Los Angeles – When Arizona signed its new immigration law, SB 1070, on April 4, the immediate response by several cities and states was to enact economic boycotts against the state, with the aim of pressuring legislators to rethink the law.
Now, with just over a month to go until the law takes effect July 28, maintaining those embargoes appears to have been tough going for most – especially in the wider economic downturn – and several have watered down their actions.
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday granted itself an exemption to the city’s boycott of Arizona to keep a red light photo enforcement program operating. The program generates about $3.6 million in annual ticket revenue for the city. The day before, Oakland voted to approve a $1 million contract with a multinational advertising company with corporate offices in Phoenix.
San Jose, which has several contracts with Arizona companies cited potential economic harm in stopping short of a full boycott, voting instead for an official denunciation of SB 1070. The Arizona law allows police officers to question anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant, and makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.
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June 28, 2010
Why boycotts about Arizona immigration law are stalling
June 26, 2010
Immigration cap to be put on skilled workers from outside EU
By Nicholas Watt
A cap on immigration to Britain from outside the European Union will be imposed from next month despite cabinet concerns that the policy could harm the economy by shutting out skilled workers.
Theresa May, the home secretary, is expected to announce that a maximum of 24,100 workers will be allowed into Britain from outside the EU before April. May will make the announcement as she launches a consultation process to decide the level of a permanent cap to be enforced from next April.
The home secretary is pressing ahead in the face of concerns among members of the cabinet that an arbitrary cap could deprive the economy of skilled labour. Michael Gove, the schools secretary, and David Willetts, the universities minister, are understood to have raised concerns at a cabinet committee meeting chaired by Nick Clegg. The Lib Dems strongly opposed the cap during the election but allowed it to form part of the coalition agreement.
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June 25, 2010
Government reconsidering plans to impose immigration cap
By Haroon Siddique
The coalition government is rethinking plans to introduce an immigration cap – a flagship Conservative policy during the election campaign – amid fears that it could damage the economy, it was reported today.
The home secretary, Theresa May, will begin consultation with businesses on the policy next week.
Business leaders have warned that an immigration cap could make businesses less competitive and are hoping for a change of mind.
The Financial Times reported that the education secretary, Michael Gove, and the universities secretary, David Willetts, are among cabinet members who have warned that a rigid cap could prove harmful to the City.
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Now a human trafficking row
By RICKEY SINGH
AS HAS HAPPENED quite often in recent years with respect to its annual reports on drug trafficking in the Caribbean, the United States of America now seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest by its latest report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP) with Guyana, for one, loudly crying “foul” and calling for an apology.
In its just-released 2010 TIP Report, the United States State Department has spread its accusations to blaming governments – Jamaica, included – for failing to provide required “comprehensive data” during the reporting period.
For its part, the Guyana Government lost no time in going on the offensive on Monday against the United States State Department, using undiplomatic language to dismiss the 2010 TIP Report in reference to that Caricom state as “sheer ‘eye-pass’ (creolese for insult); “crap” and “diatribe”.
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June 23, 2010
US stands by trafficking in persons report
By Oluatoyin Alleyne
The US State Department yesterday stood firmly behind its 2010 trafficking in persons (TIP) report on Guyana even as the government here has indicated its intention to take its protest against the report to the US Congress in an effort to “correct these misleading reports.”
Ambassador-at-Large Luis C de Baca of the Office to Monitor and Combat Traf-ficking in Persons speaking to reporters from Washington via a video link at the US Embassy yesterday said the information contained in the report was accurate and its sources were authentic.
Asked whether the US Government would consider withdrawing the report following strenuous objections from the Guyana Government the ambassador offered a terse, “No.”
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Nebraska town bars illegal immigrants from jobs and renting property
Ed Pilkington in New York
A small town in the pig-farming and cattle rearing great plains of Nebraska has opened the latest frontline in the battle over immigration by voting effectively to banish all illegal immigrants.
Under ordinance 5165, which passed in a special election yesterday, undocumented immigrants in Fremont will lose the right to rent homes and take up jobs. A new system of licences for property and business will be introduced to catch out those without proper resident status.
The measure was passed on a turn-out of 45% of the population, with 3,906 in favour and 2,908 against.
Fremont has relatively few immigrants: in a 2008 census, 4.4% of its 25,000 population were recorded as foreign born, compared with the national figure of 12.6%. Most are Hispanics.
Pan-Arab narrative a myth in Lebanon
Nesrine Malik
Anger towards Lebanon is brewing in Sudan and in Sudanese online forums. According to reports in the Arab media, a fundraising party held by Sudanese immigrants and asylum seekers in Beirut in aid of a child with cancer, was raided by Lebanese security apparently on the hunt for illegal residents.
Eyewitnesses report that although most of those attending produced valid residency cards, this did not spare them from being handcuffed, beaten and racially abused. According to Sudanese and Lebanese newspaper reports (in Arabic), the detainees were referred to as animals who "learned how to wear nice clothes" and "black pieces of coal", and lined up flat on their bellies. Some members of the police, seemingly ignorant of the fact that there are any Arabic-speaking black Arabs, asked some of the Sudanese how they spoke Arabic so fluently. The Sudanese responded that they were Arabs from Sudan. In disbelief, the officers thought that they were being mocked, and another round of beating started.
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June 22, 2010
Barbados on Human Trafficking 'watch list'
Barbados HAS BEEN put on a human trafficking “watch list”.
Against a backdrop of reported cases of child prostitution, domestic servitude, stepfathers and other adults coercing children into “transactional sex”, and the involvement of Guyanese criminals linking with Barbadian and Trinidadian pimps to lure foreign women into the country with offers of legitimate jobs, Barbados has been placed on a tier two “watch list” reserved for countries that don’t comply with minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking.
Alongside these alarming and depressing charges about Barbados in the United States State Department’s annual global report on human trafficking – released on Monday – the report said Barbados was “making significant efforts to eliminate human trafficking” but the Government’s approach to the problem was “weak”, especially when it came to prosecuting trafficking, raising public awareness of the risks and dangers in trafficking, and taking steps to end it.
“The Barbados Government made no discernible progress in its anti-human trafficking law enforcement efforts during the year,” Washington charged.
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June 21, 2010
Wild Coot - Culture at Risk?
Geert Wilder, a Dutch member of parliament, recently in an address at the Four Seasons in New York warned Americans that within a few short years their country would be predominantly Muslim.
To be predominantly Muslim means a change in culture of the country. American culture today is basically a Christian culture just like Barbados’.
For a country to maintain its culture the minimum fertility rate must be 2.11 children per family. We shall see at the end of our current census what is the fertility rate of Barbadians. It would be interesting to know as well what is the fertility rate of Muslims in Barbados.
How near are we in Barbados to having the felicitous, eye-pleasing gyrations of crop-over changed?
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June 11, 2010
Massive illegal visa bust in Kingston
By Stabroek staff | June 9, 2010 in Regional News
(Jamaica Gleaner) A massive illegal visa operation conducted out of a modest property on John’s Lane in downtown Kingston was yesterday morning raided by police from the Flying Squad.
Hundreds of passports, fake Justice of the Peace stamps and other stamps were found in the premises where fake United States visas were being sold for up to J25,000 dollars each.
However the police did not find the main stamp used to place the fake US visas inside passports.
One man was arrested and a motor car seized by the police during the operation which was led by Flying Squad boss Superintendent Cornwall ‘Bigga’ Ford.
June 10, 2010
Fred Pearce: overpopulation worries are a potentially racist distraction
Matilda Lee The Ecologist
Pearce writes that 'national border control are the new apartheid of a globalised world economy'.
2nd February, 2010
Environmental journalist Fred Pearce, author of the new book Peoplequake, on why overconsumption is the key issue, the need for relaxed immigration laws, and why men should look after children
Matilda Lee: What spurred you to write a book on population?
Fred Pearce: We had huge population concerns during the 1960s and into the 70s, then people rather lost interest in it. Just in the last two or three years, I've noticed that people have been talking about it again in the context of climate change and new concerns about food security. I wanted to look at what was actually happening to the world's population and the relationship to resource use and environmental damage.
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June 7, 2010
Immigration Makes Our Cities Safer. Even in Arizona
Illegal trafficking in both people and narcotics is a problem plaguing the Arizona border. It's why the Obama administration pledged 1200 National Guard troops near the border. And supporters of SB 1070 would have you believe that it's a crime wave tied to scores of illegal immigrants. Not so fast.
Violent crime in Arizona, and other states that have a significant immigrant populations, has been consistently on the decline, especially recently. For example, after a spike in 2006 and 2007, the number of violent crimes reported in Phoenix dropped to 10,465 in 2008 and to 8,730 in 2009. That decrease even includes murder. In 2006 Phoenix had a murder rate of 234. That dropped to 167 in 2008 and 122 in 2009 despite the consistent uptick in violence across the border and more concentrated trafficking networks. But supporters of SB 1070 swear the illegal immigrant community is overwhelming local law enforcement resources. What can explain these numbers?
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June 2, 2010
Rep. Raul Grijalva: New Deployment of National Guard to US-Mexico Border Is Election-Year "Political Symbolism"
Democracy Now
President Obama has defended his plans to further militarize the US border with Mexico. On Tuesday, Obama said he would deploy an additional 1,200 National Guard troops to the southern border and ask Congress for an extra $500 million for border security. We get reaction from Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who says border militarization advocates are trying to avoid comprehensive immigration reform.
See full story here.
Arizona governor defends immigration law; will meet with president
Washington (CNN) -- Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer made clear Tuesday she's not worried about a potential legal challenge from the Obama administration over her state's controversial immigration law.
"We'll meet you in court," Brewer told CNN' when asked how she would respond if President Barack Obama's Department of Justice decided to challenge the law. "I have a pretty good record of winning in court."
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