Immigration Form Denials Rise Every Quarter Except One Under Trump, Up 80% Overall

2019/05/15 Leave a comment

New data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that adjudicates applications for immigrants, reveals that the agency is denying applications by immigrants at a higher rate. The denial rate for all applications—everything from travel and work authorizations to petitions for foreign workers—has risen every quarter except one under the Trump administration.

Overall, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019, USCIS had a denial rate 80 percent above that for the first quarter of FY 17—the last full quarter of Obama’s term (October to December 2016). The denial rate increased from 7.4 percent in quarter 1 of FY 17 to 13.2 percent in quarter 1 of FY 19. Figure 1 shows the trend by quarter from FY 16 to FY 19.

The denial rate in the first quarter of 2019 was the highest for any quarter for the period that USCIS has published records, FY 13 to FY 19. The higher denial rate translates to more than 72,000 denials in quarter one of FY 19. These data exclude applications for citizenship and include all other USCIS applications except those for DACA and TPS—two programs for illegal immigrants that the president has tried to virtually eliminate—but the trends are similar regardless. They do not include visa applications that are made to the U.S. Department of State, though denial rates haveincreased there as well.

Figure 2 highlights the trend for affirmative asylum applications by quarter from FY 16 to FY 19. These applications do not include those made “defensively” in immigration court by illegal border crossers. The data show that from the first quarter of FY 17 to the first quarter of FY 19, the denial rate for affirmative asylum applications rose from 0.8 percent to 5.1 percent—a 515 percent increase.

Figure 3 shows the denial rate for T visa applications by quarter from FY 16 to FY 19. These applications grant legal status to victims of severe human trafficking. From the first quarter of FY 17 to the first quarter of FY 19, the denial rate for T visa applications rose from 11.3 percent to 43.3 percent—a 284 percent increase.

Figure 4 provides the trend for family-based adjustment of status applications. These applications grant permanent residence (i.e. a green card) to immigrants. The denial rate has increased from 11.2 percent in the first quarter of FY 17 to 14.6 percent in the first quarter of FY 19—a 30 percent increase. As it shows, however, the trend started before FY 17. The increase since quarter 1 of FY 16 has been 60 percent.

Figure 5 provides the trend for the denial rate for employment authorization documents (EAD) by quarter from FY 16 to FY 19. Some immigrants whose status doesn’t automatically include it can apply for permission to work. These include applicants for asylum or certain spouses of H-1B visa holders who have pending green card applications. The EAD denial rate has increased from 4.7 percent in the first quarter of FY 17 to 10.5 percent in the first quarter of FY 19—a 123 percent increase.

Figure 6 shows the trend for petitions for nonimmigrant workers (I-129 forms). These are applications that employers make on behalf of foreign guest workers, such as H-1B high-skilled workers and H-2A seasonal farm workers. The denial rate has increased from 17.6 percent in the first quarter of FY 17 to 28 percent in the first quarter of FY 19—a 59 percent increase.

Figure 7 illustrates the denial rate for advanced parole from FY 16 to FY 19. Advanced parole provides immigrants advanced permission to leave and reenter the United States without triggering certain consequences. Green card applicants often use advanced parole to travel internationally while their green card application is still pending. The denial rate increased from 8.4 percent in the first quarter of FY 17 to 14.7 percent in the first quarter of FY 19—a 75 percent increase.

The higher denial actually comes as the agency has received fewer applications. Total applications—again excluding citizenship, DACA, and TPS—have fallen from 1.7 million in quarter one of FY 17 to 1.3 million in quarter one of FY 19. The higher denials are caused by a variety of immigration changes, including the president’s “Buy American, Hire American” and “extreme vetting” executive orders. USCIS also increased the length and complexity of its immigration forms—doubling or triplingtheir length—and the government has also changed its standards for asylum. It has made issuing denials easier and is looking over the shoulders of adjudicators.

These denial rates come from only one of the agencies responsible for immigration, but this phenomenon spans the administration. U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice, which handle some types of applications, also have increased denials. The ultimate goal of this administration is simple: less immigration—illegal or legal.

Source: Immigration Form Denials Rise Every Quarter Except One Under Trump, Up 80% Overall

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Despite falling numbers, immigration remains divisive EU issue

2019/05/15 Leave a comment

Easier to continue campaigning even if the numbers are falling, than address more substantial and complex issues:

Migrant arrivals to Italy have almost dried up, new asylum requests across the European Union have more than halved in three years and at the end of 2018, Hungary’s reception centers housed just three refugees.

On the face of it, Europe’s migrant crisis appears over, but the shockwaves still resound around the continent ahead of this month’s European Parliament election, and nationalist politicians are looking to capitalize on the continued tumult.

“The most important thing is that leaders are elected who oppose immigration so that Europe will be in a position to defend itself,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on the sidelines of an EU summit in Romania last week.

Opponents accuse far-right and populist parties of grossly exaggerating the problem, but the issue still resonates, with a YouGov poll published on Monday showing that immigration was currently the voters’ top concern, followed by climate change.

The survey, carried out in eight EU states, showed just 3% of respondents thought “all is well” on the migration front, YouGov said. Only 14% believed the European Union had done a good job handling the emergency.

Once consigned to the fringes of European politics, anti-immigrant parties saw support surge in 2015 when more than a million refugees and migrants flowed out of the Middle East and Africa in search of a safer, better life in Europe.

The influx caught EU governments by surprise, stretching both social and security services, and revealing the inability of Brussels to find a way of sharing the immigration burden in the face of wildly conflicting national interests.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, nationalist and eurosceptic parties are expected to chalk up their best ever result in the May 23-26 EU vote, putting them in a strong position to shape policy in the 28-nation bloc over the coming five years.

LOSING MOMENTUM

In all, some 4.57 million people have requested asylum here in the European Union since the last EU vote in 2014, a threefold increase over the prior five-year period, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat. But the numbers are receding.

Thanks partly to much tighter controls, often put in place by newly empowered anti-immigrant parties such as the League in Italy, new arrivals to Europe fell to under 150,000 last year here, U.N. data shows, with even fewer expected in 2019.

Headed by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the League looks set to emerge as Italy’s largest party in the May ballot, with polls suggesting it will win around 30% against 6% at the last EU election in 2014 and 17% at a 2018 national ballot.

Since taking office last June, Salvini has effectively closed ports to migrants rescued in the Mediterranean, helping cut new arrivals here to around 1,100 so far in 2019 here, down some 90% on 2018 levels and 98% on the same period in 2017.

But latest polls suggest momentum for the League might be slowing, with the focus on immigration starting to fade – at least in Italy, where concerns about the economy and corruption are pushing to the fore.

“Salvini hopes immigration will remain a central issue because it is one that generates most support for him,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco, head of political analysis firm YouTrend.

“But is hard for him to say ‘we have reduced migrant arrivals by 98 percent’ and then keep saying immigration is a threat. This is creating a problem for him,” Pregliasco told Reuters.

Looking to keep migration in the spotlight, the League and its political allies in Europe have been quick to portray the newcomers as a security threat, pointing to deadly jihadist attacks over the past five years, including assaults in Paris, Brussels, Berlin, London and Barcelona.

A poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations said there was a clear majority in every country for better protection of Europe’s borders, while Europeans saw Islamic radicalism as the biggest threat facing the continent.

“There is a creeping Islamisation, a population change, or a population displacement,” said Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom (FPO) party, a junior coalition partner.

PLAYING ON FEARS

Mainstream parties accuse the populists of playing on base emotions and say they are not interested in finding a comprehensive solution to the refugee question, which could include quotas for redistributing new arrivals around the bloc, and better integrating migrants into European society.

“The danger I see is that there are politicians in Europe who have a reason to keep this problem alive,” Manfred Weber, the German lead candidate for the EU center-right, told Reuters.

Germany took in more than a million asylum-seekers in 2015 – a decision welcomed by human rights groups, but that also stoked support for the anti-migrant, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Tapping into discontent amongst part of the electorate, AfD entered the national parliament for the first time in 2017 and is the only German party that is putting an emphasis on immigration in campaigning for the EU vote.

“Refugees are bringing crime into our towns,” the AfD has said in Tweets and leaflets ahead of the ballot – an assertion rejected by its opponents.

Mainstream German parties are focusing on other issues and hoping immigration will fall off the radar screen. It is a similar story in France, where President Emmanuel Macron’s party has listed immigration as only its number 5 priority, with the environment in the top spot.

Gerald Knaus, chairman of the Berlin-based European Stability Initiative think-tank, believes that by relegating the question, moderate parties will allow extremist rivals to frame the debate and let the anti-immigrant narrative predominate.

“What is lacking from mainstream parties is a coherent, convincing message that they can control arrivals without violating human rights,” he told Reuters.

“The majority of people want migration control but they also have empathy for refugees. As things stand, these voters have no-one to turn to (in this election).”

Source: Despite falling numbers, immigration remains divisive EU issue

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USA: Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime?

2019/05/14 Leave a comment

Spoiler – no:

A lot of research has shown that there’s no causal connection between immigration and crime in the United States. But after one such study was reported on jointly by The Marshall Project and The Upshot last year, readers had one major complaint: Many argued it wasunauthorized immigrants who increase crime, not immigrants over all.

An analysis derived from new data is now able to help address this question, suggesting that growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates.

In part because it’s hard to collect data on them, undocumented immigrants have been the subjects of few studies, including those related to crime. But the Pew Research Center recently released estimates of undocumented populations sorted by metro area, which The Marshall Project has compared with local crime rates published by the F.B.I. For the first time, there is an opportunity for a broader analysis of how unauthorized immigration might have affected crime rates since 2007.

A large majority of the areas recorded decreases in both violent and property crime between 2007 and 2016, consistent with a quarter-century decline in crime across the United States. The analysis found that crime went down at similar rates regardless of whether the undocumented population rose or fell. Areas with more unauthorized migration appeared to have larger drops in crime, although the difference was small and uncertain.

(Illegal immigration itself is either a civil violation or a misdemeanor, depending on whether someone overstayed a visa or crossed the border without authorization.)

Most types of crime had an almost flat trend line, indicating that changes in undocumented populations had little or no effect on crime in the various metro areas under survey. Murder was the only type of crime that appeared to show a rise, but again the difference was small and uncertain (effectively zero).

For undocumented immigrants, being arrested for any reason would mean facing eventual deportation — and for some a return to whatever danger or deprivation they’d sought to escape at home.

There is no exact count of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. To create estimates, experts at Pew subtracted Department of Homeland Security counts of immigrants with legal status from the number of foreign-born people counted by the Census Bureau. Many organizations and agencies, including the D.H.S., use this residual estimation method; it is generally considered the best one available. As of 2016, there were an estimated 10.7 million undocumented immigrants nationwide, down a million and a half since 2007.

Jeffrey Passel, a Pew senior demographer, and his team estimated changes in undocumented populations for roughly 180 metropolitan areas between 2007 and 2016. For comparison, The Marshall Project calculated corresponding three-year averages of violent and property crime rates from the Uniform Crime Reporting program, and the change in those rates.

The results of the analysis resemble those of other studies on the relationship between undocumented immigration and crime. Last year, a report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, found that unauthorized immigrants in Texas committed fewer crimes than their native-born counterparts. A state-level analysis in Criminology, an academic journal, found that undocumented immigration did not increase violent crime and was in fact associated with slight decreases in it. Another Cato study found that unauthorized immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated.

At the more local level, an analysis by Governing magazine reported that metropolitan areas with more undocumented residents had similar rates of violent crime, and significantly lower rates of property crime, than areas with smaller numbers of such residents in 2014. After controlling for multiple socioeconomic factors, the author of the analysis, Mike Maciag, found that for every 1 percentage point increase in an area’s population that was undocumented there were 94 fewer property crimes per 100,000 residents.

More research is underway about the potential effects of undocumented immigration on crime. Robert Adelman, a professor at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, whose group’s research The Marshall Project and The Upshot have previously documented, is leading a team to expand on the Governing analysis. Early results suggest unauthorized immigration has no effect on violent crime, and is associated with lower property crime, the same as Mr. Maciag found.

Preliminary findings indicate that other socioeconomic factors like unemployment rates, housing instability and measures of economic hardship all predict higher rates of different types of crime, while undocumented immigrant populations do not.

Many studies have established that immigrants commit crimes at consistently lower rates than native-born Americans. But a common concern is whether immigrants put pressure on native-born populations in any number of ways — for instance, by increasing job competition — that could indirectly lead to more crime and other negative impacts.

According to Mr. Adelman and his team, however, the impact of undocumented immigrants is probably similar to what the research indicates about immigrants over all: They tend to bring economic and cultural benefits to their communities. They typically come to America to find work, not to commit crimes, says Yulin Yang, a member of the team.

The data suggests that when it comes to crime, the difference between someone who is called a legal immigrant and an illegal one doesn’t seem to matter.

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Immigration’s impact on Canadian economy cuts many ways for economists

2019/05/13 Leave a comment

Good summary of what the data shows, largely based on UBC economist David Green:

Are immigrants good for the Canadian economy?

Forty-five per cent of Canadians answer “yes” to this broad question, while 22 per cent say “no” and 33 per cent are not sure. There’s an argument to be made those who told Ipsos pollsters they don’t know are the most honest — and also the most realistic.

Most Canadians don’t follow the economists who track how immigration and temporary workers have an impact on Canada. If they did, they’d soon realize economists’ findings often conflict with the views championed by corporate executives and politicians.

Canada’s traditionally high immigration rates actually cut many unpredictable ways. The more than 300,000 immigrants and 700,000 temporary migrants recently arriving in the country help expand the overall economic pie. But to most economists that doesn’t mean much.

Economists, instead, mine data to discover whether average wages rise or fall because of migration, which types of migrants do best, whether a foreign education or offshore work translates to Canadian success and how much it matters to be proficient in English or French.

UBC economist David Green says it can be misleading to emphasize the gross domestic product. Yet I’d suggest it’s what almost half of Canadians are probably thinking about when they tell pollsters immigration is good for the economy.

“The size of the whole economy is not really what we care about. What we really care about is per capita income. We care about how much each one of us gets in income,” Green said in an interview.

“Think about whether you’d rather be living in India or living here, just in terms of your material wealth. India, in terms of GDP, is bigger than us. But in terms of GDP per capita we’re way ahead of them. So you’d rather be in a rich society than a big society.”

Designing immigration policies mainly to boost the GDP “makes little sense,” Green says. That is, unless you’re a business owner who wants a bigger market for your product (such as real estate or automobiles) and more choice in who you can hire.

Here’s a second lesson from economists: When it comes to what really matters for most Canadians — per capita wages — Green explains the impact of immigration is over time “very close to zero.”

The extreme boosters or critics of immigration, as a result, may have to tone down their rhetoric in light of findings by Green and others that, overall, immigrants neither “steal jobs” nor “magically grow them either.”

Here are eight other discoveries economists have made about migration:

New immigrants aren’t doing as well in Canada as in the 1980s

Historical graphs show immigrants’ earnings, compared to that of the native-born in Canada, were strongest in the 1980s and declined precipitously until about 2003, when they slowly began improving.

There are two reasons for this decline in the 1990s, says Green. One is that all new entrants to Canada’s labour market, including domestic-born, struggled with lower wages during that period. The other is that fewer immigrants came from Europe.

Language matters, a lot

Economic studies have consistently shown the most successful immigrants to Canada are those who are adept at English or French. “There is a positive correlation between language skills and earnings,” says Green.

Source country also makes a difference

“People from source countries where English or French is not the main language, or with different educational institutions, do less well in the Canadian economy … compared to immigrants from Northern Europe or the U.S.,” says Green.

When Australia introduced stricter language testing of immigrants, economist Andrew Clarke and others found immigrants earned higher incomes. But that could be because the new language demands led to more people going to Australia from Europe.

Foreign degrees not quite as valuable as Canadian degrees

Immigrants with a foreign degrees don’t always gain greatly from it, unless they’re literate in French or English, according to economist Joseph Schaafsma.

“The implication is that, on average, immigrants have lower returns on education because their education skills are not as productive in the Canadian economy,” says Green, who nevertheless adds it’s still valuable to select educated immigrants.

It might help if Canadian officials improved efforts to recognize the credentials of people trained outside the country, Green says, “but it won’t be a panacea.”

Offshore work experience doesn’t pay off as expected

This is a harsh reality for many new immigrants.

“Foreign-acquired work experience obtains a zero return in Canada,” both Green and Carleton’s Christopher Worswick discovered. Work skills that immigrants develop in their home countries might not be as useful in the Canadian labour market as they would like.

While it’s hard to pin down exactly why immigrants do not benefit greatly from work experience in a foreign land, Green says it could partly be attributed to “discrimination.” But it’s also a result of old-country experience not easily transferring to a new land.

There are winners and losers in migration

Although the across-the-board impact of immigration on Canadian wages is flat, some low-wage workers can get hit.

American economist Giovanni Peri is among those who have found that relatively recent immigrants can be financially hurt when a new wave of immigrants arrives soon after them.

Although U.S. evidence doesn’t translate easily to Canada, it suggests immigration can have a negative impact on the wages of lower-skilled workers, including both immigrants and the native-born. Some domestic workers adjust by moving into jobs that require strong English-language skills.

There can also be negative impacts on the wages of those in the host society when temporary workers come to Canada, says the University of Ottawa’s Pierre Brochu. The number of temporary workers in Canada, including the low-skilled, has roughly doubled since the 2015 election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Immigrants tend to pay less in taxes

Since immigrants start in Canada with earnings that are below the national average before they gradually catch up, Green says it “implies they will tend, on average, to contribute less to the public purse.”

Immigrants lean to self-employment and small businesses

Even though commentators point to the way immigrants appear slightly more likely than the native-born to “create businesses,” the trend is a bit more complicated.

“We find that immigrants are more likely to open firms, but they are much more likely to be spells of self-employment, rather than incorporated firms that employ others,” says Green. “And even the incorporated firms tend to be small.”

• • •

Although the financial data is not all rosy for immigrants to Canada, it doesn’t mean most don’t benefit from leaving their homeland.

Most economists agree nearly all immigrants gain tremendously by moving to a high-wage country such as Canada from their own countries, which typically offer lower wages and are often dysfunctional.

What’s more, the United Nations’ Happiness Report, co-run by UBC economist David Helliwell, finds that immigrants who move from “unhappy” countries (where residents report low rates of life satisfaction) to happier ones such as Canada soon end up as happy as the host society.

In addition, many immigrants make their life-changing move to a new land as part of a long game for their families, so their children can get better educations and grow up in more stable societies and stronger economies.

Indeed, Statistics Canada studies reveal the offspring of immigrants do far better than the native-born in both obtaining university degrees and high-skilled jobs. Says Green: “There are potential gains to Canada as whole from the second generation.”

Many people make sweeping generalizations for and against immigration, but instead of going with bombast, economists show the truth is in the details.

Source: Immigration’s impact on Canadian economy cuts many ways for economists

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Supreme Court says migrants can bring detention challenge to judge

2019/05/13 Leave a comment

A reminder of legal constraints regarding immigration policy:

Refugee claimants have the right to challenge their prolonged incarceration before a Superior Court judge, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.

In a 6-1 decision released Friday, justices ruled in favour of Tusif Ur Rehman Chhina, a Pakistani national who challenged his prolonged detention in a maximum-security remand centre in Calgary. He was detained because he was deemed a security risk.

His case was reviewed regularly by an immigration tribunal, which repeatedly ordered him detained as a flight risk.

The majority of the justices found the tribunal process does not provide for a review that is “as broad and advantageous” as a hearing before a Superior Court.

Chhina had been stripped of his refugee status and ordered deported because he misrepresented his identity to Canadian officials and was involved in serious criminality, including possession of a prohibited weapon, forgery and fraud.

Chhina was removed from Canada in September, 2017 but his legal case carried on, to determine whether the current detention regime is constitutional.

He had argued his charter rights to liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention were violated.

Human rights groups praise ruling

The ruling focused on the legal principle of habeas corpus, which allows someone in custody to go before a judge to challenge a detention. The ruling sets aside an exception that compelled migrants without Canadian citizenship to challenge immigration detention only through immigration tribunals or a federal judicial review.

Human rights groups and refugee advocates welcomed the decision.

Amnesty International said Canada has an international legal obligation to guarantee immigration detainees are able to exercise the right to a Superior Court hearing.

“The right to liberty is a fundamental human right. This decision vindicates immigration detainees who have been denied their liberty for years on end with no meaningful way to challenge that injustice and regain their freedom,” said Amnesty International Canada’s secretary general Alex Neve. “They can now seek justice in superior courts and have their Charter rights protected and enforced.”

‘Devastating impacts’

The Canadian Council for Refugees said detainees don’t always get a fair hearing and incarcerating them can have serious repercussions.

“Detention often has devastating impacts, even when it is only for a short period, particularly for children, refugee claimants, trafficked persons and individuals suffering from mental health issues,” reads a statement.

Swathi Sekhar, lawyer for the advocacy group End Immigration Detention Network, said the high court delivered an “important tool” for migrants to challenge their detentions. In a habeas corpus application, the onus is on the government to prove the detention is lawful, but in a detention review the onus is usually on the migrant to prove they should be released.

“This is one more tool, but more importantly this is one more large step on the road to the abolition of immigration detention,” she said.

Risks for LGBT migrants

There were 11 interveners in the case.

One of them, Egale Canada, said migrants often suffer homophobic violence, while transgender migrants are often detained in facilities that don’t align with their gender identities.

“LGBT people who are detained for immigration purposes face life-threatening conditions and, prior to this ruling, there was no tangible way to challenge these conditions under the current system,” said Egale’s executive director Helen Kennedy.

The ruling may not affect a large number of detainees. According to the recent statistics, just 122 migrants were detained for longer than 99 days over the last quarter.

The decision comes as the federal government takes steps to improve the system in response to sharp criticism of harsh detention conditions and policies.

Scott Bardsley, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, said the government has made improvements to infrastructure and mental and medical health services, while expanding alternatives to detention and the use of provincial jails and reducing the number of minors in detention.

The recently tabled Bill C-98 would create an expanded, independent oversight body to review the CBSA. Bardsley said the bill will allow migrants to file complaints before that body about detentions and the conduct of CBSA employees.

Source: Supreme Court says migrants can bring detention challenge to judge

Sharry Aiken and Stephanie Silverman make the case that A world without immigration detention is possible.

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German government defends planned immigration laws | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond

2019/05/11 Leave a comment

Responding to the most immediate needs of the business community:

In a heated debate in the Bundestag on Thursday, the German government made the case for its much discussed proposed law governing immigration for skilled workers.

The new proposal, initially agreed upon by Angela Merkel’s Cabinet five months ago, is the government’s response to many years of complaints from a business community increasingly concerned about the lack of qualified IT specialists and engineers in Germany and shortfalls in other vocational professions. The country’s aging population is also desperately in need of health care workers.

A historic turning point

Conservative Interior Minister Horst Seehofer was on hand to present the draft law. He described it as a “historic point of juncture” that provided clear criteria for who should be able to come to Germany to work and under what conditions.

The minister was careful to point out that any perceived liberalization of Germany’s immigration laws could easily be corrected in the future, should the job-market situation change.

One of the key planks of the proposed law is the suspension of a mandatory check accompanying all job applications from outside the EU that makes sure there are no German or EU citizen applicants, who have priority.

The law will also make it easier for immigrants with a vocational qualification to move to Germany. Up until now, the German system had mainly favored those with academic qualifications.

Additionally it will also allow some people, under certain circumstances, to come to Germany to seek vocational training.

Interior Minister Seehofer said the law would be ‘historic’

The opposition criticized the limited scope of the plan, while the government’s conservative faction in the Bundestag stressed in a statement that there must be “no immigration into the social security systems.”

Tolerated, as workers

The German labor minister, Hubertus Heil, also defended another migration law proposed by the government that modifies how certain asylum-seekers whose applications have been rejected can obtain a “tolerated” status, meaning they are nonetheless allowed to stay in the country. The modifications apply to rejected asylum-seekers who have begun a state-recognized vocational training course or work for at least 20 hours a week, learned German, and have been able to support themselves for 18 months already.

Heil defended the move as a “pragmatic solution,” arguing it made no sense to deport people who were already working in Germany while at the same time trying to encourage other skilled workers to come.

Immigration reforms ‘too restrictive’

But some experts did not think much of the idea.

“It is much too restrictive to make much sense,” Thomas Gross, immigration law professor at Osnabrück University, said of the toleration article. “There are a few former refugees whose status hasn’t been recognized. They will get a more long-term ‘toleration status’ under very tight restrictions. But that isn’t a residency permit, but a second-class, uncertain status, and it will only be relevant for very few people.”

Gross was similarly unimpressed with draft law on general immigration. “It’s certainly a compromise that offers access and progress for those with non-academic professions with training qualifications,” the professor told DW. “But for all other areas it brings practically no progress.”

Attacks from all sides

The government, made up of Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, and the center-left Social Democrats, was bombarded from both sides of the parliament during the debate.

The business-friendly Free Democrats, represented by Linda Teuteberg, dismissed the draft law as “tentative and uninspired” and said it offered no great progress.

Green party parliamentary leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt said the proposal was more of an “obstruction law” rather than a modern immigration law, a line that was also taken by the socialist Left party.

The exact opposite argument was made by Gottfried Curio, a representative from the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), who said the proposed law would only attract more “underqualified poverty migration.”

Germany is facing a care-worker crisis

Human rights organizations like Pro Asyl also argued that the draft law was orientated more towards Germany’s economic interests and would help very few asylum-seekers who were trying to integrate in Germany.

Bureaucratic bottleneck

Bettina Offer, an immigration lawyer who represents major German companies looking for employees abroad, said it was unrealistic to expect the government to completely overhaul Germany’s immigration law in anything less than three to five years. According to her, what the government had done was ease the most critical points in the current legal situation.

“They wanted a quick solution because skilled workers were needed quickly, and I think that made sense,” Offer said. “That has been improved, but it’s true that the new law only offers a very rough framework, which I think will be refined in the next few years.”

“But what is perhaps even more important for the skilled workers is that the government has understood that the bottleneck is not so much at the legal level, but at the bureaucratic and administrative level,” she added.

In other words, it’s the practical problems that deter many qualified people from coming to Germany, such as difficulties getting visa appointments, either in Germany’s Foreign Citizen Offices or in consulates abroad.

“The new law includes a fast-tracked procedure for qualified workers. Businesses have been calling for that a long time, and that has finally been heard,” said Offer.

The law is supposed to come into effect on January 1, 2020, though the government has also warned that the relevant bureaucracies will need a six-month preparation period, which would mean the parliament would have to pass the law this summer to have an effect.

Source: German government defends planned immigration laws | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond

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More Immigrants Are Giving Up and Leaving the US

2019/05/10 Leave a comment

Alejandra Garcia Zamarrón, a mother of three American citizens, had lived in the United States for nearly 20 years when a police officer pulled over the unregistered vehicle she was riding in.

Georgia was her home, the place where she’d lived for years and raised her family. But when she found herself locked in the Irwin County Detention Center, she had few options to stay. She’d been brought to the U.S. as a child, but her protected status as a childhood arrival had expired. And she had given a fake name and date of birth to the police officer who stopped her, a misdemeanor that put her at greater risk of deportation.

This story was published in partnership with Politico.

Zamarrón, 32, initially vowed to fight her removal to Mexico as long as she could. But as the months in detention dragged on, she changed her mind and asked for “voluntary departure,” which would allow her to leave the U.S. without a deportation on her record. “My family decided the best bet was for me to leave and fight from the outside,” Zamarrón said in a phone call from the detention center, before she returned to Mexico in November.

The number of immigrants who have applied for voluntary departure has soared since the election of Donald Trump, according to new Justice Department data obtained by The Marshall Project. In fiscal year 2018, the number of applications doubled from the previous year—rising much faster than the 17 percent increase in overall immigration cases, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The numbers show yet another way the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration is having an impact: More people are considering leaving the U.S., rather than being stuck in detention or taking on a lengthy legal battle with little hope of success.

Monthly applications for “voluntary departure”

Starting shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, more and more immigrants facing removal asked to leave the country rather than be deported. Last year, the number who asked immigration courts to be allowed to leave voluntarily more than doubled from the year before.

Last year, voluntary departure applications reached a seven-year high of 29,818 applications. In the Atlanta court, which hears cases of Irwin detainees like Zamarrón, the applications grew nearly seven times from 2016 to 2018.

The increase in applications for voluntary departure could be seen as a win for the Trump administration, which has made it a goal to get undocumented immigrants out of the country and reduce the looming backlog of immigration cases. Indeed, the Justice Department has published the growing number of voluntary departures alongside deportations as a sign of a “return to the rule of law” and that Trump’s approach is working. But it is also a sign of how broad immigration enforcement has become, sweeping up the criminals Trump talks about alongside parents like Zamarrón who have little to no criminal history, as voluntary departure is only open to immigrants without a serious record. When Mitt Romney once shared his plan to have people “self-deport,” he meant it as an alternative to ramping up enforcement power. But the recent spike in voluntary departure has come only with an increase in arrests and in detention.

An application for voluntary departure ultimately has to be approved by an immigration judge. The number of requests granted increased 50 percent in fiscal year 2017, according to data from the Justice Department. (Because not every case is resolved during the year it is filed, and judges can grant voluntary departure without a formal application, the annual total of voluntary departures has exceeded the number of applications.)

Under immigration law, voluntary departure is considered a kind of privilege. If you are deported, you have to wait years to apply for a visa to re-enter the United States, but those who leave voluntarily don’t have the same wait. And you don’t face serious prison time if you are caught without legal status in the U.S.

But voluntary departure is a last resort for many undocumented immigrants, because it means leaving their longtime homes and often their families in the United States without any clear prospect for returning. And those who take the option usually have to pay their own way. Those flights can cost thousands of dollars, because immigration officials require a special kind of ticket that can be changed at any time.

Several factors are probably responsible for the surge in the number of applications for voluntary departure, experts say. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has increasingly gone after immigrants who have no criminal backgrounds—those who are more likely to qualify for voluntary departure. Because of the growing backlog of immigration cases, judges and Department of Homeland Security attorneys may feel pressured to resolve cases quickly and offer voluntary departure instead of dragging out multiple appeals.

“I would definitely think that some of it might be related to judges trying to keep up with their production quotas,” said former immigration judge Paul Wickham Schmidt.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review—the Justice Department office in charge of immigration courts—declined to comment on the increase in applications. “Using metrics to evaluate performance is neither novel nor unique to EOIR,” spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly said in an email. “The purpose of implementing these metrics is to encourage efficient and effective case management while preserving immigration judge discretion and due process.”

ICE spokesperson Brendan Raedy said that many apply for voluntary departure so they don’t have to wait to apply to re-enter the country. “In addition, voluntary departure generally provides far more time to make necessary arrangements than for those who are ordered removed,” he wrote in an email.

Attorney Marty Rosenbluth, who represents clients in the immigration court at the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, said more of his clients from Mexico are considering voluntary departure because of the danger involved in deportation. At Stewart, one of the country’s most remote detention centers, the number of applications last year was 19 times what it had been in 2016. “It’s largely a safety thing,” Rosenbluth said. In deportations, “ICE just dumps you at the border, and you’re on your own,” he said. If they’re granted voluntary departure, individuals are able to fly into Mexico City or closer to home.

Immigrants may also be increasingly aware of voluntary departure as an option, and of the slim chances of winning a case from detention. “Detainees talk to each other,” said Trina Realmuto, a directing attorney for the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration nonprofit. “The one guy fighting his case is going to say, ‘I’ve been here a year and nobody wins.’ There are legal factors, and there’s human factors.”

While Alejandra Garcia Zamarrón has left for Mexico to avoid detention, her youngest daughter is still living in Georgia.

Zamarrón’s request for voluntary departure came as a surprise to her legal team. “She had been saying for months and months, ‘I’m going to fight this,’” said attorney Laura Rivera of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who worked on Zamarrón’s case. “It speaks to the desperation of people in detention that they’d be trying to sign up in droves for this thing that actually causes them to be removed. They’ve got to be thinking that there’s no way out.”

Before she returned to Mexico, Zamarrón said she was driven by the need to have more contact with her family than she was able to have in detention. “When I come out I’ll be able to have more communication with them, FaceTime with them,” she said. “I didn’t want to wait. I’m ready to see my baby’s face.” From Mexico, she recently video-called into her 13-year-old daughter’s baptism. She hopes to apply for a U-Visa as a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault, and at the very least, have her 17-year old son petition to bring her to the United States after he turns 21.

Zamarrón said many of the women she was detained with were also considering voluntary departure. “They’re tired of living in here, of dealing with ICE, dealing with guards, dealing with the injustice … They give up. They’d rather be deported than fight for their case,” she said. “We’re not criminals, we just don’t have options.”

Source: More Immigrants Are Giving Up and Leaving the US

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Terry Glavin: The Tories insist racists aren’t welcome in their party. What are they doing about it?

2019/05/09 Leave a comment

Strong commentary, capturing the unfortunate missteps and resulting perceptions:

There’s no way around it: Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives have a racist jackass problem.

This is not to say that Scheer or any of his MPs have consciously invited the affections of the country’s racist jackasses, and there are far fewer votes in Canada’s racist jackass constituency than you might think. But it’s a problem. And Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives have it, in spades.

The most recent evidence is quite jarring. It comes in Ekos Research Associates’ latest annual findings about Canadian attitudes about immigration. Nothing much has changed in the long-term trends, but for the first time, the proportion of Canadians who say immigration rates are too high has merged with the percentage of Ekos poll respondents who say too many non-white people are coming to Canada. And that bloc is coalescing, for the first time, behind a single political party: Scheer’s Conservatives.

This is what it has come to. Sixty-nine per cent of the “too many non-whites” respondents say they back Scheer’s Conservatives. It only stands to reason that a fairly high number of these people are racist jackasses. And there’s growing evidence that sociopaths from that creepy white-nationalist subculture that congregates in obscure 4chan and 8chan chatrooms are hoping to mainstream their contagion into conservative parties. Scheer’s Conservatives insist they’re not happy about any of this.

“Mr. Scheer is clear. These types of views are not welcome in the party,” Brock Harrison, Scheer’s communications director, told me. “He’s stated that view many, many times. Sure, there are fringe elements who will tell a pollster they support the Conservative party, but, you know, those fringe elements who hold to these extreme ideologies have no place in the party. That’s clear.”

Fair enough. But if there’s nothing wrong with the Conservative message on immigrants and refugees and visible minorities, there sure is something wrong with the signal.

It’s not hard to make the case, for instance, that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have disingenuously attributed racism and xenophobia to public anxieties and otherwise reasonable Opposition criticisms of the way Ottawa has handled the upsurge in “irregular” asylum claimants who have crossed the Canada-U.S. border since 2017. “This kind of rhetoric drives these people [racist jackasses] to us, whether we like it or not,” Harrison said. “The denunciations from Mr. Scheer are clear. Every time something flares up and the Liberals try to pin this on us, we stand firm and we denounce.”

But the issue flared up into a bonfire of the Conservatives’ own making last summer, when Maxime Bernier, Scheer’s primary challenger in the 2017 Conservative leadership race, got turfed from Scheer’s shadow cabinet for a series of weird anti-multiculturalism outbursts that put him in the crosshairs of the Conservatives’ capable immigration critic, Michelle Rempel. In a huff, Bernier founded his own rump political party, of the type that sometimes seems to specialize in anti-immigrant jackassery. It was a golden opportunity for Scheer to purge the party of its jackass wing and invite them to run off with Bernier. It was an opportunity Scheer didn’t take.

During the 2017 leadership race itself, the House of Commons was in an uproar over Liberal MP Iqra Khalid’s arguably outlandish motion to mount a national effort in the struggle against Islamophobia. But back then, the Conservative Opposition’s reasonable objections to Liberal hyperventilation were overshadowed by bizarre and paranoid alarums within the Conservative party itself. Several leadership candidates proved more than happy to cross deep into the territory of an Islamophobia they said didn’t even exist.

There was little separating Stephen Harper’s Conservatives from the Liberals and New Democrats on the issue of opening the door to Syrian refugees by the time voters walked into polling booths and turfed the Conservatives in the 2015 federal election. Even so, there was a bad smell about the party, coming from the fringes, and the occasional burst of air freshener out of Scheer hasn’t done the trick.

We’re only months away from another federal election, and with a spotty record to run on, Trudeau has given every indication that the question he wants on voters’ minds will be the same as it was last time around: what’s that smell?

Canada is changing dramatically. A lot of people don’t like what they see, and among them are voters who are predisposed to simple explanations and conspiracy theories. The rural white males drawn to white-nationalist propaganda are perched precariously on the bottom rung of every ladder the Liberal free-trade vision imagines, with its phasing-out of the oil patch and its preoccupation with gender equity, “political correctness” and the concerns of visible-minority communities.

While the Liberals deserve credit for attempting to craft policy that addresses the strains and stresses of globalization and migration, Team Trudeau has invested its political fortunes in a “liberal world order” that is broken. The losers in the shiny, happy world of the Liberal imagination are too easily written off by Liberal strategists. The New Democrats have lost their hold on voters from the old working class. The Tories have picked them up.

The promise of relatively open borders, the free flow of capital, people and ideas among and between liberal democracies and police states like China and gangster states like Russia and theocracies like Iran—all of this was already losing its sheen when Trudeau won his majority four years ago.

The urban millennials who carried Trudeau into office were already alert to the dismal prospect of a future planet convulsing in catastrophic climate change. Now they’re stuck in low-paying temporary jobs, and they’re dealing with out-of-reach housing, high daycare and transportation costs and university degrees that lead nowhere. Holding out higher immigration rates as some sort of magic road map out of this mess is at best a flimsy political strategy. It’s not convincing, for starters. But more importantly, it’s dangerous, because when the formula fails to fix things, it will be immigrants who take the blame, and Canada’s recent immigrants are overwhelmingly people of colour.

It’s not good enough for Scheer to get better at dealing with the occasional flare-ups that leave him looking like the hillbilly caricature Liberals like to make of him. He needs to openly admit that the Conservatives have a problem. He needs to clearly and emphatically demonstrate that he means what he says, that his party is not open to voters who scapegoat immigrants and hold fast to the view that there are too many non-white people coming to Canada. He needs to do something about it.

He needs to show them the door and invite them to leave. Whatever numbers he’ll lose to Mad Max Bernier, he’ll pick up from more centrist voters who’ve grown weary of Trudeau’s “woke” politics, with its wardrobe of groovy socks and a photo album filled with glamour magazine spreads where a portfolio of policy accomplishments should be.

But whatever the faults that can be laid at the feet of the Liberals, it’s Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives who have the racist jackass problem. And however much they genuinely don’t want it, they’re clearly not trying hard enough to shake it.

Source: The Tories insist racists aren’t welcome in their party. What are they doing about it?

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

How biometric data-sharing with U.S. is barring Mexican workers from Canada

2019/05/06 Leave a comment

I wonder whether the background policy analysis predicted this collateral impact:

A new Canadian immigration biometric screening requirement is worsening a chronic labour shortage at Maritime seafood processing plants, just as the two lucrative fisheries in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are about to open.

CBC News has learned applications from 11 Mexican temporary foreign workers were rejected last month because biometric data indicated they did not disclose that they had been refused U.S. visas in the past.

Approvals for dozens more Mexican applicants have been delayed and a decision is pending.

Since the start of the year, applicants for the work permits from the Americas have been subject to automatic immigration information data-sharing between Canada and the United States.

According to rejection letters obtained by CBC News, the applicants were denied entry for “failure to be honest” on their Canadian application forms.

One person was rejected because they did not disclose they were refused a U.S. visa 13 years ago.

Using temporary foreign workers has become a critical part of operations at many Maritime seafood processing plants. They are needed to keep operations at capacity and guarantee jobs to those Canadians still willing to work in the plants.

Aquashell, a Wallace, N.S., shellfish processor, said it had 10 of 30 Mexican applicants rejected this year for failing to disclose, even though most had been approved in previous years.

“The refusals are linked to visa refusals to the U.S., [and] nothing to do with Canada,” CEO Frank deWaard said in a statement to CBC News.

The company had too few workers to process snow crab at its Lismore Seafoods plant last month and will close the facility if it doesn’t have temporary foreign workers.

Workers have ‘not caused any problems’

Seafood plant owners insist there is a job for any Canadian who wants one, but many have struggled to recruit local labour for the demanding work that only runs seasonally.

Aquashell predicts the loss of the Mexican workforce will lower production at its Wallace plant by up to 30 per cent this year.

“The Mexican workers have not caused any problems while here in Nova Scotia whatsoever,” said deWaard.

“Not as much as a driving infraction or anything. To the contrary, they have been accepted by the community and have been welcomed back every year.”

Aquashell has now cancelled orders due to the worker shortage and switched to products that take fewer employees to produce.

The company is still waiting to hear what will happen to the six individuals whose applications are pending.

New screening requirement

Victoria Co-op Fisheries in Cape Breton said it had one Mexican applicant rejected. Approval for others was delayed for several weeks as Canadian officials processed a new biometric requirement for those seeking entry to Canada on a work permit.

As of Dec. 31, 2018, nationals from countries in Asia, Asia Pacific and the Americas have given their fingerprints and photo when applying for a visitor visa, study or work permit, or for permanent residency.

That has triggered automatic “biographic and biometric” information data-sharing between Canada and the United States on third-country nationals.

Canada signed the agreement in 2012.

‘A real concern’ about Canada’s approach

Victoria Co-op general manager Osborne Burke considers the rejection and application processing delay a needless impediment, arguing the workers pose no threat to anyone.

He said this isn’t about securing Canadian borders, but Canadian sovereignty.

“I do have a real concern if Canada now is following a U.S. lead when the president of the U.S. has made it clear that basically he doesn’t want people from Mexico or anywhere else coming into the country,” said Burke.

“Why is Canadian immigration seemingly following U.S. refusals? I’d be very concerned that if somebody was refused a U.S. visa just on that basis alone that Canada would refuse them.”

What the feds have to say

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada offered no clarity when asked what happens to applicants who disclose a prior U.S. visa refusal.

“Having been refused a visa to another country, including the United States, would not result in the automatic refusal of a visa to enter Canada,” spokesperson Nancy Caron said in an email to CBC News.

“Immigration information obtained from the U.S. is one of many resources used by Canadian immigration officials to independently determine admissibility and eligibility of applicants, based on Canadian immigration law.”

The department said it’s too early to comment on the impact on processing times for nationals from countries in Asia, Asia Pacific and the Americas.

Biometrics became a requirement for applicants from Europe, the Middle East and Africa last August with no “concerning trends,” the department said.

…

MP defends government’s approach

In Nova Scotia, two of the shellfish plants affected by a rejection or delayed approval are in the Central Nova riding of Liberal MP Sean Fraser.

Fraser has provided letters of support to Aquashell in a “procedural fairness” appeal, noting some of the rejected applicants “have been living in our communities without incident for up to five years … are good employees and the community is comfortable having them.”

But Fraser defends the increased immigration screening brought in by the Trudeau government last year.

“The issue is that Canadians want to ensure that the immigration system is one of integrity and to have applicants who failed to disclose material information on their form raises red flags,” he said.

Fish plants ‘thrown under the bus’

The industry estimates that it will need an additional 600 workers a year in Atlantic Canada over the next decade to make up for vacancies, turnover and retirements.

Jerry Amirault of the Lobster Processors Association represents plants in the three Maritime provinces.

He said the visa issue should have nothing to do with the seafood sector.

“Is it Ottawa and Washington trying to come up with some grand scheme on something else and we get thrown under the bus?” asked Amirault.

He said the region’s seafood processors employ about 3,000 of the 90,000 temporary foreign workers who enter Canada each year.

The association is lobbying for a separate seasonal temporary foreign worker program that would allow government to tailor the entry requirements to the needs of the seafood industry.

“This is not streaming for the permanent residency program,” said Amirault. “It is temporary.”

Source: How biometric data-sharing with U.S. is barring Mexican workers from Canada

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Populists Are Dragging Australian Politics to the Right

2019/05/04 Leave a comment

Too early to say whether Bernier’s PPC will have a similar impact on the Conservatives:

In the crucial Australian state of Queensland, Arthur Plate says he’ll turn his back on mainstream politics when he steps into the ballot box later this month. Instead, the retired miner will pick between a pair of right-wing populists.

The major parties have lost touch and are just out to “line their own pockets,” said the 76-year-old, taking refuge from the searing 100-degree Fahrenheit heat in Clermont, a small mining and farming community.

It’s a refrain heard frequently in the district — one of a handful of closely-held constituencies across the northeastern state that Prime Minister Scott Morrison must retain to stop the left-leaning Labor party from ousting his center-right Liberal-National coalition.

The growing tide of support for populist, single-issue parties in Australia has already reshaped the political landscape, dragging both Labor and the coalition further to the right over the past two decades. Voters like Plate could prove decisive in determining the outcome of the May 18 election, and affect the next government’s ability to pass laws, ranging from proposed tax cuts to curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.

“Right-wing populists have taken advantage of major parties’ failure to come up with policies that appeal to white voters on low incomes who aspire to the middle-class but feel they’ve missed out due to negative impacts from globalization and multiculturalism,” said Jo Coghlan, a lecturer at the University of New England and co-author of The Rise of Right-Populism.

Queensland has long been a solid base for Morrison’s coalition, which currently has 21 of the socially conservative state’s 30 seats. But eight of those are held by a margin of less than 4 percent, making them key targets for Labor. The main opposition party is leading in opinion polls and favorite to win office.

But it’s not just a two-way fight between the coalition and Labor. The state is also home to the strongest populist forces in Australian politics — the anti-Muslim immigration party One Nation led by Pauline Hanson, and mining magnate Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

Hanson and Palmer are both tapping into disaffection among voters who feel left behind despite almost 28 years of uninterrupted economic growth. While recent scandals have seen support for One Nation slip, a Newspoll released on Monday showed support for Palmer’s party more than doubled in the past month to 5 percent.

Adding to the Morrison’s problems is that regional voters are becoming increasingly disenchanted with his junior coalition partner, the Nationals. The rural-based party has been damaged by infighting and disquiet over its support for coal-mining interests on agricultural land.

While Hanson and Palmer are unlikely to win lower house seats, the pair may take spots in the Senate and together with other fringe groups hold the balance of power in the upper house — giving them crucial influence over the legislative agenda.

Populists and single-issue parties have frequently wielded such power in the Senate, with One Nation and other minor parties in August banding together to kill off planned company tax cuts. In February, four independents helped pass a bill against the government’s wishes enabling better medical care for asylum seekers kept offshore.

Hanson, a former fish-and-chip shop owner, rose to prominence in the 1990s with her outspoken attacks on Asian immigration. While she served less than three years in the lower house before her party collapsed, she left an indelible mark on politics as she shaped the immigration debate and dragged both Labor and the coalition to the right.

That’s created bi-partisan support for the nation’s controversial system of transferring asylum seekers arriving by boat to Pacific island camps, with no right to be settled in Australia — a policy opposed by the United Nations and human-rights groups.

The 64-year-old returned to parliament, this time in the Senate, in 2016 and campaigns against Muslim immigration, multiculturalism and free trade. She has another three years before she has to re-contest her seat.

Her party’s brand in this election has been tarnished by revelations One Nation officials last year sought cash donations from the National Rifle Association in the U.S. in exchange for a pledge to help water down Australia’s gun-restriction laws.

Despite winning four upper house seats in 2016, One Nation is now down to two Senate seats due to defections. The party has often under-performed at the ballot box and polls show support may be bleeding away to Palmer’s United Australia Party.

Palmer, 65, is self-funding a $30 million advertising blitz for his party. Hundreds of yellow “Make Australia Great”billboards have popped up across the country, while advertisements have flooded television screens. His thinly articulated manifesto includes cutting taxes and warning that the Chinese government plans a “clandestine takeover of our country.”

Like Hanson, his first foray into politics imploded. He served just one term in the lower house from 2013 to 2016, and two of his three senators in the then Palmer United Party defected. He’s also now embroiled in legal action brought by the government over the collapse of his Queensland Nickel project that left hundreds of workers unpaid.

Nevertheless, Palmer is gaining enough traction for Morrison to take him seriously. The billionaire announced a deal this week that will see the coalition and United Australia back each other’s candidates on how-to-vote cards. That could prove decisive if Morrison continues to close the gap with Labor. The deal may also help catapult Palmer into the Senate.

Australia’s upper house was branded the home of “unrepresentative swill” in 1992 by then-Prime Minister Paul Keating. The most notorious recent example of a fringe populist winning a Senate seat is Fraser Anning, an independent who defected from One Nation. He’s riled mainstream lawmakers by claiming he wants a “final solution” to Australia’s “immigration problem” and blaming New Zealand’s mosque massacre on the nation’s intake of “Muslim fanatics.” Polls show he’s unlikely to retain his Senate seat this month.

If Palmer does win an upper house seat, he’s unlikely to form a voting bloc with One Nation. He and Hanson have often criticized each others’ policies and personalities.

Compared with the populist sentiment that swept Donald Trump to power in the U.S. or delivered the Brexit referendum in the U.K., the power of fringe parties remains muted in Australia by a lack of organizational skill and competence, according to University of New England’s Coghlan.

But their influence remains pervasive.

“The faces in right-wing populism may come and go,” she said. “But the changes they’ve made to Australia’s social agenda seems permanent.”

Source: Populists Are Dragging Australian Politics to the Right

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

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