Wrongful detentions, judges’ quotas in the search for illegals in…

2019/07/27 Leave a comment

Appears to be an ongoing issue, likely to continue under the current Indian government:

Three years ago, police in India’s northeastern state of Assam were looking for a woman named Madhumala Das, who had been declared an illegal immigrant by a local tribunal.

When they reached the village of Bishnupur, they picked up 59-year-old Madhubala Mandal, who was lighting a fire outside her bamboo hut one morning in November 2016.

Mandal, a frail, Bengali-speaking woman who is just over four feet tall, spent over two-and-a-half years in a detention center until she was freed last month following a probe conducted by a new police chief in the area.

In a recent interview in her hut, Mandal said she told the police she was not the person they were looking for, that she was Indian and had documents to prove it. But they did not listen.

Local activists and lawyers say such cases are not uncommon in Assam, where a long-simmering movement against illegal immigrants, particularly Bengali-speaking Muslims, has been fanned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. His ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also governs Assam.

BJP’s campaign against people deemed to be foreigners from Muslim-majority and Bengali-speaking Bangladesh, even if they have lived in India for decades, or were born in India but can’t prove it, is about to reach boiling point.

At the end of next month, Assam plans to publish the final version of a register of citizens it has been preparing since 2015. Hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – are likely to be left off the list – meaning they will have to prove their citizenship, or risk detention like Mandal.

This is unlikely to lead to immediate mass arrests because detention centers are full, and Bangladesh has not agreed to accept the people identified as “foreigners”.

But being a non-citizen carries many penalties, including loss of access to government payments, voting rights, healthcare and state education. People could be quickly marginalized.

And this isn’t only an Assam issue.

Last week, Modi’s top lieutenant, Home (Interior) Minister Amit Shah, who has described Assam’s illegal immigrants as “termites”, said the government intends to go nationwide in identifying and deporting those who don’t have the right to stay.

At the same time, the government has been welcoming Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist migrants, making Muslims feel targeted. Shah said this month that the government wanted to “stop infiltration and push every single infiltrator out of the country”, but would welcome Hindu refugees.

WORSE THAN CONVICTS

When she was arrested, Mandal, a Hindu, was taken to a detention center in the town of Kokrajhar, in western Assam.

A group from India’s National Human Rights Commission that visited that center last year said illegal immigrant detainees there were in some ways “deprived even of the rights of convicted prisoners”.

U.N. experts warned in a statement this month that the citizenship drive in Assam risked rendering millions stateless or in prolonged detention, and that the process “could fuel religious discrimination”, adding that the legal system was discriminative and arbitrary.

The office of the chief minister, the highest elected official in Assam, did not respond to questions sent by Reuters on this story.

Ajoy Rai, a local activist who worked with police to secure Mandal’s release, said there may be many more wrongly detained people in the state.

“Most people are not literate and don’t understand what the documents they have even mean,” he said. “When there are floods or a fire, people lose the documents too.”

Assam, one of India’s poorest states, is ravaged by floods annually, displacing millions, with this year no exception.

Rights activists and lawyers say Assam’s system of ‘foreigners tribunals’, detention centers and its ‘border police’ – a unit in charge of checking illegal immigration – is biased against the poor and against Bengali speakers, who are deemed to be from Bangladesh.

Bengali is the second-most widely spoken language in India, after Hindi. The official language in Assam is Assamese.

A review of orders issued in recent years by Assam’s tribunals – quasi-judicial bodies set up for illegal immigration cases – shows many people of Bengali descent have been declared foreigners because of discrepancies in their names and other details on identity documents.

The tribunal judges’ performance itself, which is evaluated by the government, appears to be at least partly based on the percentage of the people they declare as foreigners, according to their appraisal sheets. Reuters reviewed copies of the appraisal sheets of judges in 79 of Assam’s roughly 100 tribunals.

The documents, which evaluate the judges’ performance over two years until April 30, 2017, show that a majority of judges who declared less than 10 percent of all the people they examined as foreigners got a rating of “may be terminated.”

Despite criticism of the process, Assam is working on setting up some 200 more foreigner tribunals by Sept. 1, growing to around 1,000 eventually, as it scrambles to prepare for the aftermath of the publication of the final register on Aug. 31. Around 245,000 cases are pending at the tribunals, and scores more are likely to be added after the final list is published.

The government has also lowered the eligibility criteria for the post of judges, allowing retired bureaucrats and lawyers with seven years of experience to apply – as opposed to 10 years required earlier.

“It is obvious that these appointments lack judicial independence or adequate separation from the executive, and the judges are being appointed for tribunals with indications that they should lean in favor of declaring people foreigners,” said Sanjay Hegde, a senior Supreme Court lawyer in New Delhi.

There is room for appeal against a tribunal decision through the high court in Guwahati, Assam’s main city, But that court is swamped with some two dozen new cases of illegal immigration each week, said Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Chaudhry, a senior lawyer in Guwahati.

Santanu Bharali, legal adviser to Assam’s chief minister, dismissed criticism that the tribunals were biased or had targets to declare people as foreigners. He said the judges relied on documents submitted as proof of citizenship and the tribunals’ decisions could be appealed.

“CREATE ONE WHOLE TOWN”

Assam is far from ready to deal with the situation if hundreds of thousands of residents are declared illegal.

The six detention centers there are already overcrowded, said Bharali. They held 1,133 illegal immigrants as of May 25, 2019, the government said earlier this month.

Kula Saikia, the chief of police in Assam, told Reuters there was no clarity on what would be done with those who don’t make it onto the citizenship register. He and other officials say they are awaiting orders from India’s Supreme Court, which is supervising the process.

“It’s impossible” to detain hundreds of thousands of more people, said Bharali. “We will have to create one whole town for these people.”

Local activists say the fear of being declared an illegal immigrant has driven at least 25 people to suicide since a draft citizenship list was drawn up in July 2018. Reuters could not independently verify the claims, and the police have refrained from linking the suicide cases to the citizenship verification process.

In the case of Madhumala Das, she was first declared a foreigner by a tribunal in 1988, and a fresh order was passed in June 2016 that led to Mandal’s arrest.

Police said the mistake occurred as there were three women with similar names in Mandal’s village.

“They had to follow the tribunal’s orders and find the person,” said a senior officer at the police station near Mandal’s home.

Madhumala Das had died more than a decade earlier. The border police did not know.

Source: Wrongful detentions, judges’ quotas in the search for illegals in…

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Muslims Over-Represented In US State Prisons, Report Finds

2019/07/27 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, we do not have comparable data for Canada although I suspect we are better at accommodation (however, it does not appear that the Liberal government restored the Conservative cuts in 2012 to non-Christian chaplaincy services, or at least couldn’t find any evidence they had):

Muslims make up about 9% of state prisoners, though they are only about 1% of the U.S. population, a new report from the civil rights organization Muslim Advocates finds. The report, released Thursday, is the most comprehensive count of Muslims in state prisons so far.

The report also sheds light on the obstacles some incarcerated Muslims face in prison while practicing their faith.

“Getting a picture of the religious preference of state prisoners is, we think, really important and unique,” said Yusuf Saei, the author of the report.

Muslim Advocates requested religious preference data from every state, and based its report on the records it received from 34 states and Washington D.C. Previous data on the religious preference of federal prisoners show that Muslims make up about 12% of that population, but that’s just a small slice of a much bigger picture.

“There are roughly 200,000 federal prisoners and more than 1.3 million state prisoners,” Saei said. “We can say with a high degree of confidence this is one of the most comprehensive looks at religious preference data.” The report only focused on the Muslim population in state prisons.

Knowing how many Muslims are in state prisons, Saei said, helps prison officials understand the importance of respecting religious practice for a significant and growing portion of people in prison. The report also compiled 163 lawsuits between October 2017 and January 2019 in which Muslims alleged their right to practice was being violated.

“Incarcerated Muslims are asking for very basic things: religiously compliant food, books, prayer mats. But they’re not receiving them in many states,” Saei said. “This idea of religious liberty is baked into the U.S. Constitution and federal law specifically protects the religious liberty of prisoners. But our report shows that many state prisons are arbitrarily and illegally preventing incarcerated Muslims from practicing their faith.”

The report compared state policies and found they were inconsistent. Some are very accommodating; others are not accommodating at all. For example, the report finds that only 17 states specifically allow religious head coverings. It also finds that more and more states are fully accommodating Muslim dietary requirements–halal-certified meals. But there are states that still make access to alternative meals difficult or impossible.

“Many state policies do provide for full accommodation of Muslim diet requests. Others, however, provide diminished diet substitutes or no substitutes at all,” the report said. “And in some cases, the paucity of diet accommodations may coerce individuals into violating their dietary beliefs.”

The report provides examples of the inconsistent and in some cases burdensome state policies for Muslim prisoners. In Nevada, for example, to get a meat-substitute diet a prisoner has to pass a diet accommodation interview. In North Dakota, there is a “60-day sincerity test” for anyone who changes religions and has a new religious dietary requirement as part of the practice.

The report recommends some straightforward policies for prisons to facilitate Muslim religious practices such as permitting individual and group prayers for Muslims and training officers on how to make that happen. It also recommends giving prisoners with works assignments days off on their religious holidays, creating clear policies on burial practices that allow for Muslims to be buried within their faith traditions and allowing religious head coverings for men and women.

Prisoners’ religious practice is legally protected by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, passed by Congress in 2000. That law states the government can’t impede a prisoner’s free exercise of religion without a compelling reason.

“Things that I want to do or congregate activities that I might want to engage in with other prisoners, if they’re done in the name of religion have a higher degree of protection than those same activities such as gathering together or studying together if they’re not done in the name of religion,” said Martin Horn. He teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is the former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

He said for the most part, state prisons respect federal law that protects religious practice for prisoners. And when prisoners sue over violations of religious practice, it’s difficult for the state to win.

“The state has a very high burden to overcome to avoid allowing them to practice their faith at all and that means not allowing the prayer books, not allowing them to gather for prayer, not allowing access to services of an Imam,” Horn said. “Once something is considered a religious practice, it has to be allowed unless there is a substantial burden on the state and there is no other way to mitigate that burden.”

But advocates point to cases like the recent execution of a Muslim prisonerin Alabama earlier this year. His request for an Imam to be present when he was put to death was denied by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision. The majority opinion said the prisoner had waited too long to make the request. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the decision was “profoundly wrong.”

And Muslim prison chaplains say the current political climate affects the treatment of Muslim prisoners. That’s problematic for people with so little control over their lives.

Tariq Aquil, the Muslim chaplain credited with developing the halal meal program in California’s state prisons, said he saw that play out before he retired in 2017. Like when a Muslim prisoner’s prayer time coincided with the inmate count.

“The guard sees that he’s literally praying and he sees that he’s actually in his cell so he could literally count him right there, ‘I can see you, you’re praying so I know you haven’t escaped,” Aquil said. “But they would stop, they would yell at him and they would curse him.”

Because he was praying rather than responding to the roll call.

Some decisions made by the prisons that are obstacles to Muslims practicing their faith come out of ignorance, concerns about costs, like meal plans, or real security concerns like an emergency in the middle of Friday prayer, Aquil said.

But corrections officers live in the real world, he said, and the anti-immigrant, racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric spouted by the current administration has an impact.

“Those of us who’ve worked in an environment where we’re trained are told that we should leave our political and any other attitudes that we have at the front gate when we come to work and that we should treat everyone equal,” Aquil said. “Very few human beings that I know of have this on and off switch where they simply can disengage from hearing last night ‘lock her up’ or ‘send her back’ and then come into the prison and see the people who are attired in the same way or have the same face or something like that. So sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it’s much more overt.”

Also, Aquil said it’s important to note that over-representation of Muslims in prison isn’t indicative of a lot of Muslims being arrested and convicted.

“About 90 percent of incarcerated Muslims in the United States become Muslims during their incarceration,” he said. “Most of the people that are in prison tend to be repeat offenders and so at some point in time they seem to become aware that they have run the gambit and maybe it’s time for a change.”

Source: Muslims Over-Represented In State Prisons, Report Finds

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Fêtes juives et scrutins: Élections Québec a reconnu des ratés

2019/07/27 Leave a comment

Useful background to the federal case and a reminder of the importance of preparation for advance polls in those ridings with large Jewish populations should Elections Canada stick with October 21st (as I think is justified):

La fête juive au centre du débat sur l’éventuel report de la date du scrutin fédéral a été célébrée, l’an dernier, au moment des élections provinciales. Et Élections Québec a eu beau se préparer en conséquence, l’organisme a été pris de court par les répercussions des célébrations, si bien qu’il s’est excusé auprès de la communauté juive et d’une association libérale, a appris La Presse.

Le déroulement du scrutin dans la circonscription montréalaise de D’Arcy-McGee, où habite une forte concentration d’électeurs de confession juive, a été perturbé à l’automne 2018, lors du vote par anticipation, alors qu’un nombre record de citoyens se sont rendus aux urnes, ce qui a engorgé les bureaux de scrutin.

L’attente a parfois été si longue que l’association libérale de la circonscription ainsi que le Centre consultatif des relations juives et israéliennes (CIJA) ont déposé des plaintes au Directeur général des élections (DGE).

« Les délais d’attente pour voter à certains moments de la journée se sont avérés relativement longs considérant les expériences antérieures », a convenu l’adjoint au directeur général des élections et directeur des opérations électorales, Jean-François Blanchet, dans une lettre adressée à l’Association libérale de D’Arcy-McGee, dont La Presse a obtenu copie.

« Nous tenons à nous excuser des inconvénients que cette situation a pu engendrer aux membres pratiquants de la communauté juive, mais aussi à l’ensemble des électeurs. »

– Jean-François Blanchet, dans la lettre datée du 18 mars dernier

Le CIJA a aussi confirmé avoir reçu une lettre, au nom du DGE, de Pierre Reid. « On nous disait être navré des inconvénients subis par les électeurs juifs », a indiqué le directeur de la recherche et des affaires publiques, David Ouellette.

De façon plus précise, dans la lettre de M. Blanchet, le DGE reconnaît que le vote par anticipation en 2018 a connu des ratés dans D’Arcy-McGee. Le nombre d’électeurs qui ont voté de façon anticipée a « plus que quintuplé » par rapport à 2014, passant de 500 à plus de 2500.

Cet « achalandage record » doublé d’un ralentissement informatique a eu des conséquences qu’il était « difficile d’anticiper », plaide M. Blanchet dans sa missive. « Même en organisant nos bureaux de vote de façon à accueillir un plus grand nombre de personnes, il était difficilement prévisible que l’augmentation soit si importante », ajoute-t-il.

Le DGE sensibilisé

Pourtant, le député libéral actuel, David Birnbaum, et le CIJA ont confirmé qu’ils avaient sensibilisé le DGE, plusieurs mois avant les élections, à la tenue de fêtes religieuses juives pendant la période électorale. « J’étais très conscient du défi qui était devant nous », a indiqué M. Birnbaum en entrevue à La Presse.

Parce que dans une circonscription où 42 % des électeurs sont de confession juive (estimation de l’Association libérale de D’Arcy-McGee), il n’était pas difficile d’envisager, selon le député, que le vote par anticipation allait être fort populaire. Il faut dire que lors des élections de 2018, trois des cinq journées prévues pour le vote par anticipation coïncidaient avec la fête juive de Souccot.

Ce qui ne laissait aux juifs pratiquants, contraints au repos et à la prière lors de ces rituels, que deux jours pour voter par anticipation, étant donné qu’ils ne pourraient pas non plus se rendre aux urnes lors du scrutin général du 1er octobre en raison de la fête de Chemini Atseret, la même qui fait couler l’encre à Ottawa.

Une candidate conservatrice de la région de Toronto, de confession juive, s’est adressée à la Cour fédérale pour qu’Élections Canada reporte d’une semaine les élections générales. Mardi, le tribunal a ordonné à l’organisme fédéral de se pencher à nouveau sur la possibilité de modifier la date du scrutin, ce qui provoquerait tout un branle-bas.

Taux de participation à la baisse

Dans une lettre de l’Association libérale de D’Arcy-McGee, adressée au DGE en janvier dernier, la conseillère juridique de l’organisation signale « plusieurs plaintes » formulées par des électeurs libéraux.

Dans sa missive, que La Presse a pu consulter, l’association libérale fait un rapprochement entre la situation vécue et l’effondrement du taux de participation dans D’Arcy-McGee, qui est passé de 72 % en 2014 à 46,56 % en 2018. Il est à noter que le taux de participation aux élections de 2018 a été, à travers la province, le plus bas depuis 2008.

« À la suite de notre évaluation de plusieurs plaintes, nous constatons qu’il y a eu des erreurs commises et des lacunes de planification qui ont potentiellement mené à un affaiblissement du taux de participation dans notre circonscription. »

– Me Meena Khan, conseillère juridique

Elle déplore « l’attente déraisonnable » à laquelle des électeurs ont été soumis et affirme que cela en a découragé beaucoup, qui sont repartis sans avoir voté, notamment au centre communautaire et aquatique de Côte-Saint-Luc, bureau de vote décrit comme l’« épicentre de la communauté juive » de la circonscription.

Pas de changement de date

La célébration de fêtes religieuses juives coïncidant avec des élections est « une situation bien réelle » avec laquelle tant les électeurs que les candidats et les bénévoles impliqués de confession juive doivent composer, estime David Birnbaum, lui-même membre de la communauté juive. Il est d’avis que la tenue d’élections à date fixe doit maintenant faciliter la préparation de celles-ci.

C’est dans ce sens qu’il dit avoir sensibilisé le DGE afin qu’il prenne des mesures additionnelles, comme l’ajout de personnel, pour pallier le fort achalandage estimé lors du vote par anticipation.

« Le principe de base du DGE est de rendre le vote le plus accessible possible à l’intérieur des contraintes [raisonnables]. »

– David Birnbaum, député libéral de D’Arcy-McGee

« Je n’ai jamais proposé un changement de la date électorale », précise-t-il, voulant faire écho au débat actuel.

Le CIJA a confirmé avoir fait des démarches similaires à celles de M. Birnbaum.

Élections Québec a indiqué dans un courriel transmis à La Presse avoir mis en place « du personnel en nombre suffisant » lors du vote par anticipation « ainsi que des mesures adaptées pour assurer la fluidité et le bon déroulement du vote » notamment lors des journées des 21, 22 et 23 septembre 2018 en raison de la célébration de la fête juive.

L’organisme n’a pas été en mesure de confirmer l’existence de plaintes officielles.

Dans sa lettre à l’association libérale, Jean-François Blanchet assure qu’Élections Québec « prendra en considération les problèmes rencontrés [en 2018] dans la préparation des prochaines élections » et « poursuivra [ses] efforts pour faciliter la participation électorale » de la circonscription de D’Arcy-McGee.

La date des célébrations des rituels juifs est établie en fonction du calendrier hébraïque. Les élections générales québécoises de 2014 ne coïncidaient avec aucune fête religieuse juive. Il en sera de même aux prochaines élections de 2022.

Pour un amendement à la loi

L’ex-ministre libéral et ancien député de D’Arcy-McGee Lawrence Bergman a confié à La Presse souhaiter un amendement à la Loi électorale québécoise ainsi qu’à la loi canadienne afin d’éviter la situation dans laquelle se trouve actuellement Élections Canada.

« Il faudrait que la loi soit plus claire, il faudrait apporter des nuances pour préciser, non pas que le DGE peut [changer une date], mais quand le DGE doit le faire, et ce, peu importe la religion », explique-t-il. Il est d’avis que la tenue d’élections à date fixe, tant à Ottawa qu’à Québec, devrait permettre d’éviter des conflits importants.

Lawrence Bergman, qui est membre de la communauté juive, estime également que le vote par anticipation ne doit pas être la seule solution, puisque faire « sortir » le vote lors de ces journées présente aussi son lot de défis.

Source: Fêtes juives et scrutins: Élections Québec a reconnu des ratés

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Frum: American Jews Are Being Tested By Trump

2019/07/26 Leave a comment

As are all groups:

It’s becoming almost a daily occurrence: President Donald Trump denouncing anti-Semitism and expressing solidarity with the state of Israel.

Gone are the days when Trump tweeted out a Star of David atop stacks of money. The Trump White House has purged itself of oddballs with troubling backgrounds and even more troubling friends.

The larger MAGA universe may still pulse with anti-Semitic animus. Pro-Trump trolls may traffic in grotesque online slurs and threats. Hate crimes against Jews seem on the rise. A deadly anti-Jewish mass killing occurred on Trump’s watch. Although the Pittsburgh killer is often described as despising Trump, that’s not quite accurate. It would be more correct to describe the Pittsburgh killer as disappointed in Trump, whom he viewed as a promising racist naively duped by Jews. In one of his postings, a word bubble is drawn over a photograph of Trump receiving a visitor dressed in Orthodox garb. “Your character will appear to the public as a white racist,” the visitor seems to say to Trump. “It’s how we control Whites.”

“Anti-Semitism has no place in our country or anywhere in our world.

The Trump Administration is working every day to oppose and eradicate anti-Semitic hate crimes and ideology.”

The Trump presidency seethes with hostility toward many different minority and subordinated groups. But Jews have been elevated to a special protected category, exempt from the lines of attack deployed against Muslims, non-Norwegian immigrants, women Trump deems unattractive, and so on and on.

This special exemption poses a moral quandary for communally concerned Jews quite unlike anything in our collective experience.Jewish collective life in America has been built on the assumption that people who espouse any form of bigotry—whether against African Americans, or gays, or the disabled—will, sooner or later (and probably sooner!), also turn upon Jews. The famous Martin Niemöller poem begins, “First, they came for the socialists”; only in the third line do they “come for the Jews.”

But what if a new generation of bigotry arose, attended by a strong, take-it-to-the-bank guarantee: This time, they are not coming for the Jews—not sooner, not later. That ancient obsession is laughably out of date. Today we have other concerns. Here’s a photograph of me posing alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He likes George Soros even less than we do!

What if American Jews found themselves facing people who practiced a politics of incitement, but not against Jews—indeed, who found it more useful to cast themselves as allies of Jews?

Trump usually has, at most, a perfunctory word for mass shootings and hate crimes. But Trump traveled in person to pay respects to the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. Vice President Mike Pence had led the way, personally helping to restore a desecrated Jewish cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, early in 2017.

When Trump attacked Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, he specifically cited her record of tweets and statements about Jewish money supposedly swaying Congress in favor of Israel. Among other pieces of classic anti-Semitic language, Omar had said, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

Statements like that goaded President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to write here in The Atlantic: “No one is questioning the right of members of Congress and others to criticize Israeli policies. But Omar is crossing a line that should not be crossed in political discourse. Her remarks are not anti-Israel; they are anti-Semitic.” Her words set in motion a resolution in the House of Representatives to condemn anti-Semitic and other bigoted speech.

By contrast, the Trump administration has more than fulfilled the wishes of many American Jews on issues from moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem to condemning Palestinian incitement to countering the Iranian nuclear program. At the Department of Justice’s conference last week, Barr said:

“Far too often, Jews and Jewish communities in America suffer outside the spotlight. New York City, this past year, has seen a sharp uptick in attacks on Orthodox Jews, particularly in the Crown Heights neighborhood. People are attacking Jews in the streets and vandalizing synagogues. In Massachusetts in March, vandals desecrated 59 gravestones in a Jewish cemetery, knocking over headstones and scrawling swastikas and hateful graffiti.

While the tragic attacks in Pittsburgh and Poway appropriately drew national attention, these attacks and others like them in communities across the country are, sadly, less well known outside the Jewish community. But they form the daily background of concerns about security and safety that many in the Jewish community feel.

As attorney general and a fellow citizen, I want to assure the Jewish community that the Department of Justice and the entire federal government stands with you and will not tolerate these attacks.”

As measured by polls, the large majority of American Jews recoil from Trump and his administration. Yet if you spend time in the organized Jewish world, you have probably noticed an early but unmistakable warming to the president. The warming is most pronounced among the older, more communally committed, and more Israel-focused part of the Jewish world.

In western Europe, Jews have been pushed away from their historic home on the secular left toward new alliances on the nationalist right. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour Party has been stained by anti-Semitism—to a point where past leaders such as Gordon Brown have taken a public stand against Corbyn.In the United States, mercifully, Omar remains a marginal figure within the Democratic Party. On July 23, all but 17 members of the House of Representatives voted to condemn Omar’s project of anti-Israel boycotts; the “squad” member Representative Ayanna Pressley voted with the House majority. But an important part of Trump’s plan for 2020 is elevating Omar’s profile, and prodding American Jews to compare him not with the actual Democratic nominee, but with the target he has singled out for attention.

It’s part stunt and scam, as James Kirchick recently argued. But it’s not all stunt and scam.

At a conference in Washington, D.C., last week, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri delivered a speech denouncing cosmopolitan elites. Some who listened to the speech thought they heard a slight against Jews. Yet the conference had been organized by an American-born Israeli, Yoram Hazony—and at every turn, the conference communicated Jewish inclusion in the new cross-border nationalist movement Hazony hopes to create. Hawley replied to his critics: “You’ll have to carry me out on a slab before I compromise my defense of the Jewish people, their greatness, their history, their safety, and the state of Israel.” That’s the language of committed friendship.

There is a message for American Jews in all this: These attacks on the other are not aimed at you. You can be part of us. We’d like you to be part of us. All you have to do is stop worrying about them. And after all, they don’t worry about you!

The comedian Chris Rock performed a classic comedy sketch about how bigotry always accelerates toward the Jews at the end. “That train,” he quipped, “is never late!” But what if that train is late? What if it’s been canceled altogether, at least insofar as it departs from Trump Station? What if the old community of interest between American Jews and other minorities is dissolving, leaving only the weaker tie of a community of values?

And not only American Jews! Many illiberal authoritarians around the world have tried to gain indulgence for other hatreds by friendship with Israel. Even the Viktor Orbán government in Hungary—which often theatrically glorifies violently anti-Semitic figures from the nation’s past—quietly assures that country’s still surviving Jewish community: None of this will translate into real-world actions against you. And indeed, thus far, that assurance has been honored.

Jews generally believe ourselves to be bound by an ethical code of tolerance and decency larger than our own parochial interests. Trump seems intent on putting that belief to the test. Will we meet it? Will we meet it as a united community? Or by tempting Jews with privileges denied to other, more marginal groups, will he split religious Jews from secular; more communally minded Jews from more universalist; more conservative from more liberal—embittering American Jews against one another, as he has sought more generally to embitter American against American?

Source: American Jews Are Being Tested By Trump

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Maxime Bernier says his party would cap immigration levels at 150K

2019/07/26 Leave a comment

Rather than just printing an article, I thought his fund-raising message provides a more concise version:

——-

Friend,

Yesterday, I unveiled our party’s platform on immigration, multiculturalism, and Canadian identity.

You can read my speech here.

We will reduce immigration levels, from 350,000 each year under the Liberals, to between 100,000 and 150,000.

We will focus on skilled immigrants who bring economic benefits to Canada.

We will limit the number of immigrants accepted under the family reunification program, including abolishing the program for parents and grand-parents.

We will accept fewer refugees and focus on persecuted minorities.

We will declare the whole border an official port of entry and send back to the US anyone trying to enter illegally.

We will repeal the Multiculturalism Act and eliminate all funding to promote multiculturalism.

We will emphasize the integration of immigrants into Canadian society.

We will only accept immigrants who share fundamental Canadian values.

We will make birth tourism illegal.

We will take Canada out of the UN’s Global Compact for Migration.

Our immigration laws will be made in Canada, for the interest of Canadians.

Friend, it’s time to end the taboos and have a real debate about these issues.

Do you like this platform?

I need your help to make sure every Canadian hears about it before voting in October.

Show your support with a $1 donation today!

A huge thank,
-Maxime

The notable further hardening of his positions – e.g., reduction of proposed levels to 150,000 from 250,000 previously – is notable, as are the number of nominated candidates who appear to have been rejected by the Conservatives (e.g., Salim Mansur).

Although to date support for the PPC is just a few percentage points, particularly interested to see if any repetition of the Burnaby South results, where the PPC candidate obtained almost 11 percent in other ridings with relatively large numbers of Chinese Canadian social conservatives and the degree to which that affects the Conservative vote.

And an example of articles on his policy:

A People’s Party of Canada government would lower the number of immigrants Canada accepts to between 100,000 and 150,000 per year — a level not seen since 1986 — party leader Maxime Bernier pledged in a policy speech Wednesday evening.

That’s a number significantly lower than the 250,000 cap Bernier pitched while running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada two years ago.

In a speech in Mississauga, Ont. Wednesday night, the MP for Beauce took aim at what he called a policy of “extreme multiculturalism” and accused the Liberals of “putting Canada on a road to destruction” through Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “globalist vision.”

“Support for immigration will continue to diminish and social tensions are likely to rise,” Bernier told the crowd in a speech delivered entirely in English. “We need to slow down.”

Bernier who often struggled with pronunciation and timing in English, said his party would prioritize economic immigrants, accept fewer refugees, “considerably limit” those accepted under the family reunification program and scrap the option to sponsor parents and grandparents.

Bernier’s more bold statements, such as his pledge to repeal the Multiculturalism Act, withdraw from the UN’s Global Compact for Migration and promise to reject immigrants that do not share Canadian values, garnered loud applause and cheers from the crowd.

The federal Liberals plan to increase the yearly number of immigrants accepted into Canada to 340,000 by 2020. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer hasn’t said how many immigrants Canada would accept if his party forms government in October, calling the emphasis on a number “a little bit of a red herring.”

‘Societal norms’ or ‘Canadian values’?

Bernier said he also wants to submit every person hoping to immigrate to Canada to an in-person interview with immigration officials to answer questions to determine whether their values and ideas correspond to Canada’s “societal norms.”

“Immigrants whose responses or background checks demonstrate that they do not share mainstream Canadian values will be rejected,” he said.

The policy is eerily similar to the ‘Canadian values test’ proposed by Kellie Leitch during her own failed run for the Conservative leadership — a proposal that led Bernier at the time to wonder aloud why Leitch was offering up a “karaoke version of Donald Trump.”

In his speech, Bernier also calls for action to stop the flow of migrants walking into Canada at unauthorized crossing points by declaring the entire Canada/U.S. border an official point of entry, which would allow border officials to turn back anyone trying to cross on foot from the United States.

Jean-Pierre Fortin is national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, which represents front-line customs and immigration officers. He said turning the entire 8,891-kilometre border into an official point of entry would impose a “huge burden” on short-staffed Canada Border Services Agency officers.

“Right now, there are not enough officers at every port of entry,” he said.

The economic argument

Bernier also took direct aim at economic arguments for maintaining or increasing immigration levels, arguing that immigration doesn’t affect the aging of Canada’s population because new immigrants have not been shown to have a noticeable impact on aging demographics.

Pedro Antunes, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada, said that while an aging trend is hard to reverse, immigration keeps Canada’s workforce from shrinking further.

“Because there are so many baby boomers leaving the workforce, without immigration we’d have a net decline in labour force growth,” he said, adding that the decline would be especially pronounced with the current low unemployment rate.

And anyone who thinks immigration isn’t tied to higher economic growth need to take a close look at Atlantic Canada — a slow-growth region with low levels of immigration — said Kareem El-Assal, a researcher with canadavisa.com, a platform for immigration legal services.

“This is not a hypothetical conversation,” he said, adding that there’s “plenty of evidence” showing immigrants to Canada integrate socially and express high levels of pride and happiness in being Canadian.

Bernier spent a portion of his speech pushing back against what he claims is a political taboo surrounding the topic of immigration and claimed he’s been falsely accused of racism by the media.

“As soon as you raise a concern about the level of immigration, someone will accuse you of harbouring anti-immigrant views and being racist or xenophobic,” he said.

He pointed to PPC candidates hailing from diverse ethnic backgrounds — and told journalists who “keep coming back with questions about bigotry” to “take a hike.”

Bernier’s young party has come in for controversy over matters of race and religion, however. The People’s Party has been dogged by racist tweets, photos with unsavoury groups and tales of disillusioned founding members.

Earlier this month, the entire People’s Party of Canada board in a Winnipeg riding resigned in disgust, claiming the party is being taken over by racists, anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists.

Source: Maxime Bernier says his party would cap immigration levels at 150K

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Reporter un vote pour des motifs religieux? Scheer s’en remet au DGE

2019/07/26 Leave a comment

Of note. Will see how Elections Canada responds to the court ruling to re-examine the issue:

Le chef du Parti conservateur du Canada, Andrew Scheer, se garde d’appuyer publiquement les efforts de sa candidate Chani Aryeh-Bain qui visent à repousser les prochaines élections générales afin qu’elles ne coïncident pas avec la fête juive Chemini Atseret.

Il laisse le soin au Directeur général des élections du Canada, Stéphane Perrault, de recommander, s’il le juge opportun, le report du scrutin, qui est actuellement prévu le lundi 21 octobre.

Mme Aryeh-Bain, qui brigue les suffrages dans la circonscription ontarienne de Eglinton-Lawrence sous la bannière du PCC, soutient que la Loi juive interdit aux juifs orthodoxes comme elle de faire campagne ou encore de voter de la soirée du 20 octobre à la soirée du 22 octobre.

« Il est important que tous les électeurs sachent qu’il y a beaucoup d’autres façons de voter pendant l’élection, comme le vote par anticipation et le vote directement aux bureaux d’Élections Canada dans chaque circonscription, et ce, durant toute la durée de la campagne électorale », a fait valoir M. Scheer lors de son passage au Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean mercredi.

« Il y a eu une décision de la cour et maintenant c’est à Élections Canada de prendre une décision. Nous respectons l’indépendance d’Élections Canada », a aussi dit l’homme politique en précampagne électorale au Québec.

Mardi, la Cour fédérale a demandé à Élections Canada de reconsidérer sa réponse à la demande de changement de date de scrutin soumise notamment par Mme Aryeh-Bain, la jugeant « déraisonnable ». D’ici le 1er août, l’organisme doit trouver « un équilibre » entre les droits garantis par la Charte des droits et libertés et le mandat qui lui est conféré par la Loi électorale, a soutenu la juge Ann Marie McDonald dans une décision d’une vingtaine de pages.

« Jour de rechange »

Le directeur général des élections « peut » recommander au gouvernement de tenir les élections générales soit le mardi qui suit le jour qui serait normalement le jour du scrutin, soit le lundi suivant lorsque le jour du scrutin — le troisième lundi d’octobre — « coïncide avec un jour revêtant une importance culturelle ou religieuse ou avec la tenue d’une élection provinciale ou municipale », prévoit la Loi électorale du Canada.

Ne disposant pas de liste exhaustive des journées « revêtant une importance culturelle ou religieuse » au sens de la Loi électorale, le directeur général d’Élections Canada a sollicité les avis de différents groupes, dont le Centre consultatif des relations juives et israéliennes (CIJA), avant de recommander au gouvernement fédéral de convoquer les Canadiens aux urnes le lundi 21 octobre prochain, a expliqué le porte-parole d’Élections Canada, Ghislain Desjardins.

Que fera Élections Canada différemment cette fois-ci ? « L’équipe est au travail », s’est contenté de répondre M. Desjardins.

Le Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD) encourage toute personne persuadée que ses droits fondamentaux sont lésés à recourir aux tribunaux, comme l’a fait la conservatrice Chani Aryeh-Bain. « Il est important que les Canadiens et Canadiennes puissent consulter les tribunaux chaque fois qu’ils estiment que leurs droits garantis par la Charte pourraient être violés », a dit le porte-parole en matière de réforme démocratique, Daniel Blaikie.

L’élu manitobain demande aujourd’hui au patron d’Élections Canada, Stéphane Perrault, de « prendre au sérieux la décision du tribunal et déterminer la ligne de conduite qu’il juge la plus appropriée dans les circonstances actuelles ».

M. Blaikie dit se fier au « jugement des institutions indépendantes [comme Élections Canada] afin de s’assurer que le processus ne soit ni politisé ni perçu comme tel ».

De son côté, le chef du Bloc québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, demande sans détour à M. Perrault de « garder le cap » et de maintenir la tenue des élections le lundi 21 octobre prochain. « Le multiculturalisme canadien tel qu’interprété par la Cour fédérale donnerait préséance aux demandes d’une religion ou d’une autre sur l’autorité législative de l’État en ce qui a trait au mode de fixation du jour d’un scrutin. Le directeur général des élections doit refuser ce recul de l’État laïque. La religion ne doit pas interférer avec le fonctionnement de l’État civil », a affirmé l’ex-ministre québécois.

Le président et directeur général du Centre consultatif des relations juives et israéliennes (CIJA), Shimon Koffler Fogel, se range aussi du côté d’Élections Canada. « Changer la date à ce stade entraîne des implications logistiques et financières considérables », a-t-il soutenu dans la foulée de la décision de la Cour fédérale. À ses yeux, Élections Canada « a pris d’importantes mesures, en consultation avec la communauté juive, pour que chaque électeur juif puisse voter ».

Mais, selon B’nai Brith Canada, « les implications et coûts opérationnels ne constituent pas une justification convaincante pour bafouer des droits et des libertés reconnus par la Charte ». L’association demande à Élections Canada de différer de sept jours la tenue du scrutin.

L’an dernier, des juifs orthodoxes avaient tenté de repousser les élections générales québécoises, puisqu’elles coïncidaient également avec la Chemini Atseret, mais en vain.

La ministre des Institutions démocratiques, Karina Gould, a refusé de prendre position dans le débat sur la date du prochain scrutin. Elle dit s’en remettre à Élections Canada dont la « recommandation est faite […] en toute indépendance du gouvernement ». « Il ne faut pas confondre notre respect de la loi — dans ce cas, seul le DGE a la capacité de réviser sa décision et, si besoin est, sa recommandation — avec de l’indifférence », a souligné une membre de son cabinet. « La Loi électorale du Canada ne nous permet tout simplement pas de politiser cette décision, ni de substituer notre point de vue à celui du DGE ou de la Cour », a-t-elle ajouté.

Source: Reporter un vote pour des motifs religieux? Scheer s’en remet au DGE

Article in English: Federal court orders review of election date that coincides with Jewish …https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-court-orthodox-jewish-1.5222279

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Egyptian minister’s laughing vow in Canada to ‘slice up’ anyone who criticizes her country alarms immigrant groups

2019/07/26 Leave a comment

Even if the expression was made only in jest, unacceptable:

Egyptian-Canadians are incensed over an Egyptian cabinet minister’s promise to “slice up” critics of her country, saying what might have been meant as a joke struck them as a serious threat from a repressive regime.

Those of both Coptic-Christian and Muslim backgrounds — who rarely see eye to eye otherwise — condemned Wednesday the comments made by Immigration Minister Nabila Makram on a visit to Mississauga, Ont.

They cite Cairo’s record of arbitrary detentions, violence against political opponents and other human-rights abuses since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power six years ago.

Some have complained to police, and the Peel Regional force in Mississauga says it is investigating the matter.

“No one in his or her right mind should take this — although it might be said in a joking manner — as a joke,” said Ehab Lotayef of the Egyptian Canadian Coalition for Democracy. “It really represents the mindset of the current Egyptian government and is totally unacceptable by a minister in a country that respects itself.”

Lotayef urged Global Affairs Canada to make its displeasure known for what he said was at least a diplomatic affront.

Makram was near the end of a short speech to an Egyptian heritage dinner Sunday when she said in Arabic that anyone who criticized Egypt would be “sliced up,” accompanying the remark with a slashing motion across her throat.

She said it with a smile, after talking about Egyptians’ passion for their country, and earned laughter and applause from the audience.

But Egyptian ex-patriates cite evidence that critics of the Sisi government in Canada are already under watch, and note that a visiting Egyptian-Canadian businessman has been imprisoned in Cairo without charge for months.

Canadian-based “dissidents” have been mentioned in government-aligned Egyptian media in negative terms, said Lotayef.

“We are surely being followed and monitored,” he said.

Egypt’s ambassador to Canada routinely makes the trip from Ottawa to attend major events at Mississauga’s main Coptic-Christian church, said Maher Rizkalla, president of Canadian Coptic Association.

“The Egyptian government is always involved and keeps an eye on the churches in Canada,” he said. “I would be concerned to visit Egypt. I know they’re watching us, and they know who is active and inactive outside the country.”

Sisi’s government has been widely criticized for its abuses, with Human Rights Watch writing that “his security forces have escalated a campaign of intimidation, violence, and arrests against political opponents, civil society activists and many others who have simply voiced mild criticism of the government.”

Makram is on a Canadian tour organized in part by the Egyptian embassy.

“Our country is very grand and deserves that all of us work for it and fight for it, because we just have one county – Egypt,” she told the dinner audience. “This country is always inside us, inside our hearts. We cannot accept any word about it. Anyone who says a (bad) word about our country – what will happen to him? Will be sliced up.”

Not everyone interpreted the remarks in a completely negative fashion.

One audience member, who asked not to be named for fear of landing in the midst of a political fight, said the slicing-up expression is a common and usually genial one in Egyptian Arabic, not meant literally.

“Parents say that to their kids all the time,” the person said. “Usually … people say it as an endearing gesture.”

Still, the audience member said the comment was definitely inappropriate in the circumstances.

The Egyptian embassy in Ottawa did not respond to a request for comment.

In response to a complaint from Rizkalla, Peel Regional Police are investigating the matter, and liaising with the department’s “equity and inclusion bureau,” said Const. Lori Murphy, a spokeswoman.

Source: Egyptian minister’s laughing vow in Canada to ‘slice up’ anyone who criticizes her country alarms …

Filed under foreign policy, Government Tagged with , , ,

Mistrust And Lack Of Genetic Diversity Slow Gains In Precision Medicine

2019/07/26 Leave a comment

Of note, with considerable implications in all diverse countries:

Precision medicine is the field of dreams for human health — drugs and treatments that would take into account a person’s individual DNA configurations, as well as lifestyle and environment, would presumably be better tailored to each person’s needs. Still, while the goal of precision medicine is to help everybody, the current research available has a major flaw — it’s largely based on the genes of people who are predominantly of white and European descent.

That’s an issue with implications both ethically and scientifically, says anthropologist and bioethicist Sandra Soo-Jin Lee. She heads up Columbia University Medical Center’s new Division of Ethics, and is leading a $2.8 million study, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, that will take a look at precision medicine research at academic medical centers around the U.S., and help researchers figure out ways to expand the diversity of the genetics data gathered.

Lee recently wrote about ethics in personalized medicine research for Science magazine, and we spoke with her about why increasing diversity is important. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Where are we currently with precision medicine research? In your article, you say it’s the “early phase.”

Precision medicine depends on the accumulation of a lot of data and biospecimens (such as blood, urine, saliva and health surveys) and access to health records from individuals. Over the last couple of decades — ever since the Human Genome Project, which was completed in 2003, — we have been, as a society, investing in all kinds of data collection activities.

Some of these have been quite large-scale … like the All of Us program, organized by the National Institutes of Health, which aims to recruit one million people to share their genetics and health information for research. Other organizations have created their own bio-repositories to be used, presumably, for research that will enhance precision medicine.

So we’re building the infrastructure right now for the research enterprise — creating essentially these large libraries of individuals’ information and samples, and making decisions about how they’re going to be stored and curated. And that has triggered a lot of questions about how you ethically recruit individuals into these types of large-scale projects, when it’s unclear how the samples and the data might be used in the future.

What is the current diversity of the gene pool, in terms of what’s being collected for research?

Right now, our genetic resources are predominantly made up of DNA from individuals who have European ancestry; the proportion of individuals from non-European ancestry represent less than 20 percent, in most studies. So this is a bias that exists in our repositories right now.

The scientific problem is that it doesn’t represent the diversity that you would see across the human species. Because of the migration of human populations across the globe, African populations reflect a greater band of diversity than other populations, and yet we’re not seeing this in our genetic resources.

Is the lack of diversity strictly a problem in research institutions in the U.S., or is it global?

That’s a really good question, particularly since there is a lot of sharing of data and samples across the globe. There are certain centers of genome research globally. … [They] tend to be in the United States, Europe, and East Asia. So I think the skew is actually global, in the sense that researchers who have been doing this type of work have been sampling mostly from individuals of European ancestry and we just don’t see the kind of diversity that you would see if you were going to do it systematically across the globe.

There are exceptions — some large-scale efforts in Africa, funded by federal agencies like the NIH, that are trying to address some of the skew we’re seeing. But, by and large, this is a global problem.

What are some of the reasons that the genetic research pool is mostly white?

There’s been this emphasis on historical exclusions of certain populations. But I think this framing of the issue may not address the fact that populations historically have been included — but in an unethical way.

Examples of this could be the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, as well as the studies that were conducted with Havasupai tribalbiospecimens more recently.

These are cases in which populations have been enrolled in studies but have not been treated in a way that they felt was ethical. What this does is create mistrust toward the research enterprise. …

Then there are questions about whether the research, even if it produces interventions that are more targeted for individuals, will be fairly and equitably distributed to all populations. Will they be within reach of those who might not be able to afford the health care they’re receiving now?

In your article, you mention the recent assertions from white nationalists who are looking at ancestry to claim racial superiority. Aren’t there valid reasons why people mistrust the intent and the use of medical information?

Absolutely, and I think that affects precision medicine research in particular, because it requires such intrusive data collection.

“Who’s going to use it? What will be shared? Will I have a say if I don’t feel comfortable with how it’s being used in the future?” I don’t think we’re we’re set up to address some of these questions.

The lack of information and accountability makes individuals — particularly those that are most vulnerable in our society — very uncomfortable. And it’s not unreasonable for them to be concerned.

What does good, meaningful diversity and inclusion look like?

I think it begins with a willingness on the part of researchers to address the role of history, and the ongoing mistrust certain groups have of the research enterprise.

There’s also this tendency to believe there’s a sharp boundary between clinical care and research; I think we’ll find that the way people are treated in the health care system spills over to their attitudes about research. So there may be points of intervention and improvement there.

To be able to enlarge our framework to think about the implications for this research on group harm and group benefit will be very important.

And I think we have to go beyond informed consent — a practice in which research subjects learn about the risks and benefits of participating in a study before deciding whether to sign on — as we think through oversight protections that would address participants’ desire for some sense of responsibility and accountability for how their biospecimens and data are used and shared. We need to give folks a sense that their interests and concerns are being attended to, beyond the point of recruitment.

Why is it important for the gene research pool to become more diverse? Is diversifying the gene pool something that only really benefits underrepresented populations?

We’re making a public investment in these resources. And the goal is to address health disparities, which are an enduring concern in our society. Health disparities are most significant among those who are underrepresented in our research databases. … and so it becomes an important moral issue.

The greater diversity would be brought in by African, Hispanic and Latin American ancestry. But it’s not as if the benefits would only flow to those populations — it actually benefits everyone.

If we only use the database we have right now, we run the risk of not identifying rare variants that would be identified if we had a broader spectrum of diversity in the genetic databases. … Perhaps [there are] variants that were thought to be causal of disease but then, because of the greater diversity, you would find that perhaps that was only because it was more frequent in that particular population, and so it was a confounder.

In recent studies, where scientists are using more diverse resources, they’ve been able to find different variants that they were not aware of, that might be important in terms of understanding disease. So there are good indications that more diversity will actually make us more precise in terms of our precision medicine.

Source: Mistrust And Lack Of Genetic Diversity Slow Gains In Precision Medicine

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Before the 2020 Census Citizenship Fight, a Parallel Crisis

2019/07/25 Leave a comment

Another historical reminder:

After months of headlines, presidential tweets and a Supreme Court decision, the 2020 Census will not ask people about their citizenship status.

President Donald Trump and his advisers tried to add the question, claiming it was necessary to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, while Census Bureau officials, civil rights advocates and a coalition of dozens of states and cities argued the real intent was to scare immigrants and prevent a growing portion of the U.S. population from being counted. The Supreme Court ultimately blocked the citizenship question and ruled the Administration’s justification was “contrived” — but the controversy is far from over, and is sure to come up when the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Steven Dillingham, testifies before Congress on Wednesday.

But this is not the first time such debates have surfaced. The census has always been political, since the framers of the Constitution created it as a tool for determining political representation, and today’s controversy over the 2020 Census specifically echoes a crisis that occurred almost exactly 100 years ago.

Then, as now, the controversy centered on the presence of immigrants and the rising importance of cities. These changes were key because the Census not only counts how many people live in the U.S., but it also determines how much voting power and funding different areas of the country receive; as populations change, so do they. Those measurements are supposed to be updated as each Census is conducted every 10 years, and it has long been understood that a correct update requires counting all residents, not just all citizens.

But when the 1920 Census results came out, Congress was so unhappy with its results that they ignored the numbers for nearly a decade, refusing to adjust even as the composition of the American population was clearly changing.

The years leading up to that Census had already seen a rise of anti-immigrant fervor, concern over labor unions and other “radicals,” and race riots igniting across the Midwest. It was in this context that the 1920 Census determined that the U.S. not only already included a large number of immigrants, but also that the majority of Americans officially lived in cities for the first time in the nation’s history. This represented a major shift from just a few decades earlier, when most Americans lived in the countryside and many worked on farms. Now, the country had become industrialized and the government had evidence that people were flocking to urban areas from their rural surroundings and from abroad. Applying the results of the Census would mean moving power and funding to cities, which leaned toward the Democratic Party.

This all proved too much for the Republican-dominated Congress, many of whom were elected from rural districts. So the members of Congress claimed the census numbers simply had to be wrong.

Source: Before the 2020 Census Citizenship Fight, a Parallel Crisis

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Migrants who adapt to Australian culture say they’re happier than those who don’t

2019/07/25 Leave a comment

Funny article that is sloppy with definitions, particularly around Australian culture (which continues to plague Australian immigration and multiculturalism related debates) and exactly what are the key elements of acculturation.

The authors appear confused on whether or not acculturation is distinct from assimilation, and if so, how.

And not particularly surprising that those with higher education, skills and salaries are happier than those with lower education, skills and salaries:

In a multicultural country like Australia, it’s easy for migrants to keep their heritage culture alive. But our recent research that surveyed more than 300 migrants found those who adapt to Australian society, called “Australian acculturation”, have greater personal well-being than those who don’t.

Personal well-being refers to a person’s quality of life, measured at two levels. The first: how satisfied they are with their life overall. And the second: how satisfied they are with specific life domains, such as achievements, relationships, health, safety, community connectedness and security.

We looked at the relationships between time in the host country, acculturation and personal well-being among non-Western skilled migrants in Australia. We found that migrants who reported having a higher personal well-being also had:

  • acculturated more to the Australian culture than to their heritage culture
  • higher English language competency and
  • an Australian identity

And we found that more time spent in Australia doesn’t necessarily lead to more personal well-being if skilled migrants don’t adapt to Australian culture.

Social connectedness

We measured personal well-being using the Australian Unity Personal Well-being Index (PWI), which measures the level of a person’s satisfaction using a points system from 0 to 100.

A chart from our study comparing the well-being of our sample of skilled migrants with the general population of Australia.

The average PWI of the Australian general population ranges from 74.2 to 76.8 out of 100, whereas the average PWI of our skilled migrant sample is higher, at 77.27.

Given the present study involved skilled migrants, it’s possible that their higher education, skills and salaries may have contributed to higher levels of personal well-being, compared to the Australian population as a whole.

Skilled migrants recorded the lowest score for the “community connectedness” domain, along with the rest of the Australian population. Community connectedness refers to the number and strength of connections a person has with others in their community.

Community connectedness may be lower because:

  • skilled migrants maintain close contact with ethnic and extended families
  • there are few opportunities for them to be involved in the wider Australian community or
  • they feel excluded from the wider community.

Biculturalism

Rather than acculturation, some skilled migrants will maintain their own culture, and add layers of cultural practices from their host country. For them, “biculturalism” – or being able to switch between host and heritage cultures – is more realistic.

For example, an Indian family who moved to Melbourne will keep their culture alive through food, language and friendship circles, but might also go to the footy and support an AFL team.

Full acculturation, on the other hand, is when migrants abandon their heritage cultural practices and values when they adapt to the host culture.

For a first generation non-Western migrant, adapting to the Australian culture is even harder. Research has shown that acculturation into a Western country is unlikely for these people.

This is for a number of reasons, such as pride in their heritage culture, maintaining strong connections with relatives and friends, and the societies they move to allow them to maintain heritage cultural practices through multicultural policies.

Poor Australian acculturation can lead to social isolation

Most people migrate when they’re young, so they’re able to contribute to the socioeconomic well-being of the host country by bringing in much needed skills, knowledge, technology and investment to Australia.

But in any case, migrants grow old in a culture that’s not heritage to them, so Australian acculturation is important to help combat social isolation in their old age.

In fact, a 2015 study found older people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are at a greater risk of depression than Anglo-Australians.

So if our skilled migrant sample, with the average age of 38, are low-scoring in the “community connectedness” domain, they could fall into a social isolation trap as they age.

Australia should make ageing in a new culture a more comfortable experience, and organisations – such as Australian Multicultural Community Services and Australian Multicultural Foundation – and the government should take more responsibility for their Australian acculturation, and encourage social participation.

Source: Migrants who adapt to Australian culture say they’re happier than those who don’t

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →