Category: Migration, Refugees, and Asylum

Why don’t the British withdraw from the asylum system?

by philg

“The Tory immigration failure” (UnHerd, 11/28/2022):

Over the past year, according to data released last week, net migration into Britain has soared to 504,000, the highest on record. This means half a million more people are coming into Britain than are leaving – that’s a city the size of Liverpool every year.

But not only are the Tories presiding over record amounts of legal migration, they are also overseeing a rapid rise in numbers of people arriving in the country unlawfully, in small boats across the Channel.

The number of people arriving in this manner has now rocketed from 300 to nearly 40,000 in five years. The largest single group of foreign nationals on the boats come not from a war-torn country but Albania, a country that is currently in talks to join the EU.

… the number of outstanding asylum claims has just reached its highest point on record, with 140,000 asylum-seekers waiting decisions and fewer than one in five being processed.

Who voted for this? Who wants this? If you look at the latest surveys, only 10% of Britain thinks immigration since the Brexit referendum has been “too low” and only 19% want it increased in the years ahead.

By pushing on with mass immigration, by failing to genuinely take back control of Britain’s borders, by refusing to reform modern slavery legislation and Britain’s relationship with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the only things that would enable the country to truly regain control of its borders, the Conservative Party is about to send British politics all the way back to the early 2010s, where a divided society gives rise to an ugly populism.

A majority of Brits voted for Brexit and, therefore, implicitly for a reduction in low-skill immigration. The UK is a sovereign nation. What stops the UK from saying “We withdraw from the The 1951 Refugee Convention and, therefore, asylum is no longer available”?

October 2022:

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Will David DePape be deported to Canada?

by philg

Happy Thanksgiving week everyone! Except for Canadians, who celebrated on October 10. Speaking of Canadians, what’s the plan for David DePape, the undocumented immigrant who attacked Paul Pelosi? Will he be deported to Canada after completing a prison sentence?

From https://www.speaker.gov/issues/immigration-reform, November 5, 2022:

Our nation’s immigrants are the constant reinvigoration of America. Each wave of newcomers brings their patriotism, bravery and determination to succeed to our shores – and in doing so, makes America more American. As students and servicemembers, entrepreneurs and public servants, parents and neighbors, these new Americans affirm our country’s fundamental, founding truth: that in diversity, lies strength.

Yet President Trump and Congressional Republicans continue to push a hateful, harmful anti-immigrant agenda that instills fear in our communities and weakens our country. Instead of respecting the hard-working men and women who want to contribute to our nation, Republicans are trying to make American taxpayers pay for an immoral, ineffective and expensive border wall. At the same time, the Trump Administration is unleashing a cruel deportation force that is tearing apart families across America.

It’s interesting that Trump was still president, as far as Pelosi’s official web site was concerned, nearly two years after leaving office. Separately, since Nancy Pelosi assures us that immigrants are superior overall to native-born Americans, what did David DePape do prior to the unfortunate incident of October 28, 2022 to exhibit “patriotism, bravery and determination to succeed”?

What are we thankful for this year? I’m thankful that I don’t live in San Francisco where even the elite are not safe in their homes and where children of the non-elite are always one Scientist’s email away from having their schools closed.

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Car wash owner on immigration

by philg

A text message exchange with a friend who owns a car wash in a Democrat-run sanctuary city. I asked whether Governors Abbott and DeSantis were sending him a good supply of migrants.

Him: Not yet!

Me: Would be good for your labor costs. What are you paying now?

Him: Average wage is about $22 per hour.

Me: We are informed that $15 is fair.

Him: I can’t get high school kids for $15. I don’t understand how people afford life.

Me: What do they make after tips? I always tip 20% at car wash.

Him: $22 is the average wage with tips. It’s all reported income because 90 percent of tips are credit card. I pay employment taxes on the tip wages. So if you tipped him, I owe taxes on that amount.

Me: Is there a variation in wage depending on skill?

Him: Most people that are full time make $25-29 per hour. High school kids make $19, which is insane. They are useless. College kids even worse. Entitled and can’t solve problems on any level. Wish we had more legal migrants. I would hire them all. White [local] kids = not good workers. We need more migrants. Just legal ones who are willing to work.

Me: I am seeing a good blog post here.

Him: I think another 50 million legal migrants would solve all our issues. The government could continue to pay the elite natives to stay home and print money to pay migrants to do all the work. Of course it would cause housing inflation, but that’s the Ponzi scheme we all benefit from. [“we all” being those rich enough to own homes!]

Related… a tastefully understated vehicle at the local car wash (entire crew from Latinx America):

Also, in the Department of Diversity is Our Strength, “Diversity is important in all industries, but perhaps especially so in supercomputing,” from my former employer Hewlett-Packard:

What did I do for HP, you might ask? Helped in 1982-83 with the first implementation of the Precision Architecture, a RISC processor that eventually morphed into the Intel Itanium server chips (final shipments in July 2021, nearly 40 years after my efforts on a wire wrap prototype).

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New York Times: replacement theory is false; it is just that white Americans are becoming a minority

by philg

“Their America Is Vanishing. Like Trump, They Insist They Were Cheated.” (New York Times, October 23, 2022) is on the evergreen topic of the remarkable stupidity of people who don’t live in New York. The main subject of election fraud is not what struck me, though.

The newspaper that assures us that replacement theory is false, like other “fringe right-wing conspiracy theories”, gleefully points out the Dämmerung der Weißen (the twilight of the whites; see also Götterdämmerung):

The county in recent years has become one of the nation’s most diverse, where the former white majority has fallen to just 30 percent of the population.

A shrinking white share of the population is a hallmark of the congressional districts held by the House Republicans who voted to challenge Mr. Trump’s defeat…

Because they are more vulnerable, disadvantaged or less educated white voters can feel especially endangered by the trend toward a minority majority,…

… the white population of the United States expected within about two decades to lose its majority.

Maybe there could be an opera about this. I would love to see Donald Trump portrayed as a character by the Metropolitan Opera.

Related:

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Massachusetts Migrant Welcome

by philg

“Battenfeld: Charlie Baker quietly sends migrants to Methuen hotel with no warning” (Boston Herald):

the Baker administration quietly bused scores of immigrant families to a questionable Methuen hotel last Friday without even telling local authorities.

The lack of transparency is shocking enough but what about the ethics of sending these hungry and confused immigrants, including more than 100 children, to a hotel without any initial support.

“Eight days later, there’s still no concrete plan on how to deal with it,” said Methuen Mayor Neil Perry after meeting with the state Department of Housing and Community Development on Thursday. “They didn’t even present, you know, how many of these school-aged children are what age, whether they would be going to Methuen (schools) or not.”

The state is providing no public explanation for why the migrants were sent to the Methuen motel, bypassing motels and hotels in more affluent areas like Andover and North Andover. It’s unclear whether the families and children are here legally or illegally.

“All families in the shelter program receive services through local service providers, including three meals a day, assistance with housing search, case management work, and DCHD is working closely with other state agencies, local entities, and service providers to address the needs of the families that are currently housed in Methuen,” a DCHD statement said.

The migrants are from Haiti, Colombia and Venezuela, according to Perry, and some came from outside Massachusetts.

Now they’re Methuen’s problem. Well done, Charlie.

Baker was among those who questioned Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for sending dozens of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last month.

“Sending people all over the country, many of whom have no idea why they’re being sent where they’re going, isn’t a solution to the very screwed up immigration system we have in the U.S.” Baker said.

Now Baker has essentially done the same thing DeSantis did, providing no warning or explanation to Methuen officials and no plan for assimilating the migrants into schools and housing. The hotel the migrants are staying in is known for having safety issues, according to local officials.

“If the plan is to find them housing in the Methuen community, I have to respectfully push back,” Mayor Perry said. “Not that I don’t want them to have housing, I have housing needs of my own community today I’m not satisfying.”

It’s the last line that I find interesting. The guy who runs Methuen is a Massachusetts Democrat and, therefore, presumably as welcoming to migrants as anyone in the U.S. And in fact he says that he wants migrants to have housing… but not in his city. Where exactly are the next few million migrants going to live then?

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What’s an Indigenous Immigrant?

by philg

I’m back in our AirBnB in Paris where we live like the guys in La Boheme if they had 500 Mbit symmetric fiber Internet. No longer limited to 0.5 GB of mobile data per day at $10 (the Verizon Travel Pass; Google Maps by itself can consume close to this quota), it is time to check the New York Times. “Los Angeles City Council President Steps Down After Racist Comments”:

In a meeting last year, Nury Martinez mocked Indigenous immigrants and the Black child of a fellow council member. She will remain on the council but relinquished her leadership role.

The president of the Los Angeles City Council stepped down from her powerful leadership role on Monday after a leaked audio recording revealed racist and disparaging remarks that she had made about the Black child of a white council member, and about Indigenous immigrants in the city’s Koreatown neighborhood.

“I take responsibility for what I said, and there are no excuses for those comments. I’m so sorry,” Nury Martinez, the council president, said in a statement on Monday announcing that she would resign from the leadership role, but not from the council as some people had demanded. “As a mother, I know better and I am sorry. I am truly ashamed.”

In the profanity-laced recording, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times and which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Ms. Martinez, who is Latina, compared the Black child of a white council member to a “changuito,” Spanish for little monkey. She also called Oaxacan immigrants living in Koreatown “short little dark people.”

There is much to ponder here. If this politician were not a mother, she would not “know better”? What is it about motherhood that gave her so much wisdom?

Second, how is it possible for someone to be both indigenous and an immigrant? From M-W:

indigenous: produced, growing, living, or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment

immigrant : a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence or a plant or animal that becomes established in an area where it was previously unknown

Aren’t these opposite terms and concepts?

Finally, this politician is a racist and therefore cannot serve as leader of the 15-member City Council. At the same time, she is not a racist and therefore can serve as a member of the City Council?

Speaking of Los Angeles, Land of Lockdown in the Sun, here’s an except from In a Dry Season, a book that I read in prep for the UK trip:

[a Brit who returns from living in Los Angeles] smiled and patted his arm. “Thanks. You’re sweet.” She snatched a cigarette from his packet and lit up. “You don’t smoke,” Banks said. “I do now.” Jenny blew out a long plume. “I’ve just about had it up to here with those nico-Nazis out there. You can’t smoke anywhere. And to think California was a real hotbed of protest and innovation in the sixties. It’s like a fucking kindergarten run by fascists now.”

The book was published in 1999.

Speaking of immigrants and the UK, here’s a book that was for sale at the Tate Modern:

What else were they selling?

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How can U.S. population be forecast under our current asylum-based immigration system?

by philg

The Congressional Budget Office has a recent report forecasting U.S. population for the next 30 years: The Demographic Outlook: 2022 to 2052 (cbo.gov).

The authors say that U.S. population will continue to grow, all due to immigration:

Since immigrants have a higher birth rate than native-born Americans, the above chart shows that there will be a dramatic increase in the percentage of the U.S. population that is either immigrants or children of recent immigrants (but this decline in percentage of native-born cannot be characterized as a “replacement”).

The southern border is open to anyone who is willing to walk across. Anyone who walks across is entitled to claim asylum, entering a process that could take years. Depending on the country of origin, a denial of asylum has no practical effect in terms of headcount. The migrant cannot be deported to a country such as Venezuela where the U.S. does not have an agreement in place with the government. (NYT)

How can the demographers know what percentage of the 28 million Venezuelans will decide to walk into the U.S., much less what percentage of the rest of the 7+ billion people on Planet Earth who are not already Americans? Given our current asylum-based immigration policy, unless we know how many countries will experience Venezuelan-style economic or political issues over the next 30 years, how can we know how many people will walk into the U.S. and stay forever?

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If the Migrants expelled from Martha’s Vineyard can afford lawyers, why not plane tickets back to San Antonio?

by philg

“Migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard have filed a lawsuit against Gov. DeSantis” (state-sponsored NPR, 9/20):

A civil rights law firm filed a federal class action lawsuit on Tuesday against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others for transporting around 50 immigrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, without shelter or resources in place.

Alianza Americas’ Executive Director Oscar Chacón said that DeSantis used the migrants to “advance a hate-filled agenda.” “That is why we have taken the steps to legally challenge what we view as not only a morally reprehensible action, but what we believe is also illegal,” he said.

Attorneys want DeSantis and his fellow defendants to be banned from “inducing immigrants to travel across state lines by fraud and misrepresentation,” as well as damages “for the harm suffered by the migrants.”

The migrants were harmed by being transported to a place that people were willing to pay $616 per night (plus taxes and the “resort fee” scam) to stay in (I checked the late-September Edgartown hotel rates a few days ago).

The Vineyard 50 have enough money, either in their pockets or via donation, to pay lawyers at least $500,000 to push a lawsuit through Federal court.

Is there a cheaper way to mitigate the harm that they’re suffering by being in Massachusetts surrounded by the fully vaccinated and masked applying “No Human Being is Illegal” signs and bumper stickers to lawns and cars rather than in Texas, which by implication is a superior place to live? If the Vineyard 50 can get from the off-island detention camp in which they’ve been interned to Boston’s Logan Airport, a one-way plane ticket back to the San Antonio paradise from which they were snatched is about $100:

For less than $6,000 every migrant could be back in San Antonio.

Perhaps the Vineyard residents who cheered as the migrants were bussed out of their upscale town could go to Logan Airport to see them off. Hawaiians have a tradition of hanging leis around the necks of people who arrive (“Nothing says Aloha like our Classic Orchid Lei”). The property owners of Martha’s Vineyard could establish a tradition of providing leis to migrants who are departing back to Texas and/or Florida (“Nothing says Adios like our Maskachusetts State Flower Lei made from mayflowers”).

From the Boston Globe recently, “Plane towing a banner reading ‘Vineyard Hypocrites’ circles Martha’s Vineyard”:

The last part is my favorite. Given an island whose real estate was already half empty due to the summer season winding down, it was a “herculean” effort for some of the country’s wealthiest people to shelter 50 migrants (out of millions) for two nights.

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Why aren’t U.S. billionaires trying to influence Mexico regarding migration throughput?

by philg

There are billionaires on both sides of the U.S. debate regarding whether we should welcome more low-skill migrants (this analysis by a Harvard professor says that an economically rational billionaire will choose more low-skill migrants). American billionaires are so rich that the kind of money Donald Trump was hoping to get from Congress for an effective border wall (about $11 billion) is within private reach.

Given how important the question of immigration is to the United States, I’m wondering why the billionaires arrayed on both sides aren’t in Mexico City offering to pay the Mexicans to adjust the flow. Democrat billionaires who’ve publicly advocated for more low-skill migrants could, for example, pay the Mexicans to assist caravans of those passing through from the south reach the Rio Grande. Republican billionaires could then step in and offer to pay to get the tide reversed or even pay Mexicans to Build the Wall!

Related:

  • “Democrats Decried Dark Money. Then They Won With It in 2020.” (nytimes, January 2022), suggesting that the Democrats would win because they have more money to spend
  • “Governor Ducey Announces Border Wall Gaps Near Yuma Are Now Filled” (https://azgovernor.gov/): … 3,820 feet of previously open border near Yuma, Arizona is now closed with a barrier of double-stacked and secured shipping containers. … In just 11 days, Arizona did the job the federal government has failed to do — and we showed them just how quickly and efficiently the border can be made more secure – if you want to.” (i.e., the federal government need not be the only wall-builder, even on the U.S. side of the border)
  • “Containers are no hindrance for migrants on Arizona border” (ABC, a few days later): Hours before Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey declared “a major step forward to secure our border” with the installation of 130 double-stacked shipping containers, hundreds of migrants found their way around them, belying his claim. They walked through tribal lands to the edge of a towering wall built during Donald Trump’s presidency to surrender to border agents waiting outside the reservation, expecting to be released in the U.S. to pursue asylum. Families, young parents carrying toddlers, elderly people and others easily waded through the knee-deep Colorado River before dawn Wednesday, many in sandals with shopping bags slung over their shoulders. Migrants continue to avoid barriers by going around them — in this case, through a 5-mile (8-kilometer) gap in the Cocopah Indian Reservation near Yuma, a desert city of about 100,000 people between San Diego and Phoenix that has become a major spot for illegal crossings. President Joe Biden halted wall construction his first day in office, leaving billions of dollars of work unfinished but still under contract.
  • “How Much of Trump’s Border Wall Was Built?” (US News)
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Migrants to Nantucket?

by philg

The 50 asylum-seekers sent to Martha’s Vineyard have reached sanctuary in the middle of a military base in the middle of an off-island forest. Where can the next group of migrants who want to escape to a properly governed Science-following state land? Here’s an email that I received today from an airfare alert service:

Only $234 for a migrant to start enjoying his/her/zir/their best life amidst the “No Human is Illegal” sign forest of Massachusetts, entering via an island of vacant-through-May mansions. Given TSA rules, perhaps this would work only for undocumented migrants who have documents such as passports.

I wonder if there will be a sufficient supply, though. “Migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard have filed a lawsuit against Gov. DeSantis” (state-sponsored NPR):

Attorneys want DeSantis and his fellow defendants to be banned from “inducing immigrants to travel across state lines by fraud and misrepresentation,” as well as damages “for the harm suffered by the migrants.”

“Advocates for migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard sue Ron DeSantis” (Guardian):

According to the complaint, the Venezuelans, who are pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the US, “experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country. Defendants manipulated them, stripped them of their dignity, deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection under law, and impermissibly interfered with the federal government’s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda.”

If the cruelty here in the U.S., due to the existence of Republicans, makes life in the U.S. as bad as life Venezuela, why take the trouble to leave Venezuela? Or maybe the migrants will leave Venezuela, but stop and request asylum in one of the countries through which they would previously have simply passed?

  • “The Work versus Welfare Trade‐​Off: 2013” (CATO); Table 4 shows the dramatic superiority of being on welfare in Maskachusetts (spending power 1.2X what a worker at the median wage gets) compared to cruel Florida (only 0.4X the spending power of a median worker). The absolute dollar figures can be ignored because they are in pre-Biden money.
  • “Nantucket restaurant desperate to fill jobs, hiring 8th graders” (Fox Business, 2021)
  • a Massachusetts resident commenting in a chat group: “[folks on Martha’s Vineyard] have hundreds, maybe thousands, of empty beds and $9.8 million budget surplus in just one of the three towns alone to pay rental on those beds. What do they think other cities do? NYC pays $500 a night to house each person. They have the lowest tax rate of any town in the entire state and had tons of room to raise the property tax to replenish the surplus. Instead they called in a 125 person military response to remove them to an internment camp. So much for the yard sign virtue signaling. We need Martha’s Vineyard Airlift 2022 T shirts.” (the correct figure for empty beds on MVY is surely “thousands” not “hundreds” because the difference in in-season/off-season population is more than 50,000)
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