergency On The Border, But It’s Not What You Think

Trump says there’s a crisis on the border, but the crisis reaches far beyond the border into every institution in Mexico and Central America.

By John Daniel Davidson
The Federalist

During negotiations to end the government shutdown last week, President Trump said he might declare a national emergency over the southern border in order to bypass Congress and build his wall with defense funding. Trump repeated this threat on Sunday, then on Monday morning announced he would address the nation tonight regarding what he called “the Humanitarian and National Security crisis on our Southern Border.”

Do we really have a national emergency on the border, or is Trump just trying to leverage the language of crisis as part of his negotiations with Democrats? Yes and no. There is indeed a crisis on the border, but it’s not what you think.

The crisis is not, as Trump would have us believe, that record numbers of illegal immigrants are entering the country.

Unable to See the Wood for the Trees

Monty Python's Flying Circus in Full Swing

An "immigration case" recently hit the headlines in New Zealand.  It is the kind of case that makes people's blood boil.  It reflects the potential of bureaucratic madness breaking out at any time.  

The case is as follows:

Nilani Suhinthan couldn't conjure the words to explain to her daughter Bumikka why she wasn't granted a visa to live in New Zealand, but the rest of her family were.  "Bumikka has Down syndrome, she doesn't understand. I couldn't explain to her. She's just been asking 'where my mummy is?'" Nilani says.  "My younger girl broke into tears, she was very disappointed."

The Irish mother of three has been living and working in Auckland since September 6, after being recruited as a IT consultant for a multinational US tech company.  The plan was to relocate her entire family here from Dublin, including her husband, Nagarajah, her eldest daughter Tanya, 19, her youngest daughter Saumia, 14, and Bumikka, 15.  Up until November 2 that plan was on track, after Nilani's husband - a computer engineer with decades of experience - was granted a New Zealand work visa, and her youngest daughter a student visa.  Her eldest daughter Tanya intended to continue studying medicine in Bulgaria, but eventually settle in New Zealand. 

Then the news arrived on November 7 that Immigration New Zealand (INZ) had declined Bumikka's student visa because she did not have an "acceptable standard of health".  INZ's medical waiver assessment for Bumikka's stated because she had Down syndrome she was "likely to impose significant costs on New Zealand's special education services".  Specifically, the issue was that Bumikka would require the Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) special-ed service to undertake schooling in New Zealand.  [NZ Herald]

 Here is a family that will likely generate far more income taxation dollars for the State than the average New Zealand family.

When All Else Fails . . .

Temper Tantrums

It appears that the Left these days has lost its credibility.  It seems as though any action, any words, any opposition immediately calls down the Left's dreaded indictment: Racist!

Nowhere does this appear more the case than in the United States.  The Left cannot seem to get through a twenty-four hour news cycle without shouting "Racist" at someone, or some thing or other.  "Racism" would appear to be the unforgivable sin.  Once hurled at an opponent there is nothing more to do or say.  It's all over, Rover.  The accusation is the verbal equivalent of taking careful aim and fatally shooting someone.

Take the matter of immigration rules, regulations, and policies.

Ol' Jerry Corbyn Knows His Oats

We Kid You Not  . . 

Corbyn’s "Tragic Rough Sleeper" Was Twice-Deported Migrant Paedophile from Angola


Jack Montgomery
Breitbart London

A rough sleeper turned into a cause célèbre by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after he was found dead in a London underpass near Parliament turns out to have been an illegal migrant paedophile who had been deported twice.

Marcos Amaral Gourgel was a dual Angolan-Portuguese national first deported from Britain in 2014 after serving time for child sex offences, reports the Daily Mail, which cited Portuguese daily Correio da Manha.  “In 2014 he was deported to Portugal by the British authorities and assisted on his return,” the Ministry of Portuguese Communities Abroad confirmed to the Expresso newspaper.  “In 2016 we were made aware he had been deported again from the UK for being in the country illegally.”

It is not clear how the child molester was able to return to Britain and set up camp in a London underpass yards from the Houses of Parliament, through which MPs and staff pass every day — but he may have been assisted by the EU Single Market’s freedom of movement regime, which makes it very difficult for British authorities to effectively vet EU passport-holders.

Jeremy Corbyn‏Verified account @jeremycorbyn

I've just been told about the death of a rough sleeper right by the entrance to Parliament. The powerful can't carry on walking by on the other side while people don't have a home to call their own. It's time all MPs took up this moral challenge and properly housed everyone.

Jeremy Corbyn, whose team claimed to know Gourgel, used his death to attack “the powerful”, declaring it was time “all MPs took up this moral challenge and properly housed everyone.”

Whether or not Mr Corbyn’s definition of “everyone” was intended to include illegal migrants and child molesters is unclear, although he has issued no statements condemning the obvious failures in Britain’s border and immigration controls which allowed such a dangerous individual to infiltrate the country.

Loose Lips and Pollyanna

It's a Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day

Spare a thought for lil' old New Zealand.  It has been afflicted with a novice for a Prime Minister.  Her loose lips launches ships.  Australia has confirmed it has intercepted three "refugee" boats, bound for New Zealand.  Our novice PM was warned that if she postured as the leader of a country which was going to welcome illegitimate migrants the dirty business of people smuggling would explode.  

To be clear, we believe policies of managed immigration and managed refugee intake are both ethically and economically sound in principle.  We strongly support New Zealand's managed refugee policies, where some of the wretched of the earth are flown to this country to enter our refugee programme.  Once here they begin a reasonably lengthy period of education, assimilation, and induction.  Community volunteer groups put their hands up to sponsor refugee families and take responsibility to assist the task of integration in to a new life.

Many of the refugees come from war zones; their extended families have been decimated; they are in a long lasting state of shock.  They come knowing no-one, unable to speak our language, cut off, isolated, and desperate.

Loose Lips Launch Ships

Ardern's Moral Posturing Has Consequences

During the Second World War, in Britain the warning was, "Loose Lips Sink Ships".  As the U-boats hunted for convoys of merchant vessels, sinking hundreds as they made their way to Britain carrying vital supplies, people were made conscious of the need for secrecy.  Given German intelligence operatives were active on radio listening posts, information often deemed to be harmless might have been sufficient for security leaks, leading to focused U-boat efforts on expected convoys. 

Now circumstances have changed.  We need to update the slogan from "Loose Lips Sink Ships" to "Loose Lips Launch Ships".  Several years ago Australian waters were invaded by boats launched out of Indonesia, carrying "refugees".  The Labour government of the day welcomed them into Australia.  At its height, one boat a week was arriving on Australian shores.  Most of these "boat people" were not genuine refugees: they were economic migrants who had paid money for passage to Australia.  They arrived, as the scam requires, with all their documentation mysteriously missing.  No passports, no documents proving provenance.  No UN refugee certification.  Nothing. 

Then Labour lost an election, and the Liberal administration stopped the boats virtually overnight.  They simply deployed the Australian navy to detect the ships and turn them back to Indonesia.  They continue to patrol in this fashion, and they continue to turn boats back.

But those in the business of people-running on the seas are smart, well-informed, cunning, and business savvy.

An Ancient Evil

Slavery is Growing in the West

We expect that "history" will record the early 21st century to be one which allowed international slavery to flourish.  Most of this new slavery manifested itself as people from less prosperous socio-economic regions and countries migrated illegally to more wealthy countries.  They were smuggled across national borders, or brought into countries under pretext, then forced to work as slaves.  

A recent headline in The Guardian claimed that slavery in the UK has increased by 300 percent.  It went on to clarify that this huge increase was due not to an explosion of slaving into the UK, but to better reporting.  In other words, this modern form of slavery has existed for some time, and is only now coming to be exposed.

Going Way, Way Back To The Present

Humanitarianism, Open Borders, And Slavery

In a modern country in 2017, how would you define slavery?  The definition would surely include someone being forced to work against their will--in other words, someone who does not have the option or opportunity to resign or quit and walk away.  It would apply to a person who has no access to the protection of the country's labour laws.  It would include those over whose heads dire consequences hang if they refuse to work or neglect to do what they are told.  It would cover those who are held against their will and forced to work.

Do such things exist in the OECD countries today?  You bet they do.  It's not just that they exist: in truth such things have multiplied to the point where, we are told, they are now endemic.  We have incidents reported occasionally in New Zealand.  People seeking work or student visas pay large sums of money to "agents" who process them through the system.  Then they turn upon their "clients" and demand services and work against their will, until they pay off their debts.  But their "remuneration" is little more than a meagre sum of money to keep them physically moving.

In New Zealand, when such circumstances come to light and are reported to the authorities, interdiction and state vengeance follow, provided the abuse can be proven.  But whilst such things remain underground they continue.  In the UK, we are now told, slavery operates in every large town and city in Britain.  Europe has become one of the fastest growing regions for slavery in the world.

The European Problem

Drinking Sea Water to Overcome Thirst

We continue to muse over whether Europe will ever survive as a union of states--with a Federal bureaucracy holding final and absolute power.

It is doubtful that it will.  Hungary is now setting an increasingly independent course--independent, that is, from the "Europe with no borders" commitment of Angela Merkel and the reigning bureaucracy in Brussels.  The way the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban puts it, the nations of Europe should, on the one hand, be thoroughly committed to European values, while, on the other, it must (therefore) close its borders to the migrant horde.

In Orban's view, there is an evil empire operating within Europe, tearing it apart from the inside.  And that empire is both led and controlled by another Hungarian, one George Soros.

Judicial Rebellion Quashed

Radical Lower-Court Justices Body Slammed

The US Supreme Court has handed down a momentous decision.  Yes, said the justices, the President of the United States can stop visitors and migrants from entering the United States when national security is at stake.

This case is momentous for a number of reasons.  At the top of the list is the Supreme Court's body slam of judicial overreach where the un-elected judicial branch of government was arrogating to itself more and more powers over the legislative and executive branches of government.

David French reviews the case and decision:

An Open Letter From Geert Wilders

‘The Bell Tolls for Europe’ 

Europeans Are in Danger of Being Replaced

Geert Wilders
BreitbartLondon

For Western Europe’s ruling elites, protecting the rights of so-called asylum seekers has become more important than protecting their own citizens.  Recently, Germany provided a staggering example of this. An immigrant from Uganda raped a woman, but the German authorities refuse to expel him because the rapist claims to be gay and homosexuals are prosecuted in his home country.

The elites also refuse to defend our own identity, and today’s Dutch newspapers contain an example of that. A Protestant church proposes that the official holiday, which the Dutch enjoy for the Christian feast of Pentecost, be replaced by an official holiday on the Islamic feast of Eid-al-Fitr.

With this proposal, the Christian group says, it wants “to do justice to diversity in religion.” However, if there is one culture on earth which allows no diversity in religion whatsoever, it is Islam. Just look at Saudi-Arabia, where they do not even allow the construction of a single church.

I have picked these two examples because they pertain to the two most important issues Europe is currently facing: Mass immigration and the surge of Islam. If we do not want to be wiped away, our population replaced and our culture annihilated, it is vital that we start acting forcefully and courageously to protect our citizens and our civilisation.

Mass immigration is the first major issue we need to tackle. Those who think that since 2015 the worst is behind us, are wrong.

The More Things Change . . .

Migration in the Name of Religious Belief

The Scots and the Scots-Irish had a hard time after the death of Cromwell and the restoration of Charles II in England.  After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, things were better, but the Scots continued to labour under restrictions of various kinds.  One consequence of this oppression was "voting feet": large numbers of Scots and Scots-Irish sailed for America.  

As one historian put it:

After the year 1714, their ships began to cross the sea from Ulster in a long unbroken line.  For more than sixty years they continued to come.  It was the most extensive movement ever made from Europe to America before the modern days of steamships.  Often as many as 12,000 came in a single year. . . . In the two years, 1773 and 1774, more than 30,000 came.  A body of about 600,000 Scots was thus brought from Ulster and Scotland to the American colonies, making about one-fourth of our population at the time of the Revolution.  [H. A. White, cited by Douglas Wilson, Five Cities that Ruled the World (Nashville, Tn.: Thomas Nelson, 2009), p. 144.]

These migrants were both economic and political in their motivation.  That is, they were poor and the prospects for  life were better  in the New World, than the Old.  But they were also second class citizens by dint of official policy in England.  These things have a contemporary sound about them, given the mass migration now underway from the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia into Europe and probably, eventually, into the United States.

Demonising Immigrants

The Other Side of the Coin

The NZ Labour Party leader, Angry Andy Little has vowed to reduce immigrants coming into New Zealand by thousands.  It's a populist policy--a kind of Trumpism. Loud, bold, and oozing with braggadocio.

Here is a response from one of his friends:

Andrew Little is a regular at my restaurant. Here’s what I’d like to say to him about immigration

Yael Shochat
The Spinoff

Israeli-born Yael Shochat is the owner of much-loved Fort St institution Ima Cuisine. She writes about the essential role immigration plays in her restaurant – and why the Labour leader’s vow to slash immigrant numbers by ‘tens of thousands’ has her deeply worried.

Two years ago, after 17 years living here, I received my New Zealand citizenship. Now I can say that I am proud to be both a New Zealander and a first generation immigrant from Israel. In 1998 I followed my Kiwi husband here because as a scientist in Israel, a country with one of the highest science and engineering degrees per capita, he couldn’t find a job. When I arrived in Auckland I found the cultural scene to be, quite frankly, dull. As a lover of food I had the option of either pies, eggs benedict or sushi, if I was lucky. The Jewish community that offered me a feeling of home was – by numbers – absolutely miniscule. These were hangovers from a post World War II immigration policy that only “opened the door” to Brits while discriminating against poorer migrants and refugees.

I was determined to make something of my passion for food. In the 14 years since I started running restaurants and cafes specialising in Middle Eastern and Jewish cuisine, I have not only employed hundreds of Kiwis and immigrants alike, but I’d like to think I’ve had a hand in contributing to the new culinary renaissance in this city and left it a more exciting place than how I found it.


YAEL SHOCHAT OUTSIDE HER FORT ST RESTAURANT, IMA CUISINE. PHOTO: SIMON WILSON

To Mr Andrew Little, and to dear Jacinda, whom I consider a friend: you’ve been to my restaurant, Ima Cuisine, many times. You’ve shared my company and enjoyed my most beloved dishes – immigrant food from all over the Jewish diaspora, and Palestinian food, the indigenous cuisine of my country. What are we going to say to each other next time you come in? Are you going to give “compliments to the chefs”, half of whom are not welcome here under your immigration policy? Am I welcome here? I certainly don’t feel welcome now that you’ve promised to cut “tens of thousands” of immigrants.

An Offensive Decision

Bent And Twisted Moral Compasses

Every so often decision are made by bureaucrats which defy common sense.  We use that term deliberately.  There are some things which are beyond the comprehension of the ordinary bloke.  And so it has come to pass in New Zealand in a matter of deportation.

An immigration official has made a decision not to deport a twice-convicted sex offender, whose victims have included young girls.  This chap--an immigrant--has been allowed to remain in New Zealand, provided he does not re-offend over the next five years.  Cynics have opened up by asking the question that is begged loudly and insistently: what would it take for an immigrant to be deported?  Let's think.  Mass murder? Spitting on an immigration official? Refusing to vote for the Greens?  Unreasonable and stupid questions, we hear you mutter.  Quite.  Immigration New Zealand appears to be nonsensical, stupid, without rhyme or reason.  Unreasonable and stupid bureaucrats deserve to be mocked in the same vein in which they have assailed and mocked their fellow citizens, whom they ultimately, in this life, serve.

Following Canada's Example

Immigration and the Control of Borders

The EU has failed miserably to control its borders.  Weighed down by utopian idealism, it has opened its borders virtually to anyone who comes.  It sees itself as the great beacon of humanitarianism.  It's utopian dreaming has caused dislocations not only in the host countries of Europe, but in the "sending" countries as well.  Germany has led the ideological charge towards utopia.  If the European Union breaks apart as a result, Germany will largely be to blame.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States is having its own struggles over immigration.  Under President Obama, the US followed in Chancellor Merkel's train.  Obama's grand progressive humanism became more and more evident as he instructed immigration and border agents to ignore the law and turn a blind eye to the folk streaming across the southern border.

Now Trump has announced that he favours a different system--a points-based system, which is far more discerning, selective, and enables the aligning of US interests with the aspiring immigrant.  This, we believe, will prove to be a huge step forward.