(Courtesy: The Tribune, Amir Tuteja writes from Washington) About one million (10 lakh) foreigners will ask to immigrate to the United States this year. Roughly 10 to 15 per cent will request political asylum. No one knows how many more will slip across. the border and into the sprawl of the big cities like New York and Los Angeles. The immigration laws are such that once you are on US soil, legally or illegally, you get the full protection of the US judicial system. The immigration authorities are backlogged so much with limited resources and detention facilities, that even those illegal immigrants who are apprehended, are released with a charge to appear in the court later hardly anyone does.
America may be a nation of immigrants, but the hostility and intolerance towards the later arrivals has always existed by those who were already here. It flourishes in times of economic and political! uncertainty. It is flourishing now. Roughly two thirds of all Americans think too many immigrants are coming into the country. The flood of legal and illegal immigrants, the abuse of the political asylum system in general and the bombing by Muslim immigrants of the World Trade Center in New York last year, has spurred ant immigration bills in the Congress. They have raised fears that a flood of foreigners threatens the political’ and economic stability of the USA. In particular, they have amplified calls for restrictions on the system of political asylum. Most current immigrants are not of European origin, and so their growing numbers play into age-old anxieties about race as well as newer debates over issues like multi culturism, These factors resonate with the profound but often poorly articulated concern over the nation’s identity, direction and future that underlie so much of the current political debate. So the gates are beginning to slam shut against the immigrants in America, and the American mood Is swinging, towards “Fortress America” that emphasizes racial and ant immigration motivations as the cause of the trend away from a liberal immigration policy. Expressions like “potentially intrusive measures … 10 fight illegal immigration, age old anxieties about race, the nation’s identity direction and future, will the restriction impulse carry over into legal immigration? Superheated atmosphere, and the wave of xenophobia that is sweeping the country,” are being used in the immigration debate now raging in America.
The politics of restriction got another boost from an unexpected quarter when the Commission on Immigration: Reform declared that the illegal influx needed urgent attention and proposed the kind of aggressive crackdown that had mostly been advocated by conservatives in the past and had never gotten very far in Congress. In the heat of the current campaign, a politician as liberal as Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who has been a friend of the immigrants, has said that he favored an identity card plan to prevent illegal immigrants from getting jobs! In the recent elections held last November majority of the voters of California voted yes on “Proposition 187”. {With sufficient signature the voters of California can add a “proposition” or initiative to the ballot during the general election (s). The so-called “Save our State” initiative of Proposition 187 would cut off welfare, education and nonemergency health care to illegal immigrants in California. Doctors and teachers would have to report people they suspected of being illegal immigrants to the immigration authorities. (California has an estimated 1.6 million illegal immigrants, the most of any US state. Many have fled poverty in Latin America.)
The “Proposition 187” was challenged in the courts within hours of its passage in California.
The tide is turning against immigration not only in America, but in Canada and Western Europe 100.
Most Canadians feel that the country admits “too many immigrants,” especially visible minorities, according to a survey commissioned by the Canadian Government. Canada is currently admitting 250,000 new immigrants annually, but announced in October that it was reducing the number of immigrants it will accept and that preferences will be given to skilled workers and businessmen. Immigration and Citizenship Minister Sergio Marchi said the immigration quota will be reduced to between 190,000and 215,000 in 1995,down from this year’s target of 250,000. ‘The same message reverberates in Germany where xenophobic firebombing and Government decisions to restrict immigration have coincided. Following a radical overhaul of the German asylum law that took effect in July, 1993 the number of asylum applications has plummeted from an average of nearly 37,000 a month to about 10,000 now. Of the 300,000 applications judged so far this year by federal officials, barely 7 per cent have been granted sanctuary and even more out of reach to most foreigners is German citizenship. ‘The drop in asylum applications reflects no decline in migratory pressures; stable northwestern Europe and the poor, turbulent lands to the south and east remains as starkas ever. Rather, that divide has become tougher cross successfully, orat least legally, as Western Europe locks down its borders and builds legal obstacles to either keep refugees out or deport them more easily if they slip in. Germany has 6.9 million foreigners, who make up 8.5 per cent of the population compared with less than 3 per cent in Western Europe as a whole and 1.2 per cent in the Germany of 1960. German Chancellor Kohl recently called addressing the immigration issues Europe’s “biggest challenge.” In France, the Interior Minister declared last week that the nation cannot absorb more immigrants, and that France is going to aggressively pursue becoming a “zero immigration” country. In England, Winston Churchill’s grandson delivered a fiery speech early this year against the immigrants saying that to preserve the British culture they have to control the number of immigrant’s seitied in England. Austria’s Jorg Haider of the Freedom Party promises to expel all illegal immigrants, and all unemployed foreigners, if elected chancellor, In Belgium, the Flemish Block is pushing the same campaign.
To be continued
Article extracted from this publication >> July 21, 1995
