Immigration raid leads to 20 deportations

IMMIGRATION authorities will send 20 illegal workers back to China after a police raid on a Brisbane food processing plant.

The nine men and 11 women, all Chinese nationals, were working at the Morningside plant in the early hours yesterday.

A criminal warrant was also executed at the factory by the Australian Federal Police and immigration investigators to get evidence of the workers' employment.

Two men detained had their visas cancelled for working in breach of their visa conditions and the remainder of the group had all overstayed their visas.

Investigations are ongoing.

A Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) spokesman said they would pursue with the Director of Public Prosecutions any possible criminal prosecution related to the hiring and exploitation of illegal workers.

"This should serve as a warning that employing illegal workers will not be tolerated and that you can literally lose your workforce overnight,'' the spokesman said.

"All employers need to be aware it is a criminal offence to employ or refer a person for employment where that person is not entitled to work in Australia.''

Employers convicted of illegal worker offences face fines of up to $13,200 and/or two years' imprisonment per illegal worker.

Companies face fines of up to $66,000 per illegal worker.

Source:heraldsun.com.au/

Immigration status of all O.C. jail inmates will be checked

All inmates booked into Orange County jails will have their immigration status checked through a fingerprint identification program that started Tuesday.

Orange County joins 11 other California counties -- including Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura -- that have started checking the status of inmates against a federal database as part of a national program to identify and deport undocumented immigrants who land in jail. The program, started in late 2008, is in place in dozens of municipalities nationwide.

Under the Secure Communities Initiative, jail officials will check inmates' fingerprints against FBI criminal records and immigration records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, authorities said. The database houses fingerprints of people who have had contact with the department, such as those who have applied for some type of immigration benefit. Previously, specially trained deputies screened inmates upon arrival in Orange County jails. Those who were foreign-born were checked further for immigration status.

Since the Secure Communities Initiative began, 18,000 immigrants charged with crimes such as murder, kidnapping and rape -- known as Level 1 offenses -- have been identified nationwide. Of those, 4,000 have been deported. An additional 25,000 immigrants charged with lesser crimes such as burglary, domestic violence and some property crimes have been deported.

The program was introduced as Sheriff Sandra Hutchens negotiates with the Department of Homeland Security to house immigration detainees in county jails to help offset a massive budget shortfall.

Source:latimes.com/

Phuket Immigration Eyes Expat Trouble-Makers

THE NEW Superintendent of Phuket Immigration, Police Colonel Panuwat Ruamrak, plans a new data base to keep Phuket free of expat trouble-makers. He has already met with about 10 honorary consuls on Phuket and aims to improve relations with all diplomatic representatives.

German Honorary Consul Dirk Naumann said today that the move was ''very positive'' and that corruption, a distinguishing feature some time ago of Immigration on Phuket, no longer seemed to be evident.
Mr Naumann said the new approach by Immigration, along with the first group meeting of honorary consuls with the governor earlier this year, were positive steps towards solving some of the island's key issues, especially public transport.

Today Colonel Panuwat met Australian honorary consul and resort owner Larry Cunningham, who told him that Phuket ''still has very big problems.'' But he added: ''This governor is doing more that all the past governors.

''The tuk-tuk problem especially has to be fixed.''

Mr Cunningham said that Bali was rising again as a rival for Phuket because tourists were spreading the word about ''the tuk-tuks, the jet-skis, the mafia, the extortion by police.''

''If visitors have a good time, they will tell four or five people,'' Mr Cunningham said. ''If they have a bad time, they will tell 40 or 50 people.''

Mr Cunningham said that because he was a resort owner as well as honorary consul, he was very aware of the negatives on Phuket and wanted them to be corrected as soon as possible.

''It costs 500 baht for a 15-minute journey between Surin and Patong,'' Mr Cunningham said. ''That is extremely expensive.''

Yet, he added, the island represented good value in other ways.

''I took five people to lunch in Rawai recently and it cost me $50,'' he said. ''In Australia it would cost me 10 times that.''

He also said that the changes that the island needs had to be driven from Bangkok by the national government.

''Most of the local Phuket news media do not report the problems, and the Bangkok Post and the Nation never mention them,'' he said. ''As a result, the government in Bangkok does not know what's happening.''

Colonel Panuwat said that the motto of the Commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, Lieutenant General Wooti Lippatapanlop, was: ''Make Phuket Clean and Safe.'' As a former Director of Tourism, Lt General Wooti understood the issues well, Colonel Panuwat said.

He said he planned to report regularly on the situation on Phuket and would make sure the information was passed to the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister's Department.

Source:phuketwan.com

It is not immigration

It is not immigration. As fine as most of our Mexican brothers and sisters are, it is "invasion" to enter a country without permission. It is not immigration, and it has to stop.

America must remain free and independent. We cannot survive being overrun by people who do not wish to assimilate, and who do not appreciate the unique treasure of our Constitution or our heritage of freedom.

Yes, we had slavery, but millions of people fought and so many died to end it. Yes, we had discrimination and abuses, but millions of people who believed in the promise of the real America marched, wrote letters, sent telegrams, and voted, and some died to end that bad chapter. Yes, some of this still exists today in America, as it does everywhere, but no other nation in history tells people, "You are born free with unalienable rights from God." No man may take that freedom from you. You have a right and a duty to defend those freedoms.

Allowing the growing influx of immigrants who don't understand the heritage of America — or the countless sacrifices that have made it possible — will lead to the loss of that heritage, and of the promise that is America.

Americans are not against any people. We are made up of all nations. What we are so concerned with is people coming in not learning the language or the history and making no pledge of loyalty to our blessed Constitution — inspired by God, a great gift to the world, a document that has allowed for the greatest prosperity and overall success of any nation ever. Letting too many people come in illegally will lead to the neglect, disrespect, and loss of the protection and power of that great Constitution of the United States. There is no other nation like us, and if anyone has arguments to the contrary, it makes us wonder why they are here.

In 1917, my grandparents came through lawful immigration channels, and had to learn some English, our nation's official language, so they could understand and appreciate our culture. Here we are all Americans — not Irish, not Polish, not Italians, not Jews, not Mexicans, not Africans, though they are all here. We are all Americans first. We all speak English as our primary language. We do not wave foreign flags. None of us want to take over our nation for "The Race."

We Americans appreciate each other. We work together, we help and rescue each other, we defend each other, we wish each other well, we share the World Series and the Super Bowl, and we love George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Santa Clause, and Superman. We fight with each other, then embrace each other, laugh and poke fun at each other's peculiarities, and even give our lives for each other.

We don't mind if immigrants want to join us and become loyal freedom-loving Americans — but we fiercely mind if they want to overrun us and turn our one-of-a-kind gem of a nation into something else, or into the place they fled where there was no free opportunity, no free expression, no freedom to assemble, and no freedom to keep their government in check as "We The People" possess here in America. Stand back and observe the awesome power of a free people as they take back their government in the near future. We will not have to shoot and rampage. We have free political channels to get it done, unless those channels are shut down illegally by any leader wishing to put himself above the law or the will of this people — in which case, stand way back . . . .

Look at it this way, Mr. Illegal Immigrant. What if my eighteen friends and I decide to live in your house, as you discover when you return from work one day soon? We will help out some, but we will need your insurance card, and will be drawing regular "help" from your bank account. As soon as we get the chance, we'll be bringing in our brothers, sisters, uncles, and — sorry — you wouldn't want us to leave out our grandparents, would you? I know it will be difficult, but you can always move out, and so long as we can keep drawing from your account, we can all handle the rent, and oh, my brother says he can handle your job OK. The boss likes him at $5.00/hr. less. So, thanks, we'll be moving in soon!

If the tables were turned on you like this, Mr. Illegal Immigrant, you wouldn't like it any more than we do. Your basic premise, which is that this is an "immigration" problem, is erroneous. "Immigration" is when people are "allowed" and welcomed to enter the United States. When people come across our borders without permission — literally breaking in — it is called an "invasion."

Now the impulsive reaction may be to say, "Racist." No, not at all. We care not who the invaders are or where they are from. We only care that they threaten to overrun our society and harm its stability. We know that many of the Mexican people who come here are very good people. They go to church. They are family people and add to our society. But we also have a big problem of our prisons being too filled with invaders, and all of our resources strained. And yet they keep coming. Not good. Also, there have been many Middle-Eastern marauders caught coming in. How many were not caught?

. . . And, Mr. Illegal Immigrant, are you for amnesty — which would likely open the door even wider to unchecked immigration? If you are for that, then you wish to take over our nation completely, because that is what it would mean with many more millions coming in, with the borders STILL NOT SEALED!

So, I ask you, who has the wrong perspective? I say: #1 — Seal the borders! #2 — Remove all serious offenders from our prisons and parole rolls and deport those criminals back to their country of origin, with a warning that to return would be an act of aggression against the U.S. From that point on, any illegal immigrant who commits a serious crime should be immediately deported upon conviction.

That would be a good start. No more illegal immigrants allowed to invade. Those who are already here and obeying the law should be allowed to go through the customary channels to become legal citizens, if they are prepared to do so, but there should be no amnesty, and absolutely no permission to routinely bring in family members or others. Such a policy is not racist. It is fundamental to the survival of a free and independent America.


Related links


Don't look now! Amnesty is back
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=127604

We March for America
http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/march-index/

President Obama: "No Amnesty for Illegal Aliens!"
http://www.grassfire.com/117/petition.asp?Ref_ID=3235&RID=11671540

D.C. Immigration "March for America" — Bi-partisan or Bi-national
http://lezgetreal.com/?p=28074

Tea Party Against Amnesty Protests Announced for April 15
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/amnesty-tea-party-7407.html

Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal
http://blogs4borders.blogspot.com/2009/09/joe-legal-vs-jose-illegal.html

© Neil Brian Goldberg

Source:renewamerica.com

H-1B visas see slow demand but finally reach limit

After a slow start because of the recession, applications for the high-tech industry's favorite work visa, the H-1B, reached the annual cap of 65,000 this month, federal immigration authorities said this week.

The announcement by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services might appear to be one more sign of an economy on the mend, but compared with previous years, applications for the normally popular — and controversial — work visa have moved at a snail's pace.

It took nine months to exhaust the supply of visas this year, and a mere day to do so last year. There was only light demand for the visa in April, when the government started taking applications for this fiscal year's quota, but employers

finally used them all up in a sign that perhaps high-tech hiring was rebounding.

"The economy is starting to pick up a little," observed Deborah Notkin, an immigration attorney and business visa expert for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The visas are issued to employers to hire foreign workers in occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in fields such as science, engineering and computer programming. They are good for three years and renewable for another three. The visas are especially popular with Silicon Valley high-tech companies such as Cisco Systems, Oracle and Google, which use them to attract talent from around the globe.

But they are also controversial, touching on sensitive issues


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of immigration, U.S. competitiveness and whether American workers are forced out of jobs in favor of those from foreign countries.

U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have investigated abuses of the visa in recent years, but proponents of the visa say the caps are unnecessary and harm U.S. competitiveness.

"It's such an artificial cap," Notkin said. "Even in a recession, it doesn't help our economy to be globally competitive."

Notkin said she was concerned that "the media and a couple senators are overplaying" problems with the H-1B program "and are going to kill it. The challenge is how to keep it and get rid of abusers, which are a minority."

Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, a group that favors immigration restrictions, said the visa is too often used to bring in average rather than top talent. "We don't advocate reducing the 65,000 cap," he said. "We just advocate increasing the criteria so H-1Bs are only used to hire really top quality programmers."

There are an additional 20,000 visas set aside for foreign citizens who have graduated from U.S. universities with advanced degrees. These applicants are rolled over to the regular visa program after reaching their quota. The total this year was not available.

The number of H-1B visas issued far exceeds the 65,000 cap because universities and their affiliates, nonprofits and government research organizations are exempt from the limit. Combined, more than 276,000 H-1B visas were issued in fiscal year 2008, according to USCIS's most current data. For fiscal year 2009, Wipro, an information technology service company based in Bangalore, India, was the top user, with 1,964 visas, followed by Microsoft, with 1,318 visas. Intel was No. 3, with 723. Among the many other tech industry or valley users are Cisco, Oracle, Google, Yahoo, Apple and Stanford University.

With the year's quota exhausted, employers must wait until next April to file new applications. Next year's visa holders won't start work until Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal fiscal year.

Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said the slow pace of applications this year showed "how weak the American economy has been this past year.

"But in a valley in which 53 percent of our engineers are foreign born, and more than half of the founders or CEOs of technology companies being foreign born, it underscores the need for talent from around the globe to compete globally."

Source: