カテゴリーアーカイブ: Immigration

With new immigration proposals, state lawmakers hope to build momentum

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Democratic lawmakers will unveil a slew of new immigration-related proposals Tuesday, including measures that would extend state-paid health coverage to those in the country illegally and offer more protection against deportation.

Legislators behind the 10-bill package aim to build on the landmark immigration laws passed in California in recent years, such as one that allows people without legal residency to obtain driver’s licenses.

By keeping momentum on immigrant-aid policies, legislative leaders said, they hoped to spur liberalization of immigration laws nationwide.

“Our message to other states and to members of Congress in Washington, D.C., is that there’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles). “What is it that we fear in embracing the millions of human beings that are already living in our communities?”

The most far-reaching of the new proposals would offer enrollment in Medi-Cal — California’s healthcare program for the poor — to people who qualify regardless of immigration status.

In California, about 1.8 million people who are in the country illegally lack healthcare coverage, according to estimates by UC Berkeley and UCLA. About 1.5 million of them would qualify for Medi-Cal.

Joe Guzzardi of the group Californians for Population Stabilization, which calls for strict enforcement of immigration laws, decried benefits such as healthcare coverage for those without papers, saying they increase the strain put on the state by immigration.

“It doesn’t make any sense to keep on reaching out and encouraging more illegal immigration into California,” Guzzardi said.

“More people into California means more water consumption, more resource depletion, more traffic on the roads, more urban sprawl — that’s beyond question but it doesn’t seem to bother [lawmakers].”

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With new immigration proposals, state lawmakers hope to build momentum
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Volokh Conspiracy: Immigration and Equality

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Now that a federal judge has enjoined President Obama’s unilateral amnesty, immigration reform will have to be achieved the old-fashioned – and constitutional – way: by compromise with Congress. A grand bargain is not impossible, but it will require a broad re-framing of the issues and a clear sense of what is at stake. For one thing, any such bargain should end, once and for all, governmental discrimination on the basis of race.

Affirmative action and immigration might, at first glance, appear unrelated; in fact, they are profoundly and perversely intertwined. It is often said that anti-immigration sentiment is driven by a fear of competition; Americans are said to fear competing against new immigrants for jobs, for contracts, for educational opportunities. This account leaves out a crucial part of the story: Americans have never lacked competitive spirit or feared a fair fight. What many Americans fear is that these competitions will, in fact, be rigged from the outset. The sad fact is that they are right.

American law and policy will discriminate in favor of most immigrants — those of favored races such as blacks and Hispanics — and their children, and their children’s children. Correspondingly, American law and policy will discriminate against Americans of disfavored races — Asian Americans, Indian Americans, Caucasian Americans — and their children, and their children’s children. This discrimination is enshrined in federal law, in state law, and in private policy abetted by law. It is called affirmative action.

This systematic discrimination is pervasive in American life — in private employment, state employment and federal employment; in state contracting and federal contracting; at private universities and state universities. And in practice, it is no mere tie-breaker; it is a massive thumb on the scale in favor of some races and against others. A first-generation Asian American who has made his home in, say, Wisconsin and worked hard to earn for his children their chance at the American dream might, in principle, favor liberal immigration reform, so that more ambitious immigrants might follow in his footsteps. This Asian American may be happy to know that the son of a new Hispanic immigrant who settles next door would have an excellent chance of claiming his share of the American dream: With a respectable GPA and LSAT, such a boy would have, for example, a 62 percent chance of admission into the University of Wisconsin Law School. But this Asian American also may know a deeply perverse and unjust fact: If his own son earns identical credentials, that boy will have a mere 16 percent chance of admission, simply because of his race.   State law, federal law, private schools and public schools will all dramatically favor a Hispanic immigrant’s child over an Asian American child, simply on the basis of race. This is one of the great injustices of American life, and it is one of the great political and moral hurdles to immigration reform.

As a political matter, there is a natural bargain here. Democrats believe that immigration is a winning political issue for them; they believe that it makes them look compassionate while it makes Republicans look churlish. Affirmative action, on the other hand, is a political winner for Republicans; polls overwhelmingly oppose it, and it allows Republicans to argue for the ringing principle of equality under law, while Democrats are left to defend the status quo of institutional discrimination and racial spoils. The connection between these two issues creates the potential for a grand congressional compromise. Republicans could agree to comprehensive immigration reform, if Democrats would agree to end governmental discrimination on the basis of race.

Meanwhile, for President Obama, this would be more than a political victory; it would be a historic moral triumph. There is a broad consensus that our immigration system is broken and that it can be downright cruel in its current dysfunctional form. President Obama has wanted to achieve immigration reform since before the beginning of his presidency. As for affirmative action, President Obama is uniquely well qualified to explain the moral case for equality under law. His soaring speech in Selma last month reminded us all of how eloquent he can be on this topic: as he declared, the heroic marchers of 50 years ago “didn’t seek special treatment, just the equal treatment promised to them almost a century before.” Our newest Americans seek exactly the same thing. It is President Obama alone who can say to them:

Welcome to the United States of America. We are a nation of immigrants, a nation of opportunity. We are not a land of discrimination; we are a nation of equality under law. This is a nation where the son of a Kenyan immigrant may grow up to be president of the United States. Come to our shores and we make you this promise: We will treat you like everyone else. We will not discriminate against you based on your race, your color, your country of origin. And we will not discriminate in your favor either. Your children will be treated like our children. We will not discriminate in favor of your daughters on the basis of their race. But neither will we discriminate in favor of my daughters, Malia and Sasha, on the basis of theirs. We know that, like the marchers at Selma, you seek not special treatment but equal treatment, and that is what we promise you. You are welcome here, and we offer you a uniquely American constitutional guarantee. We promise you — our Fourteenth Amendment promises you — equal protection of the law.

This is the speech that President Obama was born to give, a speech that no one else could, a perfect complement to his speech at Selma. In one historic moment, he could renew the pride that we all felt six years ago when our first black president swore his oath of office. He could at once reform our immigration laws and, in the same moment, redeem the true promise of equal protection — the promise, in Justice Harlan’s words, that “[o]ur Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”

In 2008, President Obama promised to “fundamentally transform[] the United States of America”; here, at last, is the transformation that would assure his legacy. For the first time in American history, we could welcome immigrants of all colors to the nation of Martin Luther King’s dream, “a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” And President Obama could, for all time, be the one who made Martin Luther King’s dream come true.

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Volokh Conspiracy: Immigration and Equality
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Harris wants immigration controls scrapped

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“The number of people coming from the peninsula to settle in Sabah since 1963 has been negligible.”

Harris-Salleh_imigresen_600KOTA KINABALU: Former Sabah Chief Minister Harris Salleh, under attack from all sides for allegedly weakening Sabah’s immigration powers during his time, has called for the remaining controls between Sabah, Sarawak and the peninsula to be scrapped.

He also wants the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) to find out from the Singapore Government why it has banned Orang Asal youths, below 35 years, from working on the island, instead of picking on him. “We are nitpicking when the rest of the world is going borderless.”

“The number of people coming from the peninsula to settle in Sabah since 1963 has been negligible,” reiterated Harris in justifying his proposal. “The controls on the movement of our people between the peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak are unnecessary, even politically.”

“Malaysia is a developing nation. We need a free flow of people to help build up the country.”

He was rebutting statements by PBS and PKR that he was wrong in eroding Sabah’s immigration powers.

What will happen if the peninsula imposes immigration controls on Sabahans and Sarawakians?

“At present, our youths cari makan (find work) in the peninsula, not here. It’s easier there for them. There are over 100,000 Sabahan youths in the peninsula.”

The day will come, he warned, when Labuan would impose immigration controls on people entering the island from Sabah. “There are always two sides to a story. What is being presented now in the media is just one side of the coin.”

“Sabah contributes very little to Labuan,” claimed Harris. “Most of its visitors and business people are from Brunei, the peninsula, Sarawak and overseas.”

“So, in a tit-for-tat move, it can impose immigration controls on Sabahans entering the island.”

He was implying that Labuan should not be referred to as a loophole, in the immigration laws, allowing people to flood Sabah. He recalled that the Berjaya Government (1976-1985) scrapped the need for passports and ICs between the peninsula, Sarawak and Sabah “but the controls between the peninsula and Sabah were put back later, for some reason”.

He conceded that it was the decision of his Administration that visitors entering Sabah from Labuan need not produce passports and ICs. “It was the decision of the government of the day,” said Harris. “The decision was in accordance with the rule of law under parliamentary democracy which Malaysia practices.”

“Both Parliament and the Sabah Assembly decided.”

Harris, stressing that what has been done in the past can be undone, suggested that PBS bring up the matter of plugging all the loopholes in the immigration laws at the Barisan Nasional (BN) level, and later the Federal Cabinet, before proceeding to Parliament. “This is the rule of democratic law.”

“Of course there are other rules, some imaginary,” he added. “It’s not clear what rules that PBS and PKR are referring to.”

Source Article from http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2015/04/06/harris-wants-immigration-controls-scrapped/
Harris wants immigration controls scrapped
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Another Great Argument In Favour Of Immigration

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Which is that immigration can shake up the power and economic structure of the society into which people are immigrating. This is of course what some people worry about concerning immigration. But it is entirely possible for a society to become too static in economic terms and thus something that shocks that stability can be beneficial to all:

Mass migration to the United States shaped the U.S. economy in a variety of ways. Most vital was the continuous instability it brought. Local monopolies of labor and enterprise were broken up by immigrants. Techniques of production were upset by the succession of new views and conflicting attitudes. Where business had a monopoly, where labor controlled entry to an occupation, where engineers promulgated a traditional method of production – there resources were unlikely to be used with high efficiency. But the free market in ideas, the persistent competition of novelty, kept surfacing ever more efficient production techniques, then got them adopted.

Think this through in a slightly different manner. The way in which entry of a Walmart into a local economy kills off the Mom and Pop stores. This is, of course, why we see rather large numbers of the sort of people who own local retail businesses agitating against the idea that Walmart should be allowed to enter their local market. But the entry of that Walmart into that local market undoubtedly lowers prices for consumers: which is the point of our having an economy in the first place, we want consumers to be better off over time. Walmart is being those immigrants into that local economy. As is any business that expands into new territory of course: it’s an immigrant into a new part of the economy. And such business migration does much the same as immigrants themselves. Breaks up the locally stable economy.

We could look at this through the trials and tribulations of the old producers in that market. And indeed in some industries in the US, in some places, that is the way that we do look at it. Certain states, for example, insist that if you are to enter a certain line of business in that state then you must have the agreement of your soon to be competitors that you should be allowed to enter that business. The downside of this is of course that those extant businesses are able to extract oligopolistic profits from consumers due to the legal barriers to competition. And as above (and as both Smith and Bastiat pointed out) we’re really supposed to be looking at the economy from the point of view of consumption, not production.

Note that if the new business entering the area doesn’t make the consumers better off then that new business will fail in that area: it’s only if consumers become better off that they will patronise it after all.

So, another reason why immigration is to be welcomed: it stirs up the economy to the benefit of all.

My latest book is “23 Things We Are Telling You About Capitalism” At Amazon or Amazon UK. A critical (highly critical) re-appraisal of Ha Joon Chang’s “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism”.

Source Article from http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/04/05/another-great-argument-in-favour-of-immigration/
Another Great Argument In Favour Of Immigration
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The Fix: Obama met with Mormon leaders on immigration — a rare issue they actually agree on

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The Fix: Obama met with Mormon leaders on immigration — a rare issue they actually agree on
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Leaders clash on NHS and immigration

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The UK’s party leaders have clashed in the first TV election debate on a range of issues including the NHS, immigration and the deficit.

It is the only time David Cameron and Ed Miliband will appear together on TV ahead of 7 May’s polling day.

The Conservative and Labour leaders, as well as the leaders of the Lib Dems, UKIP, the Green Party, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, also debated zero-hours contracts, spending cuts and education in the ITV-hosted contest.

An average audience of 7.7m, which was a share of 34%, watched the debate on ITV, the BBC News Channel or Sky News.

Snap polls taken after the debate gave a mixed verdict.

A YouGov poll of 1,100 people gave a clear victory to the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, with 28%, followed by UKIP leader Nigel Farage on 20%, Mr Cameron on 18%, Mr Miliband on 15%, Mr Clegg on 10%, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett on 5% and Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood on 4%.

‘Pick and mix’

But a ComRes poll for ITV made it a dead heat between Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband, Mr Farage and Ms Sturgeon, although Mr Cameron came out on top on the question of who was most capable of leading the country.

Mr Miliband was judged best performer in an ICM poll for the Guardian, taking 25% of support, just ahead of David Cameron on 24%.

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Analysis by BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson

There was no game-changer. No single “moment”, no zinger, no gaffe which looks set to re-shape the course of this election. Save perhaps for one.

That was the presence on the stage of not two or three party leaders but seven – a debate in which the talk of a new sort of politics, multi-party politics, became visible reality.

If that gives a boost for UKIP’s Nigel Farage with his laser focus on immigration and his attack on the “Westminster parties” – as the early instant polls suggest – it will worry the Tories.

If it also promotes Natalie Bennett’s Greens, Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP and Leanne Wood’s Plaid Cymru after their assault on austerity – it will frighten Labour. The consequence could be an outcome more unpredictable and more uncertain than any election for years.

Read Nick’s full blog here.

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Some of the sharpest exchanges in the two-hour event came when Lib Dem Nick Clegg clashed with Mr Cameron.

Mr Clegg accused Mr Cameron of wanting to cut the money going into schools – Mr Cameron denied this and accused the Lib Dem leader of taking a “pick and mix approach” to decisions they had made together in cabinet.

Mr Miliband attacked Mr Clegg for “betraying young people” over tuition fees – a clearly riled Mr Clegg attacked the Labour leader’s “pious stance” and challenged Mr Miliband to apologise to the British public for “crashing the economy”. Mr Miliband said Labour had admitted getting it wrong over bank regulation.

Ms Sturgeon took a firm line against austerity and signalled areas, such as increasing the top rate of income tax, where she could work with Labour but said getting more SNP MPs elected to Westminster was needed to “keep them honest”.

Ms Wood and Ms Bennett joined Ms Sturgeon in stressing their anti-austerity credentials.

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The verdict of the snap opinion polls

Snap poll verdict
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The BBC’s assistant political editor Norman Smith told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme both Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband’s supporters were “pretty pleased” – “they felt their men came through it relatively unscathed, they got over their core message, they both believed they managed to look prime ministerial…”

However, he said, those with the most to smile about would be the smaller parties, “particularly the women, and most particularly Nicola Sturgeon”.

The SNP leader had “managed to project herself as a distinctive, articulate voice of anti-austerity in a way which we’ve not really had on the national stage”, he said.

Mr Farage, on the other hand, seemed to be appealing “again and again and again to his base, this is not a (UKIP) campaign that is reaching out”.

Mr Farage risked controversy by highlighting the number of foreign nationals with HIV whom he said were treated by the NHS, saying: “We have to look after our own people first.”

Ms Wood said Mr Farage “ought to be ashamed of himself” for deploying “scaremongering rhetoric”.

Mr Farage also clashed directly with Mr Cameron on the issue of immigration, saying he stood no chance of getting agreement from other EU leaders to restrict the free movement of people.

Mr Cameron rejected this and accused Mr Farage of wanting to get a Labour government through the “back door”.

Spending cuts

He said: “We do need immigration that’s controlled and fair. In recent decades it’s been too high and I want to see it come down.”

Mr Farage responded: “As members of the EU, what can we do to control immigration? Let me tell you – nothing.”

It was a relatively even-tempered debate, with few examples of the leaders shouting across each other, but a woman from the audience attempted to disrupt proceedings, shouting “they are not listening to us” as Mr Cameron gave an answer on the armed forces.

The heckler, Victoria Prosser, 33, from Salford, told reporters she had challenged David Cameron because she wanted people to question “the 1% at the top” who she said were not working in the country’s interests.

Mr Miliband repeatedly described what he would do “if I am prime minister”, in raising the minimum wage, banning exploitative zero-hours contracts and “rescuing our NHS”.

Mr Clegg directly challenged Mr Cameron over his decision not to ask the richest to pay more towards deficit reduction, but instead to impose “ideologically-driven cuts”.

Responding to Mr Cameron’s casting of the election as a choice between “competence and chaos”, the Lib Dem leader urged him to “imagine the chaos in people’s lives” caused by cuts in spending on health, schools and childcare.

Mr Cameron said the wealthy would be the target of a £5bn crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion.

He then turned the spotlight on Mr Miliband, who he said “still thinks the last Labour government didn’t tax too much, borrow too much and spend too much”.

The leaders' debate

Labour’s Ed Miliband directs a question at David Cameron

Nicola Sturgeon and David Cameron

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and Conservative leader David Cameron exchange points

Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, left, looks on as UKIP’s Nigel Farage makes a point

Leanne Wood and Ed Miliband

Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood is watched by Labour’s Ed Miliband as she has a say

Ms Bennett got things under way with an anti-austerity message, saying there was an “alternative” to making the poor and disadvantaged pay for the mistakes of bankers.

Mr Farage said the other six parties were all the same because they supported EU membership, adding he wanted to “take back control of our borders”.

Mr Clegg said no-one would win the election and voters should think about who they want to see in coalition, saying his party offered “grit” in government.

Ms Sturgeon had a message of “friendship” for the rest of the UK, saying the SNP would work with other “parties of like mind” to end the “bedroom tax” and protect the NHS.

Mr Miliband said Labour had a better plan for the country and vowed to ban exploitative “zero-hours” contracts and “save” the NHS.

Mr Cameron said the Conservatives’ economic plan was working, adding: “Let’s not go back to square one, Britain can do so much better than that.”

Ms Wood had an anti-austerity message and said her party can “win for Wales” in a hung Parliament.

Amid suggestions of a hung Parliament and possible coalitions and deals after the election, commentators have said that the debates made the British political system look very different from the traditional two or three-party set-up.

But Conservative Chief Whip Michael Gove said he would prefer a majority government with David Cameron at the helm, and there were dangers in a “patchwork quilt coalition”.

And shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said: “At the end of this campaign it’s about a choice: who’s going to be the prime minister? And that’s between Ed Miliband and David Cameron.”

Other debates

The seven-way debate emerged from tortuous negotiations between the parties and the broadcasters, with Mr Cameron refusing a direct head-to-head with Mr Miliband.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which has eight MPs, has criticised its exclusion from the programme.

The full leader line-up

Host Julie Etchingham had the task of keeping the seven leaders in order

A question-and-answer programme featuring Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband appearing separately was hosted by Channel 4 and Sky News last week, and a BBC debate involving opposition party leaders, moderated by David Dimbleby, will be broadcast on 16 April.

There will also be a special Question Time on BBC One, a week before polling day, with Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg appearing one after the other to answer questions from a studio audience.

• Subscribe to the BBC Election 2015 newsletter to get a round-up of the day’s campaign news sent to your inbox every weekday afternoon.

Source Article from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32166354
Leaders clash on NHS and immigration
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UKIP immigration: A target or not?

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Patrick O'Flynn

UKIP’s Patrick O’Flynn tried to keep the focus on the EU at an election press conference

At a press conference in Westminster this morning, UKIP had hoped to keep the conversation on comfortable ground.

The party issued a challenge to the other political parties over their terms for a referendum on EU membership.

Economic spokesman Patrick O’Flynn demanded David Cameron came clean on how he’d run an EU referendum, accused the Liberal Democrats of “gerrymandering” by trying to include under 18s and EU migrants in any vote, and said school children had been brainwashed by pro-European propaganda.

But despite best efforts, the press interest drifted away from the EU referendum and returned to when an immigration target is not quite an immigration target.

UKIP has denied a U-turn on this before, after Nigel Farage ruled out an immigration cap of 50,000 that his migration spokesman Steven Woolfe had previously endorsed.

‘Normal levels’

Yesterday during a poster unveiling in Dover, the “immigration target” question came up again.

Mr Farage said he would like immigration to return to “normal levels”.

He then said this was, in his view, between 15,000 and 50,000 people coming to Britain a year – “about 30,000″.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage launching campaign poster at event in Dover, Kent

Nigel Farage defined “normal” levels of immigration as around 30,000 people per year

He said he thought this level could be achieved by mid-way through the next parliament, if Britain left the EU and UKIP’s policy of banning unskilled migration for five years and introducing a points-based system for skilled workers was introduced.

Sounds like a target? Apparently not.

Nigel Farage said as much yesterday, and today at a Westminster-based press conference another party spokesman confirmed no such number would appear in the party’s manifesto.

‘No cap’

Suzanne Evans said UKIP – the party for which immigration is such a key issue – would have no cap or target at all, although she insisted its policies would see immigration figures plummet.

UKIP has said a Migration Control Commission would be set up to control the number of people moving to Britain – but there is no set target.

So despite the numbers that have been kicked around, it’s not 50,000. It’s not 30,000. Or, in fact, anywhere else between 15,000 and 50,000.

The policy does now seem clear, but political opponents wasted no time pointing out that for a party that wants to be trusted on immigration, it has taken a while to get this clarity on numbers.

Source Article from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32151528
UKIP immigration: A target or not?
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What Would Ted Cruz Do, Ask Pro-Immigration Evangelicals?

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One of the biggest boosts to the immigration movement in recent years has been growing support from evangelicals.

As the numbers of Latinos and immigrants of various races and ethnicities have grown, so has the potential for expansion of U.S. evangelical congregations.

So the attempt by GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to appeal to evangelical voters on whom he has pinned his presidential aspirations raises the question of whether he can woo this electorate even with his tough stance on immigration.

A Cruz campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a request from NBC News for comment. But while Cruz has taken a generally hardline approach on immigration reform, evangelicals have become activists on the issue in Washington and from the pulpit. Over time, congregations and evangelical leaders have subjected their thinking on immigration and in particular on immigrants who are not legally in the country to the “What Would Jesus Do?” test.

Those who have decided that Christ’s teaching call for more than deportation have taken significant steps. They have formed a group, the Evangelical Immigration Table, around the issue. That group paid for and ran newspaper and radio ads aimed at House Speaker John Boehner last year as the House dragged its feet on immigration reform legislation. Group leaders also teamed with Roman Catholic bishops in an open letter to House members urging them to get moving on immigration reform.

The Evangelical Immigration Table includes Liberty Counsel, chaired and founded by Matthew Staver, dean of the law school at Liberty University, the Jerry Falwell-founded school where Cruz announced his candidacy.

“It goes to the consistency of our mission and our identity as evangelicals,” said Jenny Yang, director of advocacy and policy for World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Officials from NAE were on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, Cruz’s activity on immigration reform has conflicted with the forward movement on immigration reform that evangelicals have wanted.

Cruz led the efforts last December to use a funding bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s immigration executive action programs. He opposed the Senate-passed “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration reform bill and a Republican plan to give probationary legal status to immigrants while the border was being secured.

He has said he opposed the path to citizenship granted in the Senate immigration bill, but didn’t block the granting of work permits to immigrants here illegally. He has also said he wants to fix the nation’s legal immigration system. Cruz has supported a border security first plan. Parts of his immigration views, however, await clarification on the campaign trail.

The biggest support for immigration reform among evangelicals is among Latino evangelicals, who number about 8 million nationally, said the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition.

Salguero said Cruz has tainted his candidacy because of his immigration reform record. Latinos are the fastest growing group of evangelicals in the U.S. — add to that Asian, Korean, Chinese, African and West Indies populations who also are joining evangelical churches and have significant immigrant populations, he said.

A tough stand on immigration is “not helpful to any candidate, Sen. Cruz, or anyone,” Salguero said. “Some of his possible challengers like (Jeb) Bush and (Sen.) Rand Paul have a position that is more conciliatory and willing to negotiate.

Salguero’s organization has pushed ahead, despite the opposition of Cruz and others to Obama’s executive action programs, now on hold pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Texas and more than two dozen states.

Salguero’s group has been holding training sessions for evangelical churches so their legal experts can help their parishioners apply for the deferred deportation programs made possible by Obama’s executive action and to help them navigate other parts of the immigration system, much as the Catholic Legal Immigration Network has done for many years.

A 2014 survey by Public Religion Research Institute showed nearly 54 percent of white evangelical protestants favored allowing immigrants here illegally to become citizens and 14 percent supported allowing them to become legal permanent residents. Just 30 percent supported deporting them. The survey sample of 8,000 white evangelicals is the largest surveyed on the issue, according to PRRI.

“Generally speaking there has been steady majority support over the last few years for a path to citizenship for immigrants who are living in the country illegally, both among the general population and religious groups, including more conservative and Republican-leaning religious groups such as white evangelical Protestants,” said Robert P. Jones, PRRI’s CEO.

But evangelicals are a diverse group, points out Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the conservative American Principle’s Project’s Latino Partnership.

Politically influential evangelicals such as Focus on the Family‘s founder James Dobson; Family Research Council president Tony Perkins or American Values president Gary Bauer, are not active on immigration reform, Aguilar said.

“In fact, when they talked about it, they said things that were not very good,” said Aguilar, an immigration reform supporter.

But Yang counters that the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, has backed a path to legal status for immigrants in a resolution it passed in 2011. Also, Jim Daly, current president and CEO of Focus on the Family, joined the Evangelical Immigration Table in 2012.

“The way we treat immigrants on the policy level demonstrates a lot about what we believe about our ethos as a faith group and what the Bible teaches us as well,” Yang said.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, has worked since 2008 to bring evangelicals into the immigration reform movement, which led to the creation of “Bibles Badges Business” made up of preachers, law enforcement and business people who support reform.

“Whether it is Sen. Cruz or any other candidate, Republican primary voters have one question: What is their solution to a broken immigration system? Deport 11 million people?” Noorani asked. “The majority of evangelical voters want a compassionate, practical, solution. Deporting 11 million people and their families is neither compassionate nor practical — every serious candidate for president knows that.”

Jeb Bush is scheduled to speak at the annual meeting of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) in Houston next month. The evangelical organization represents 40,118 evangelical congregations, according to its website. Bush has been criticized by some conservatives for defending illegal migration as an “act of love,” but has also criticized Obama’s executive action as “ill advised.” He’ll be sharing billing with immigration reform champion Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

Samuel Rodriguez, president of NHCLC, has been an enthusiastic supporter of immigration reform. In 2013, he fasted with other immigration activists in the hope it would move Boehner to take legislation on the issue to a vote. Rodriguez fasted 40 days.

He said Cruz’s candidacy should be celebrated because Cruz, as an American with Hispanic ancestry, “embodies the narrative of immigrants.”

“Accordingly, while I disagree with Sen. Cruz’s rhetoric on immigration,” Rodriguez said, “I hope that this experience will enable him to embrace the redemptive and compassionate idea of an immigration solution that secures our borders and values while providing a pathway for the integration of those currently undocumented.”



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Unease about immigration at core of UK election campaign

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BOSTON, England (AP) — Boston is a typical English town — ancient church, traditional shops, Polish supermarkets, Baltic bakeries. Amid the bargain-hunting crowds on market day, eastern European languages are almost as common as the local east-of-England accent.

Immigration has transformed Boston in the last decade. At least one in eight residents comes from eastern Europe, and the population is growing at double the national rate.

The change Boston is seeing is not unique — and unhappiness about Britain’s transformation is reshaping the political landscape as voters prepare to choose a new government, fueling support for outsider politicians focused on immigration. With no party firmly in the lead, the race for the May 7 election, which officially began Monday, looks set to produce a fragmented Parliament for a fractured nation.

“I think there are a few too many of the foreign brigade here at the moment,” said butcher Nigel Lote. His customers come almost exclusively from the long-settled English population of Boston, a town of about 65,000 that gave its name and its Pilgrim heritage to the Massachusetts city.

“It’s getting to the stage where there’s them and us,” he said. “We don’t mingle.”

A short walk away is West Street, a once-declining commercial strip now lined with grocery stores, delis and information centers for the eastern European community. Shelves are packed with pickled vegetables and canned fish. Notices advertise rooms to rent, used cars and agricultural jobs in the fields around Boston.

View of Boston market square, Lincolnshire, England, …

Karolina Mediancevaite, serving customers in a Lithuanian bakery, paused when asked if the locals are friendly.

“Some,” she said. “It would be better if they talked to you and not look at you like ‘You are not from this country.’”

Robin Hunter-Clarke, local candidate for the U.K. Independence Party, said Boston has “huge social problems.”

“There are some streets that local people won’t walk down because they feel uncomfortable,” he said. “And I think that’s sad. And that’s because of the sheer number of people that have entered one small market town.”

UKIP, which has risen rapidly from ragtag band of right-wing dissidents to serious political force, is the main beneficiary of Britain’s unease about immigration.

UKIP Parliamentary Candidate for Boston & Skegness …

The party wants Britain to leave the European Union — closing the door to EU citizens, who currently can work freely in the U.K. — and create a more restrictive immigration system geared to Britain’s labor needs.

The party says it’s giving voice to long-stifled concerns; opponents claim UKIP is fueling social divisions. Either way, it’s working. Nationally, UKIP is running third in the polls and hopes to win a clutch of seats along the eastern fringe of England, in towns like Boston where many voters feel neglected by what they see as London-centric politicians and metropolitan elites.

Bookmakers have shortened the odds to 50-50 that Hunter-Clarke, a 22-year-old county councilor, might overturn the constituency’s large Conservative majority.

“People are angry. People are looking for somebody to vote for, and they are choosing UKIP,” Hunter-Clarke said.

Britain has long been a land of immigrants, absorbing waves of Huguenots, Jews, Irish, West Indians, Pakistanis and more. But in the 21st century, seismic political and economic shifts — globalization, economic crisis and the lowering of European borders — have brought a level of immigration unseen in more than a century.

View of Boston market square, Lincolnshire, England, …

Since the end of the Cold War, the number of countries in the European Union has more than doubled, to 28. The biggest expansion came when a group of former Eastern Bloc countries, including Poland, Hungary and the Baltic states, joined in 2004.

Britain was one of the few EU countries not to impose temporary employment restrictions on people from these new — and much poorer — members.

The U.K. government predicted a modest influx of 13,000 people a year from those countries. That turned out to be a dramatic underestimate. The Office for National Statistics says more than half a million people from the 2004 EU entrants had moved to Britain by the end of 2013.

In Britain’s big cities, the eastern European plumbers, nannies, IT workers and baristas joined a complex economy and rich multicultural mosaic.

In Boston, set amid agriculturally rich flatlands 120 miles (200 kilometers) north of London, the immigrants came mostly to pick fruit, vegetables and flowers and work in food factories. Eastern European newcomers have gone on to open businesses, reviving a shabby shopping area.

UKIP Parliamentary Candidate for Boston & Skegness …

While some residents claim migrants are taking jobs from local people, unemployment here is well below the national average.

But Boston’s growth — the population rose by more than 10,000 people in a decade — has stretched schools, hospitals and housing. Some locals accuse migrants of living on government handouts — a recurring theme in UKIP literature — and blame them for everything from litter to drunkenness.

“I notice that an awful lot of the social housing has got eastern Europeans in them now,” said Terry Hollick, a retired bricklayer who, like many others, is thinking of voting UKIP. “My daughter, she can’t get on the housing ladder.”

UKIP’s critics say it offers simplistic solutions to complex social problems and doesn’t understand how intertwined modern economies work.

“Ever since we’ve had work on the land we’ve had migrants — from the Midlands, from Ireland, from Portugal, now from eastern Europe,” said Conservative candidate Matt Warman, who is battling to hold the seat for his party. “People here understand that migration is a complex issue.

European food and drinks shop seen in Boston, Lincolnshire, …

“We need an immigration policy that doesn’t encourage people to think the streets of Boston are paved with gold,” he said. But “we’ve got to make sure that we don’t decimate the local economy.”

He sounds confident, but UKIP’s surge has put the much larger Conservative and Labour parties on the defensive. Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party ran Britain between 1997 and 2010, has said Labour “got it wrong” on immigration. Prime Minister David Cameron admits he has failed to deliver on a promise to cut net migration — the number of immigrants minus emigrants — below 100,000 people a year.

Nottingham University political scientist Matthew Goodwin, who has tracked the rise of UKIP, says that Labour and the Conservatives have failed to grapple with “social and cultural issues” such as immigration and national identity. As a result, “UKIP is now owning the immigration issue.”

“The problem is, the competency of the (mainstream) political parties on this issue has been reduced because of free movement from the European Union,” Goodwin said. “Political parties do not want to draw attention to an issue that plays to their weaknesses rather than their strengths.”

While UKIP may well win in Boston, it is not going to win the national election. Britain’s first-past-the-post system means the party will probably take a handful of seats at most. But it has already altered the political landscape. Under pressure from the anti-EU politicians, Cameron has promised to hold a binding referendum on leaving the European Union if he is re-elected.

In his butcher’s shop, Lote is worried about the future — and grateful to UKIP for blowing open the political debate.

“I don’t think I’d let them run the country,” he said. “But they’ve woken people up.”

___

Follow Jill Lawless on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

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Australia's immigration department bans email autocomplete after G20 leak

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U.S. President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks during a news conference at the Group of 20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 16, 2014.



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U.S. President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks during a news conference at the Group of 20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, Nov. 16, 2014.

Australia’s immigration department implemented a new email policy just weeks ago after learning the Guardian was aware of an embarrassing blunder that saw the personal details of world leaders exposed.

On Monday the Guardian reported an employee of the department had inadvertently disclosed the passport numbers, visa details and other personal identifiers of the world leaders attending the G20 summit in Brisbane after an email was mistakenly sent to an organiser of the Asian Cup football tournament because of an autocomplete function.

Related: Personal details of world leaders accidentally revealed by G20 organisers

World leaders including US president Barack Obama, Russian president Vladimir Putin, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and German chancellor Angela Merkel were among those affected by the breach.

Some of the leaders are beginning to make inquiries about the disclosure, and the White House confirmed the US administration was examining reports of the disclosure of president Barack Obama’s personal details.

Australia’s immigration department has been in damage control mode since the breach was revealed on Monday.

The department took the unusual step of putting up its chief information officer, Matthew Yannopoulos, to explain the breach. He told the Australian the department had now disabled the autocomplete function on emails to prevent a similar breach occurring.

“If you have emailed a person before, you have to retype in their address completely,” he said. “I have made the addressing torturous, so that you actually ­really need to think about it. They are pretty unhappy about it.

“I think we are worried about the importance of the information that we hold, and whilst it is causing a productivity impact on all staff, it is reminding all staff of the criticality of information, because they know why they have done it.”

But the Guardian has learned this policy was implemented just weeks ago, after the department became aware of the Guardian’s freedom of information request for the G20 data breach documents.

The immigration department has not yet responded to queries about why the change was only implemented at this time, rather than when the breach occurred.

The White House deputy press secretary, Eric Schultz, said on Monday the administration was “looking into [the reports] and we’ll take all appropriate steps necessary to ensure the privacy and security of the president’s personal information”.

A senior official in the Indian government told the Hindustan Times: “We have seen the report and will take necessary action at our end on the matter.”

The immigration department also initially determined it was not necessary to inform the world leaders of the breach.

In emails obtained under Australia’s freedom of information laws an immigration department wrote to Australia’s privacy commissioner after the breach and said: “Given that the risks of the breach are considered very low and the actions that have been taken to limit the further distribution of the email, I do not consider it necessary to notify the clients of the breach.”

The office of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has also confirmed to Der Spiegel it was not informed of the breach.

“The German government learned about what happened from the press,” a spokesman told Spiegel Online. “The government has none of its own information about this.”

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