Data Clashes With Emotion As CPAC Immigration Panel Goes Off The Rails – Talking Points Memo

2018/02/26 Leave a comment

One can and should be able to debate immigration issues with respect for what the data tells us and, needless to say, in a more respectful fashion. But some fora are less conducive than others but still important to ensure that the evidence is presented:

The only panel dedicated to immigration at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference quickly went off the rails Thursday, with audience members drowning out panelists’ presentation of data about the benefits of immigration with boos, laughter, and stories of “obvious illegal immigrants defecating in the woods, fornicating in the woods.”

As David Bier, a policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute, attempted to lay out research proving that immigrants actually have lower crime rates than native-born Americans, contribute significantly to the economy  and are assimilating just as well or better than past generations of immigrants, his fellow panelists derided his statements as “nutty” and angry audience members shouted him down.

“Sweetie, you’re too young to know,” one woman called out as Bier said that the economy has historically done well during periods of high immigration to the United States.

When he noted that the U.S. proportionally takes in very few immigrants and refugees compared to other nations, a man interjected, “You’re a dreamer!” and much of the crowd broke out in applause and jeers.

Though this year’s CPAC fell squarely amid a legal and political battle over the fate of nearly 2 million young immigrants known as Dreamers, the issue was far from the top of the agenda at the annual gathering. The only panel dedicated to the topic was held in a small, windowless room at 5 p.m. on Thursday—after many attendees had already left for one of the conference’s many boozy receptions.

And though the panel was titled, “You May Say You’re a DREAMer But You’re Not the Only One,” it focused very little on the DREAMer population—the group of upwards of 1 million undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children whose legal protections were rescinded by the Trump administration last year and will expire in early March.

Instead, the event became a general airing of fears and grievances about both legal and illegal immigration. The panel’s moderator, Christopher Malagisi, claimed, without evidence, a “ploy” by Democrats to offer immigrants a path to citizenship in exchange for their votes.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), who faces a primary from a Trumpian hard-right newcomer, similarly accused Democrats of putting the economic interests of young immigrants over those of young American citizens. Whenever Bier cited research to counter incorrect claims from his fellow panelists and the audience that recent immigrants are disproportionately criminal, are an economic drain on government or take several generation to learn English, he was met with vocal hostility.

During a heated question and answer session during the immigration panel, a man from Four Corners, Virginia went on an extended diatribe about a Latino man who once crashed his car in front of his house.

“I had to go down to court to testify, and I was the only white face in the crowd other than the lawyers being paid to translate for these people,” he said. “You can go down to Four Corners Park and see obvious illegal immigrants defecating in the woods, fornicating in the woods, and on and on and on. These people are not the immigrants of the 20s and 30s. They will never be able to get good jobs here and be good citizens. Is that in your study?”

Struggling to be heard over the loud applause that ensued, Bier responded, “If you look at the data, the people committing crimes are overwhelmingly native-born Americans. So if you want to talk about the effect of immigrants on the crime rate, they actually lower the crime rate, resulting in a safer society. Obviously there are some immigrants who do commit crimes, just like there were some who committed crimes back when the Irish were the ones coming in.”

“Oh, I’m Irish, don’t you talk about the Irish,” an older woman angrily called out.

“Guys, guys, let him respond,” the moderator pleaded with the audience as the crosstalk and scoffing grew louder.

Only a small handful of people came up to Bier afterward to offer support and sympathy. Among them was Carolyn Meadows, the vice chair of the American Conservative Union, which organizes on CPAC.

“I think you’re a brave young man,” she said. “I really do. Thank you for coming.”

Still, speaking to TPM after the panel wrapped up, Bier said he still believes in the power of facts and research to convince conservatives of the benefits of immigration.

“The data is the thing that’s going to win people over,” he said. “It’s just about showing them that immigrants are not what they think they are and hoping that falls on receptive ears. There are people who can be convinced, people who know immigrants personally, who know they are contributing to society and they’re not all defecating in the woods.”

But having attended CPAC for the last six years, Bier conceded that the Republican base’s attitude toward immigrants has not significantly shifted.

“I don’t think it’s that different [from past years],” he said. “There’s always a very large contingent most passionate about immigration—about opposing it. It certainly seems like the passion is always with the side that wants to restrict it and not with the side that wants it to be more open.”

via Data Clashes With Emotion As CPAC Immigration Panel Goes Off The Rails – Talking Points Memo

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Israel agrees to halt deportations of Canada-bound asylum-seekers

2018/02/26 Leave a comment

Good:

Ottawa has reached a last-minute deal with Israel to suspend the deportation of asylum-seekers who currently are waiting for resettlement to Canada.

Israel is set to begin deporting some 37,000 asylum-seekers, the majority of them Sudanese and Eritreans, in April after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government issued them expulsion notices.

The asylum-seekers, most of them deemed by Israel to be economic migrants rather than refugees in need of protection, can either leave voluntarily for a “safe” African country and receive $3,500 and a plane ticket, or face imprisonment.

The Canadian government is under the gun to resettle 1,845 of the African refugees whose sponsorship applications are currently in process, some for years.

“Canada does not support policies of mass deportations of asylum-seekers. The rights of asylum-seekers and refugees are laid out in the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, of which Israel is a signatory,” said Adam Austen, press secretary for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.

“As the country that resettles the highest number of African asylum-seekers from Israel, we are in direct contact with the Government of Israel to convey Canada’s concerns about the situation.”

A spokesperson for Immigration Canada confirmed it has reached an agreement with Israeli authorities to allow the Canada-bound asylum-seekers to remain in the country and not be jailed until their sponsorships are finalized.

“We ask that sponsors advise the department should any of their applicants be issued deportation or detention notices,” said Faith St. John. “Our office in Tel Aviv has dedicated resources to deal with the applications.”

Italy Tavor, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Ottawa, said the country recognizes the significance of the current “migration situation” and has allocated dozens of new staff positions to streamline and expedite the asylum determination process.

“Israel does not hesitate to grant refugee status when required, and follows a procedure consistent with the criteria and standards of international law, laid down by the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,” said Tavor in an email to the Star.

“With that said, the data about the migrants who have entered Israel illegally indicates that 70 to 80 per cent of the migrants are of working age (19-40 years old) and that there are about five times more men than women. These numbers are consistent with a population that is composed mostly of economic migrants.”

Jenny Miedema of the Dufferin County’s Compass Community Church, which is sponsoring 14 African refugees through Tel Aviv, said sending asylum-seekers to third countries — namely Rwanda and Uganda, according to Israeli media reports — remains an issue of concern.

“They will be dropped off at a brand new country, with a brand new language, with no legal status,” said Miedema. “These countries are no safe haven. By sending them there, it becomes somebody else’s problem.”

Joanne Beach, director of justice and compassion for the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada, which has a sponsorship agreement with Ottawa, said Canada must do its utmost to expedite the resettlement of refugees.

“The alliance is still concerned for the welfare of those at risk of deportation in Israel who do not have applications currently in process. We are appealing to churches to consider entering into a sponsorship agreement or partnering with a Canadian Jewish organization to help those at imminent risk of deportation from Israel,” said Beach.

“We pray that sufficient resources are put in place (by Ottawa) to reduce backlogs and processing times.”

via Israel agrees to halt deportations of Canada-bound asylum-seekers | Toronto Star

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France clamps down on radical Islam in prisons, schools – The Straits Times

2018/02/26 Leave a comment

Long standing issue in France:

The French government said Friday (Feb 23) said it would seal off extremists within prisons and open new centres to reintegrate returning extremists into society as part of a plan to halt the spread of radical Islam.

France is experimenting with various ways of ending the drift towards extremism of young people growing up on the margins of society, in predominantly immigrant suburbs where organisations like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group or Al-Qaeda recruit.

The plan unveiled Friday is the third in four years and aims to draw lessons from past failures, after three years marked by a series of attacks that left over 240 people dead.

“No one has a magic formula for ‘deradicalisation’ as if you might de-install dangerous software,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in the northern city of Lille where he presented his strategy, flanked by a dozen ministers.

“But in France and elsewhere there are good approaches to prevention and disengagement.”

France is particularly keen to stop extremism flourishing in its prisons, where some of the Islamists behind attacks in recent years first came under the spell of hardliners.

A total of 512 people are currently serving time for terrorism offences in France and a further 1,139 prisoners have been flagged up as being radicalised.

To prevent extremism spreading further, Philippe said he would create 1,500 places in separate prison wings “especially for radicalised inmates”.

He also announced plans for three new centres that will attempt to reintegrate radicals referred by French courts, including extremists returning from fallen ISIS strongholds in the Middle East.

A first de-radicalisation trial ended in failure last July, with a centre in western France that operated on a voluntary basis shutting after less than a year with no improvements to show.

Other measures announced by Philippe include:

  • Investments in psychological care for returning children of extremists. So far 68 children have been repatriated, most of them under 13.
  • Tighter controls on private Islamic schools which have grown rapidly in number in recent years.
  • More training for teachers to help them detect early signs of radicalisation and to debunk conspiracy theories.
  • More investment in teaching students to separate fact from rumour on the Internet.
  • Making it easier to reassign public servants that show signs of radicalisation to jobs that do not involve contact with the public.

via France clamps down on radical Islam in prisons, schools, Europe News & Top Stories – The Straits Times

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Trudeau with his Indian culture overkill came across as patronizing | Shree Paradkar

2018/02/26 Leave a comment

It seems like everyone is piling on the gaffe-strewn trip of PM Trudeau to India. Paradkar’s is one of the best:

If apparel oft proclaims the man, then Polonius who uttered those words in Hamlet would have quite literally given our prime minister a dressing down this week. From the viewpoint of the Shakespearean character, Justin Trudeau would have broken the basic rules: his clothes were as costly as money could buy, but gaudy, too, proclaiming him unserious.

A charitable supposition would be that maybe — just maybe — since Canada is barely a blip on Indian consciousness, Trudeau decided to lean on his celebrity status to make an impression.

That much he did. So groan-inducing has Trudeau’s visit to India appeared thus far that it merits being rated as a cliched Bollywood drama.Over-the-top sherwanis and kurta pyjamas, Bhangra sequences, overly choreographed family time overdoing the namastes.

Then a touch of villainous melodrama in the form of a mistaken invitation to Jaspal Atwal, a man convicted of attempting to kill an Indian cabinet minister on Vancouver Island in 1986. Atwal was also charged, but not convicted, in connection with a 1985 attack on Ujjal Dosanjh, a former Liberal health minister and former premier of British Columbia.

That faux pas for which the Liberals apologized would be a terrible development during any official visit. On this one, it gave lie to Trudeau and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s appeasement of the Punjab chief minister’s concerns of official Canadian support for the Sikh separatist movement.

The demand for a separate nation of Khalistan is an issue that has little support among Sikhs in India. It does not enjoy unanimous support here, either.

The concerns were fair: Trudeau’s appearance at a Sikh parade in Toronto last year with yellow and blue Khalistan flags in the background and posters of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale — the leader of the Khalistani movement — was not looked upon kindly in India.

Nor would Canada be sympathetic to a visiting foreign leader who posed with Quebec separatists.

Many of the poor first impressions would have been avoided had planners simply switched Day 6 to Day 1. Trudeau, finally wearing a business suit, met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, got that equally cringe-inducing, but in this case gratefully received, trademark bear hug from Modi, and was received with state honours.

Was there really no adviser in our PMO or the Foreign Office who said before the trip, “Meet Modi first. Go easy on the clothes. Wrap up the visit in 3 days. Be prepared to deal with the separatist issue”?

Earlier in the month, an expert told Global News, “There’s no question that the whole Khalistan question will overshadow this trip.”

Then an unnamed government official told the news outlet it was not expected to be a big issue.

If he had a chance to counsel Trudeau, Omer Aziz, a former adviser at the Department of Global Affairs in the Liberal government, says he would have said, “It’s going to come up and you need to make sure you know what you’re going to say.”

Before going to India, Aziz would have suggested Trudeau make a speech in support of united India and draw comparisons to separatist movements here.

Trudeau’s trip was billed as one to bolster economic and cultural connections. Because Canada’s minorities of colour are consigned to hyphenated labels, and never viewed as simply Canadian, Canadian leaders end up viewing foreign policy through the lens of diasporic politics.

And so, Indo-Canadians and Sikh-Canadians have come to expect images of a leader’s visit to New Delhi, the requisite visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, perhaps a Hindu temple or two.

But carry it too far and the symbolism of “we care” can become tiresomely reductive.

Religious and cultural observances such as a cloth on the head may be seen as a sign of respect. Wearing clothing from the host nation could be seen as a bit of charming politicking on the sidelines of trade deals and policy development.

As a main dish, overshadowing a $1 billion trade deal, it’s unpalatable. Neither Indians nor Indo-Canadians are quite so unsophisticated as to not detect being patronized.

Aziz sees this trip as evidence that governments should hire and empower more staffers of colour who understand the complexities of the world. “Literally all this was avoidable,” he said.

For all the talk of Trudeau’s diverse cabinet, behind the scenes decision makers, staffers and bureaucrats remain monochromatic.

“I think that frankly minorities, brown folks, people of colour should say this is enough,” says Aziz. “It’s time that millennials (like me) said either you’re going to share power with us or we’re going to mobilize and you’re going to suffer at the ballot box.

“We’re not going to be treated as any one’s vote bank.

“We don’t need you talking down to us. We don’t need you to begin every single speech saying diversity is our strength. What we need is at that beginning point of our conversation we need to be treated as equals, with respect. Then we can have a conversation about policy.”

via Trudeau with his Indian culture overkill came across as patronizing | Toronto Star

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Frederick Douglass’s Fight Against Scientific Racism – The New York Times

2018/02/26 Leave a comment

Good read and reminder of early attitudes and beliefs, and the struggle to overcome them:

The 200th birthday of one of America’s greatest thinkers, Frederick Douglass, is being celebrated this month. Douglass is remembered as many things: a fugitive slave who gained his freedom, an abolitionist, an advocate for women’s rights, a gifted writer and orator. But we should also remember him as someone whose insights about scientific theories of race are every bit as relevant in our era as they were when he wrote them.

When Douglass rose to prominence, in the 1840s, he was living in a world just as excited and anxious about his era’s new inventions, like the railroad and the telegraph, as we are about modern-day innovation. But he understood that the ends to which science could be used were forever bound up with the moral choices of its practitioners. “Scientific writers, not less than others, write to please, as well as to instruct,” he wrote in 1854, “and even unconsciously to themselves (sometimes) sacrifice what is true to what is popular.”

That statement was part of a lecture in which he attacked one of the most prominent scientific fields of the antebellum era: ethnology, or what was sometimes called “the science of race.” Though often dismissed today as pseudoscience, at the time Douglass was writing, it was considered legitimate. The most accomplished scientists engaged in it, and the public eagerly consumed it.

Ethnology was not embraced just by Southerners who supported slavery. Its most important theorists lived in the North: one, Louis Agassiz, taught at Harvard; the other, Samuel George Morton, was president of one of the nation’s leading scientific societies, in Philadelphia.

Agassiz and Morton rejected the 18th-century view of race, which held that all human beings descended from a single pair and that physical differences emerged because of changes in the natural environment.

In preparation for the 1854 lecture, Douglass read dozens of books on ethnology, then dismantled polygenists’ claims one by one. Among the most important to Douglass was Morton’s claim that ancient Egyptians were white. To support his claim that black people were inferior, Morton needed to explain away the fact that ancient Egyptians were Africans, since if they were, it meant that people of African descent had the potential for similar greatness. As proof, Morton noted that the Bible made no mention of Egyptians’ color.

Douglass would have none of it.

He cited text after text, all written by respected European scientists, that noted that ancient Egyptians bore a striking resemblance to modern-day Africans. But more important, he argued that racial descriptors were not mentioned in the Bible because, at that historical moment, race did not exist. It was, as we now say, a social construct, something better understood as a product of history rather than of science.

When Morton assumed that the ancient Israelites, who he believed were white, would have never married ancient Egyptians if they were black, he failed to realize that racial prejudice was a “genuine American feeling,” Douglass wrote. “It assumes that a black skin in the East excites the same prejudice which we see here in the West.” Douglass was saying that we learn racism — we are not born with it.

Of course, engaging with ethnology on its own terms was a dangerous game. It sometimes meant that Douglass perpetuated scientific ways of thinking about race rather than simply dismantling its logic and insisting on race as a product of history. He borrowed from the ethnological theories of his friend James McCune Smith, a fellow black abolitionist and the nation’s first credentialed black physician, to argue that both black and white people would be improved by racial mixing.

Yet it would be wrong to dismiss these ideas as merely the result of Douglass’s own mixed racial heritage — his father, possibly his owner, was white — or as a backhanded insult to black history, to black culture. They were always written in the service of a clear political agenda, one that was radical for his time: full black integration rather than segregation.

In 1887, Douglass traveled to Egypt and published another essay about how the ancient Egyptians were, in fact, African. “I have long been interested in ethnology,” he wrote, and “I have wanted the evidence of greatness under the colored skin to meet and beat back the charge of natural, original and permanent inferiority.” He found it in the ancient pyramids and the majestic sphinxes, with their undeniably African features.

But even as Douglass refused to allow racist scientific theories to go unchallenged, he always understood that science was not the antidote to white people’s racism. There were only so many facts you could give to prove black people’s humanity.

In 1893, two years before his death, he was disturbed by the way the nation’s white scientific elite had represented people of African descent at the World’s Fair in Chicago. Scientists from Harvard and the Smithsonian helped design the exhibition, which mirrored what they took to be humankind’s racial progress from savage to civilized.

The pavilions for Haiti and for African nations, designed as primitive huts, came first. As you walked through the exhibition, you eventually crossed a bridge into the “White City,” which housed marbled pavilions for white nations, showcasing their marvelous scientific inventions.

One day was set aside for black Americans to present their own culture, and the press came ready to lampoon the event. White vendors had their fun too, bringing watermelons by the cartload. Some black leaders called for a boycott, but Douglass insisted that black people engage — after all, here was a chance to showcase black excellence.

But Douglass also wanted to set the record straight about race, or rather, about racism. This time, he did not bother making a scientific argument about black equality. Instead, he got to the heart of the matter and wanted the clutch of white reporters at the event to listen closely, to print it in all their papers.

The problem was not with black people, he said, it was with white people. If they loved their democracy as much as they said they did, they would stop looking to science to make excuses for their own failure to treat black Americans as equal citizens. As he put it: “The true problem is a national problem. There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have honesty enough, loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough to live up to their own Constitution.”

via Frederick Douglass’s Fight Against Scientific Racism – The New York Times

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Minister Joly Launches the New Paul Yuzyk Youth Initiative for Multiculturalism – Canada.ca

2018/02/24 Leave a comment

Funny to see the Paul Yuzyk award relaunched under the Liberals.

The Conservatives launched it when I was the DG – Citizenship and Multiculturalism in 2009, largely in part to counter the prevailing narrative that multiculturalism originated with the Liberals as well as responding to wishes of the Ukrainian Canadian community.

Now the Liberals are trying to appropriate Yuzyk, a former Conservative senator. That being said, it is positive when governments adopt or appropriate other party programs that support integration.

This, along with the related initiative Holodomor National Awareness Tour 2017–2020, also demonstrate the influence and sophistication of the Ukrainian Canadian community, who worked closely with the previous government on such initiatives as the Historical Recognition Program, Holodomor recognition and foreign policy issues.

Text of press release follows:

Diversity is Canada’s strength. Our young leaders play a critical role in shaping our country’s future and fostering a stronger, more prosperous Canada, where everyone has the ability to reach their full potential.

Today, the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for Multiculturalism, announced the launch of the new Paul Yuzyk Youth Initiative for Multiculturalism. This annual funding initiative will award micro-grants of up to $1000 to dozens of young Canadians to fund projects that promote diversity and inclusion in their communities. This initiative will empower young leaders to make a positive impact on their communities, while addressing racism and discrimination. Canadian citizens or permanent residents aged 18 to 24 will be able to submit their applications online starting today, until April 20, 2018.

The new Paul Yuzyk Youth Initiative for Multiculturalism is in keeping with the Government of Canada’s commitment to promoting multiculturalism and strengthening our diverse communities, while working to eliminate discrimination, racism and prejudice in all its forms. The new initiative will honour the legacy of the late Senator Paul Yuzyk in developing and promoting Canadian multiculturalism by inspiring young leaders to continue advancing cultural understanding and inclusion in‎ communities across the country.

The initiative will be administered by Inter-Action, the Government of Canada’s multiculturalism grants and contributions program, which funds community engagement and development projects which promote intercultural understanding and equal opportunities for people of all cultures.

via Minister Joly Launches the New Paul Yuzyk Youth Initiative for Multiculturalism – Canada.ca

Press release on Holodomor National Awareness Tour:

Today, Arif Virani, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage (Multiculturalism) and Member of Parliament (Parkdale–High Park), announced that the Government of Canada is providing more than $1.4 million to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation in support of the Holodomor National Awareness Tour 2017–2020. Mr. Virani made this announcement on behalf of the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for Multiculturalism.

The ongoing Holodomor National Awareness Tour 2017–2020 has launched a Holodomor Mobile Classroom that tours the country both to raise awareness of the Holodomor and to promote tolerance and mutual understanding. This project is expected to reach 65,000 participants across the country.

The project is receiving $1,459,730 in total funding over three years through the Projects component of Inter-Action, the Government of Canada’s multiculturalism grants and contributions program. Inter-Action funds community engagement and development projects that promote intercultural understanding and equal opportunities for people of all cultures.

via Parliamentary Secretary Virani Announces $1.4 Million in Funding for the Holodomor National Awareness Tour – Canada.ca

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WARMINGTON: Anti-racism meeting turns into The Jerry Springer show

2018/02/24 Leave a comment

Sharp contrast to the session organized by the Riddell Centre for Political Management about a month ago in Ottawa:

It was racism industry on full display.

In one corner you had the “anti racists” who gathered together to talk about racism in Canada and new legislation to end it. In the other you had the so-called “racists.”

Needless to say this was set up to be a powderkeg.

What was billed as an “Anti-Racism Town Hall” at the Grant African Methodist Episcopal Church on Gerrard St. at Woodbine Ave. on Thursday evening turned into part socialism lecture and part The Jerry Springer Show.

Actually it was so surreal it seemed more like a Simpson’s town hall meeting, complete with characters like Mayor Quimby, Sideshow Bob, Mr. Burns and Krusty the Clown.

And yes Toronto Police 55 Division was called in.

First things first. On the stage you had the author of the M-103 motion to protect criticism of Islam and other religions MP Iqra Khalid, Minister Responsible for Anti-Racism MPP Michael Couteau, MPP Beaches-East York MPP Arthur Potts and MP Beaches-East York Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, all of whom had a similar message about the existence of racism in Canada and Ontario and the need to fix it.

There was talk about how it costs $60 million a year to “incarcerate” youth in the Jane and Finch area and how 22% of black university graduates don’t get jobs while it’s at just 10% for white “drop outs,” how “colonial Canada” supplanted the Indigenous and how government needs to make sure “every person can reach his or her full potential” by “looking for ways to eliminate systematic racism barriers.”

Well this was not sitting well with some of the proud to be rednecks in the crowd. And it boiled over when Khalid started talking about M-103 was not anti blasphemy law but more a tool to foster stronger diversity.

“You are a fraud,” yelled one guy.

“Is this going to be Sharia law,” a woman shouted.

“This is only about protecting Islam and designed to bring more Muslims over here,” said another man.

The most vocal and animated was none other than Eric Brazau who has spent nine months in jail for “promoting hatred” and at one point held up a copy of the Q’uran in protest.

The crowd grew impatient with the constant interruptions and started yelling “shut up” and “racist’s out.”

The bad behaviour was mostly from those protesting M-103 but there were some outbursts from the anti-racism crowd as well — including one man pointing out white supremacist Council of Conservative Canadians founder Paul Fromm and telling him to F… off.”

Fromm did not engage but instead quietly wrote notes in the corner of the room. However, others were fully inflamed. At one point it got so heated in the room it felt like it could explode.

“The police have been called and some people will be asked to leave,” said Erskine-Smith.

The police did come but stayed outside in their car and didn’t escort anybody out.

“It was a strange night,” said Jewish Defence League National Director Meir Weinstein, who was not impressed with the yelling at the politicians.

“I did have a question about why it is politicians accept awards from Islamic terror groups that want to kill Jews and annihilate Israel but this is not part of any conversation?” said Weinstein. “Isn’t that racism?”

It was a fair question but the grandstanding behaviour of some drowned it out. Ironically the rude shouting played right into the hands of the politicians who never lost their cool, composure or even sense of humour.

But the fact there were politicians on one side suggesting Canada is systemically racist and people on the other side acting exactly like they are indeed racist is no laughing matter.

Source: WARMINGTON: Anti-racism meeting turns into The Jerry Springer show

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US Citizenship and Immigration Services drops ‘nation of immigrants’ from mission statement

2018/02/24 Leave a comment

Words matter (but I agree with dropping the word customers, citizenship and visas are not consumer products):

Tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free need not apply.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services no longer uses language that describes the country as “a nation of immigrants” in its official mission statement, an agency official said Thursday.

The USCIS, the federal agency tasked with granting visas and citizenship, has changed to a new statement that “clearly defines the agency’s role in our country’s lawful immigration system and the commitment we have to the American people,” according to a letter sent to employees by agency director L. Francis Cissna that was obtained by NBC News.

“The agency’s new mission statement was developed and debuted within the agency by USCIS Director Cissna during his first conference with USCIS senior leadership from around the world,” a USCIS public affairs officer said in a statement to NBC News. “It reflects the director’s guiding principles for the agency. This includes a focus on fairness, lawfulness and efficiency, protecting American workers, and safeguarding the homeland.”

The previous mission statement said the agency, “secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system.”

The new statement now reads:

“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.”

Cissna also said the new mission statement will also no longer refer to visa applicants as “customers” because the term “promotes an institutional culture that emphasizes the ultimate satisfaction of applicants and petitioners, rather than the correct adjudication of such applications and petitions according to the law.” He added that the term implied that the agency serves anyone other than “the American people.”

President Donald Trump’s pick, Cissna was sworn in as director of USCIS in October.

The wording change was not welcomed by some pro-immigration groups.

“Our nation is one built by immigrants — removing this language does nothing to change that fact, it only reveals the insidious racism harbored by those in this administration,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for refugee protection at the Human Rights First, in a statement. “We cannot separate ‘immigrants’ from ‘Americans’ — we are intrinsically linked as children, parents, neighbors, and loved ones. By seeking to distinguish between the two, the administration is turning its back on our nation’s proud history and engaging in dangerous revisionism.”

Source: US Citizenship and Immigration Services drops ‘nation of immigrants’ from mission statement

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Secretive Fraternities Are Feeding Anti-Semitism in Austria – The Atlantic

2018/02/24 Leave a comment

Good long but disturbing read:
Like many Austrian fraternities, Germania zu Wiener Neustadt sometimes uses a songbook at its get-togethers. It looks ordinary enough, with its red cover, gold crest, and curling script. The cover is studded with metal nails called “Biernagel” that keep the book slightly elevated so it doesn’t get wet when lying in beer.Unlike most other songbooks, however, it contains lyrics about killing Jews. “Step on the gas,” one line reads. “We’ll manage the seventh million.”

When the Vienna-based newspaper Falter (for which I am a frequent contributor) wrote about the book in January, it promptly derailed the political career of one of the fraternity’s most notable members: Udo Landbauer, who was running as a candidate for Austria’s right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) in state elections on January 28. One day before the vote, the Austrian president suggested he step down. On February 1, Landbauer resigned from all political positions. He had been a city councillor in Wiener Neustadt and the head of the FPÖ’s district office in that city.

Landbauer, 31, who was also the deputy chairman of the fraternity for a couple of years, claimed he hadn’t known about such lines: “Not being a gifted singer, I didn’t go through all the pages,” he said in a television interview. The songbook outraged the nation anyway. The prime minister of Lower Austria, Johanna Mikl-Leitner of the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP), said she wouldn’t work with Landbauer. Bad international press followed, causing embarrassment the FPÖ could ill afford. In the six weeks since it had become the junior partner in a coalition government with the ÖVP at the federal level, it had struggled to appear respectable. The party had gotten negative press just two weeks earlier, when its minister of the interior proposed “concentrating refugees into camps.” The Jewish community of Vienna, where the majority of the country’s 12,000 to 15,000 Jews live, has been boycotting the FPÖ; it refused to participate in the government’s official Holocaust memorial ceremony last month.Heinz-Christian Strache, Austria’s vice chancellor and head of the FPÖ, announced that he would install a committee of historians to examine the party’s ties to anti-Semitic groups. The party revealed last week that former FPÖ parliamentarian Wilhelm Brauneder will head the commission. Brauneder, who during his tenure as the dean of Vienna University’s law faculty in the late 1980s permitted an event organized by a German right-wing extremist, gets to choose the members of the commission, which is set to issue its first report this October. Whether or not the historians will also study the fraternities’ history depends on whether the fraternities, which are private organizations, voluntarily grant them access to their archives.

Then, this week, the FPÖ suffered another blow. Falter published a new story, this one reporting that the Viennese fraternity Bruna Sudetia also used a songbook containing the same anti-Semitic song. Its head, Herwig Götschober, works on social media for the cabinet of Norbert Hofer, the FPÖ’s minister of infrastructure, and is a district councillor for the FPÖ in Vienna. Götschober reacted by saying that he rejects these lyrics, and added that he had never seen this songbook before. The fraternity is now under investigation, as the circulation of Nazi content is prohibited by Austrian constitutional law; Götschober went on leave from his post.On its homepage, Götschober’s fraternity has a section about its history: World War II is only mentioned when the bombing of its Vienna headquarters in 1944 is described. This silence about the Nazi era has been typical of Austria for much of the 20th century, when the nation saw itself as the first victim of Hitler’s expansionist politics. In 1986, the Nazi past of former UN general secretary and presidential candidate Kurt Waldheim resulted in international pressure. Consequently, then-chancellor Franz Vranitzky acknowledged Austria’s complicity in the war and Nazi crimes in 1993. It took until 2012 for the government to recognize May 8, the anniversary of the capitulation of the Wehrmacht in 1945, as the Day of Liberation. German-nationalistic fraternities still commemorate the dead soldiers on that date. Arguably, scandals like those involving anti-Semitic songbooks keep bubbling up because Austria has yet to grapple with its WWII past as thoroughly as has, say, Germany.

The far right in Austria has a long and vocal history of anti-Semitism, but recently it has been trying to shed that image, instead prioritizing anti-Muslim rhetoric. As part of this shift, members of the far right at times claim they want to protect Jews against Muslims. But their relationship with the fraternity system proves they haven’t shed their anti-Semitism either.The chances are extremely slim that a reassessment of the sort Strache announced would eliminate anti-Semitism in the FPÖ. In order for the party to rid itself of anti-Semitism, it needs to cut its ties to the fraternities—a structural problem that is nearly impossible to tackle.

Austria has many high school and university student associations. What makes these fraternities (“Burschenschaften”) unique is that they’re infused with German nationalism. They originated in German university towns in the first half of the 19th century and stood for a united German nation. During the Nazi era, the fraternities were merged with the Nazi students’ associations. They reemerged after the war. Today, not all members of these fraternities are far-right extremists, anti-Semites, or neo-Nazis; some are right-wing conservatives who adhere to old traditions, like a mask-free fencing ritual that often leaves members with scarred faces.

Members swear to secrecy about what happens during their gatherings—which is why the songbooks shocked many. It also means that people don’t know how much other Nazi material is being circulated. In his most recent book, the journalist Hans-Henning Scharsach lists several fraternities that still include former Nazis, such as Rome’s Gestapo chief Herbert Kappler, among their honorary members. Another group organized a carnival party in 2008, photos of which appear to show guests dressed up as Ku Klux Klan members and Orthodox Jews.

In total, there are no more than 5,000 members of such fraternities nationwide, yet these members are important because they’re overrepresented in the ranks of the FPÖ. Strache himself is a member of the fraternity Vandalia. (He is also known to have had frequent contact with neo-Nazi groups in his youth, which he described as a “youthful folly” but never said was a mistake.) Among the party’s MPs alone, roughly one-third are members of various fraternities. The fraternities are an important source of highly educated and loyal personnel.

Which makes Strache’s announcement somewhat hard to believe: “Fraternities have nothing to do with the FPÖ,” he said the day after the Germania zu Wiener Neustadt songbook was made public.“That was a real slap in the face for the fraternities,” said Nina Horaczek, a journalist with Falter who broke both stories, adding that Strache’s attempt to distance himself from them isn’t a good long-term strategy for him. After all, his brothers backed him when he became the head of the party in 2005. “If fraternities need to leave the party, Strache would be the first to go.”

Although the fraternities are by no means the only source of anti-Semitism in the FPÖ, they are considered a gateway into the party. Severing these ties isn’t just difficult, it’s undesirable for the party—which means that the FPÖ will continue to at least indirectly foster a safe space for anti-Semitic thought.

“As long as Strache doesn’t say, I was a neo-Nazi in my youth and I apologize for it, any sort of historical examination is worth very little,” said Doron Rabinovici, an author and historian of Austrian Jewry.

Martin Engelberg, a Jewish MP for the conservative ÖVP, is more optimistic. In a TV debate on the Austrian channel Puls4, he said, “This process won’t happen in just one day,” referring to the plans of his coalition partner, the FPÖ. At a recent MP swearing-in ceremony, the FPÖ’s MPs didn’t show up wearing cornflower pins—the symbol Nazi party members used in Austria before 1938—as they had in previous years. Instead, they wore edelweiss flowers, a rather neutral symbol of Austria. Strache had also given a speech at the fraternities’ annual ball a few days earlier, saying that they had to stand against racism and anti-Semitism. “Those are [positive] signs,” Engelberg said.

The FPÖ has also been trying to present itself in recent years not as anti-Semitic, but as decidedly supportive of Jews—a stance that seems politically opportunist. One way they attempt this is by showing support for the Jewish state: Strache and other party officials have been visiting Israel and meeting with far-right membersof the ruling Likud party (official Israeli policy, however, is to boycott the FPÖ). In December, Strache said it would be his wish to move the Austrian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He has also said Israel has the right to build West Bank settlements.Several scholars, a few of whom were featured in a recent Haaretz article, have made the case that some European far-right parties have adopted similar stances:

Cas Mudde, a political science professor at the University of Georgia … highlighted the stance of many radical rightists on the Jews. Jews, says Mudde, are seen to embody a modernity to be defended. Europe’s large Roma minority, on the other hand, are seen as barbarians living on the fringes of modernity, while Muslims are seen as barbarians living inside modernity—the enemy already inside the gates, according to the far right.

As a result, the philo-Semitic turn of many far-right parties, in the words of sociologist Rogers Brubaker, comes directly from these parties’ preoccupations with Islam. Writing earlier this year, Brubaker argues that the far right has come to redefine Jews as fellow Europeans and exemplary victims of the threat from Islam.

Another far-right European party that has tried this strategy is France’s National Front. Founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who made statements offensive to both Jews and Muslims, the party was taken over in 2011 by his daughter Marine Le Pen. She expelled her father from the party and gave it a facelift, publicly embracing Jews while continuing to speak negatively about Muslims. In 2014, she told French Jews, “Not only is the National Front not your enemy, but it is without a doubt the best shield to protect you. It stands at your side for the defense of our freedoms of thought and of religion against the only real enemy, Islamist fundamentalism.”

As the historian Ethan B. Katz has written, “The extreme right in France has repeatedly invoked Muslims and Jews in the same breath, at once highlighting both groups as different from the rest of the population and seeking to rally them against one another.”

These kinds of tactics may have influenced the FPÖ. “It’s possible that Marine Le Pen played a role in the FPÖ’s move away from anti-Semitism,” said Danny Leder, an Austrian journalist who has been based in France for decades and has covered the right-wing parties of the two countries extensively. “On a European level, the FPÖ was always the National Front’s junior partner.”Leder emphasized that “the threat [against Jews] is real.” In recent years, France has experienced several deadly Islamist terrorist attacks directed at Jews. The Austrian watchdog NGO Forum gegen Antisemitismus reports a steady increase in anti-Semitic incidents over the past few years, and in its 2015 report the increase in Islamist anti-Semitism was significant.

Both the National Front and the FPÖ have used these incidents to foment further hatred. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest anti-Muslim sentiment has become more widespread. Le Pen, in 2010, compared Muslim prayers in the streets to the Nazi occupation. And in Austria, “Daham statt Islam” (“Home instead of Islam”) was Strache’s campaign slogan in 2006. Last November, Landbauer called Johanna Mikl-Leitner, his rival in the state elections, “Moslem-Mama Mikl,” and claimed that she was “pushing Islamization in kindergartens” because a syllabus for kindergartens required that children be introduced to holidays from various religions.

Oskar Deutsch, the president of Vienna’s Jewish community, does see Islamist anti-Semitism as a significant threat, but he doesn’t believe the far-right is a true ally in combatting it. “Muslims, Roma and Sinti, and Jews—as minorities, we’re all sitting on the same branch,” he said. “If you’re sawing off one of our seats, we’re all falling.” But some Jewish leaders, like Engelberg in Austria, or the French Jews who voted for Le Pen, have seemed willing to give far-right parties a chance, perhaps encouraged by public displays of philo-Semitism.

Meanwhile, anti-Muslim sentiment helps to keep the far-right base happy. This base, however, has not abandoned its anti-Semitic strain, and party leaders still at times project anti-Semitic signals. Strache’s 2010 visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, where he wore his fraternity hat when head-covering was required, perhaps illustrates this best.

Still, the FPÖ keeps framing scandals such as the songbooks as isolated cases, in its attempt to convince people that Jews are no longer the enemy of the party. Fraternities are clearly enmeshed with the FPÖ, which means that—despite all public claims to the contrary—the party will likely keep its ties to anti-Semitism intact.

Source: Secretive Fraternities Are Feeding Anti-Semitism in Austria

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Canada’s merit-based immigration system is no ‘magic bullet’ : Mireille Paquet

2018/02/23 Leave a comment

Very good overview:

President Donald Trump has made comprehensive immigration reform in the United States one of his key legislative goals.

He’s proposed bringing the U.S. immigration system “into the 21st century” by providing a path to citizenship for some undocumented migrants and by fully securing the country’s southern border.

Central to his plans is a merit-based, Canada-style immigration systemthat would replace the current American system that focuses on family reunification and a diversity lottery.

But is merit-based immigration the simple solution for the complex set of immigration-related issues facing the United States?

Canada’s “merit-based” system provides some lessons for the United States. Despite the relative success of the Canadian merit-based system, Canada’s experience shows there’s no magic bullet.

What does “merit-based” mean?

“Merit-based” immigration systems are based on the principle of selecting newcomers according to their skills, education, adaptability, language proficiency and overall human capital.

These metrics, proponents argue, allow immigrants to fill specific labour market needs. But they also act as predictors of how a newcomer might adapt to a new social, economic and cultural environment.

Yet the notion of merit is complex, contextual and highly politicized.

All immigration selection programs are rooted in implicit and explicit definitions of merit, whether they’re based on economic criteria, ideas of cultural compatibility or family relationships. From that standpoint, all immigration programs are “merit-based” systems.

Current U.S. political debates tend to pit the programs of some countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand against the U.S. system as it exists today.

As several analysts and researchers have shown, however, family ties and social links can also be considered a form of merit, and may have positive impacts on immigrants’ future contributions to their new home.

Consequently, when it comes to immigration, there is no objective definition of what “merit” really means.

Merit-based systems have also been criticized for reinforcing global human capital inequalities and for indirectly sorting candidates based on ethnic and cultural origins.

But proponents see merit-based systems as yielding better integration outcomes. They also argue that they allow for better management of immigration levels, build public trust and are more responsive to labour market dynamics.

Trump says the system will help ensure economic growth, economic mobility for both native-born Americans and immigrants and will close the door to unwanted immigrants.

Canada’s “merit-based” system

Canada implemented a points system in 1967 in order to move away from origin-based selection of immigrants. Fifty years later, in 2017, Canada admitted 296,346 permanent legal immigrants. About 52 per cent of them entered through different categories of the “economic” class of the immigration program, Canada’s own version of a “merit-based” immigration system.

Under this system, economic immigration candidates are evaluated and ranked using a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). It’s a 100-point selection grid that considers factors such as age, education, work specialization, work experience in Canada and abroad as well as arranged employment in Canada.

Would-be immigrants to Canada are also evaluated for adaptability, measured by elements such as past experiences in Canada, but also by the presence of relatives in the country and their spouses’ language proficiency.

So even when measuring for “merit,” the Canadian immigration system does include a recognition of the importance of family ties and social networks.

What’s more, not all of the 159,125 individuals who entered Canada through the economic class in 2017 were selected using the economic criteria.

Between 2006 and 2015, only 41 to 49 per cent of these individuals were selected directly based on their potential for contributing to the Canadian economy. The rest of the economic class is comprised of close family members of the main applicant, like spouses and children.

Nonetheless, Canada’s experience overall with its immigration program has been positive. Among other benefits, it’s been credited with building the Canadian public’s support for relatively high immigration levels.

But merit-based immigration programs demand investment into the system, and they may have unintended consequences. Canada’s merit-based program provides three important lessons for U.S. policymakers and citizens:

Lesson 1: “Merit-based” is only the beginning

A central argument by proponents of merit-based immigration is that it will lead to better immigrant integration outcomes.

While that’s largely true, a constellation of social and state actions also affect how immigrants fare in their newly adopted homes.

Two are especially important: Immigrant integration services and efforts to find jobs for immigrants.

Canada funds immigrant integration programs that range from language training to information on jobs, bridging programs to jobs and job training. While Canada offers specific social programs for refugees, several services are also available to all classes of permanent immigrants.

Indeed, Canada plans to spend just over $1 billion on immigrant integration services in 2018.

Experience and research have shown these programs are critical to helping merit-based immigrants succeed economically and socially. They also increase immigrants’ overall sense of belonging to their new society and encourage social participation.

But integration services are not enough: Canada’s experience shows that while immigrants selected based on their economic criteria fare better in the labour market than others, many of them still endure economic difficulties.

Underemployment, trouble entering the labour market and the need to go back to school, despite having university degrees, are all too common experiences for Canadian immigrants even if they meet the “merit-based” criteria.Skills-based immigration programs can easily run amok if the labour market can’t accommodate foreign education and skills credentials. As a consequence, both Canada’s federal and provincial governments have had to invest in educating employers — and are still working to create and enforce standards for foreign skills recognition.

Canada’s experience proves that a merit-based system demands much more than simply choosing “the right” immigrants. Governments must invest in supporting them once they’ve been admitted.

Lesson 2: Immigrants & labour market needs

Matching the demands of the labour market to new immigrants is a challenge. That’s due in part to the difference between the speed at which labour markets evolve and how quickly an immigration system can operate to bring job-ready candidates to any given country and employer.

The challenge is compounded by popular and political ideas about who is an “ideal” economic immigrant — for example, a doctor or an engineer — and the actual labour needs of the country.

In the last 30 years, those types of disconnects have been a constant testin Canada but also in other countries.

In the early 1990s, the Canadian government’s preferred solution was to select immigrants based on predictions about their capacity to adapt to a changing labour market. To do so, they used human capital as the main merit criterion. That had several unintended effects, including the underemployment of many immigrants and labour shortages in several technical sectors.

Since then, the Canadian government has made a move towards a more demand-based model, and provides provinces and territories as well as employers with a bigger say in the selection system.

More recently, the system was again amended to reintroduce human capital factors because the immigrants selected by the demand-driven model were not considered skilled enough.

Canada’s experience is one of a tug of war between planning for long-term labour needs and short-term labour supply.

Despite these adjustments, current Canadian programs still struggle to address the needs of labour markets that are increasingly divided between the need for high-skilled versus low-skilled workers, like those in short supply in the service sector.

Consequently, Canada relies increasingly on temporary immigration to meet market demands. In the last 10 years, the number of so-called temporary foreign workers has grown tremendously, as have concerns about worker abuses and overall precarity.

And despite reforms aimed at providing temporary workers a path to permanent residency, the need for those low-skilled labourers runs counter to the long-term social and economic objective of Canada’s merit-based system.

What is “best” for the economy, and what types of immigrants are most needed, often eschews simple answers.

Lesson 3: The need for bureaucrats

Trust in the bureaucracy is critical to a successful merit-based system. Any immigrant-selection system relies on a comprehensive, technical method of assessing would-be newcomers, the gathering of information on the labour market and on global migration trends, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of programs.

On the ground, considerable work is required to assess individual applications based on merit criteria. While technology makes these tasks easier than before, well-trained public servants and well-funded public infrastructure are needed.
In Canada and elsewhere, government workers use research, field expertise and discretion to assess applicants. The need for accurate data along with the complexity of these programs often make elected officials dependent on the expertise and advice of public servants.

Bureaucrats are uniquely positioned to see the negative consequences of selection programs, and to propose innovative solutions based on their hands-on experience.

What’s more, experiments that have involved employers in immigrant selection programs remain inconclusive. While they remain important partners, bureaucrats still have the advantage over employers in assessing immigrants.

The move to merit-based systems often politicize not only overall immigration levels, but also the very definition of “merit.”

The cacophony of partisan advice and political opinion on these often highly technical assessments of immigrants means it’s crucial to have reliable data on immigration and unbiased analysis. The trust of Canadian elected officials in the country’s immigration bureaucracy is one of the secret ingredients of its success.

Hardly a ‘magic bullet’

A merit-based immigration might address some of America’s immigration challenges.

But it could also have negative consequences, especially as long as state-funded integration services remain comparatively limited and not accessible to all immigrants in the U.S..

The U.S. government will also need work to ensure that the immigrants it selects will respond to the actual labour market needs of its diverse economy. The distrust the Trump administration clearly harbours towards the American federal bureaucracy might also create considerable challenges to the design and implementation of a merit-based system.

Canada’s experience shows that selecting immigrants based on economic merit is not a silver bullet. Finding the “right” immigrants is the only one step in a large group of government actions that support immigrants and the country overall.

via Canada’s merit-based immigration system is no ‘magic bullet’

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