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http://cis.org/MiddleEasternImmigrantsProfile

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Download this Backgrounder as a .pdf In the aftermath of September 11, there has been heightened interest in the Middle Eastern immigrant population living in the United States. Their integration and incorporation into American society has come to be seen as increasingly important.

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http://articles.chicagotribune.com/keyword/immigration-policy

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Immigration Policy News. Find breaking news, commentary, and archival information about Immigration Policy From The tribunedigital-chicagotribune

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http://immigrationimpact.com/

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There is no doubt that criminal gangs operating in the United States adversely impact the lives of many people living in communities throughout the country. However, in a nefarious act, President Trump is attempting to cast young people fleeing Central America as gang members-which is simply untrue.

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The Racial Subtext To The GOP’s Immigration Policies

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The Racial Subtext To The GOP’s Immigration Policies

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http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2016/02/04/3745319/immigration-policy-race/

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There is a strong racial context and subtext to the debate about immigration reform taking place in the GOP presidential primary.

Frontrunner Donald Trump rocketed to the top of the polls after saying Mexican immigrants were "rapists," "drug dealers," and "criminals," and as his campaign has gotten stronger and stronger, his opponents have raced to keep up and show just how tough they are on the immigration issue.

Perhaps implied, but usually not stated, is the fact that the practical effect of Republicans' proposed immigration policies would be to restrict and reduce the number of people of color in America. Although the GOP candidates have not (yet) said that immigration should be limited to whites, their plans call only for reducing, removing, and rejecting people of color:

Donald Trump has called for rounding up and shipping out 11 million undocumented residents of America, 90 percent of whom are people of color.

Trump has proposed to build a wall to keep people in Mexico from coming to the United States (no such wall has been proposed on the Canadian border, and Scott Walker was widely ridiculed for even entertaining a barrier on the Northern border). Nearly all of the candidates have endorsed some form of wall, and "securing the border" (again, but not with Canada) is a touchstone of the Republican primary.

All of the candidates have endorsed repealing Obama's executive order offering support and security to the "DREAMers," the children of undocumented immigrants.

Trump has proposed - and few of his opponents have objected to - instituting a ban on Muslims (mainly Arabs) from coming to America.

This state of affairs should not be surprising; in fact, they have their roots in a long, explicit, and unapologetic tradition of restricting U.S. immigration and citizenship to white people.

The common modern expressions of "They should speak English," "They should go back where they came from," and "They are illegals" have deep roots in American history. After all, for most of the country's first century, only white people could become U.S. citizens. For most of the second century, only white people could enter America and stay.

As one of its initial acts, for example, the first U.S. Congress passed the Immigration and Naturalization Act in 1790, stating that citizenship was reserved to "free white persons." This framework guided immigration policy for 164 years - and the Supreme Court regularly reaffirmed the validity of the "whites-only" sign on the doorway to the United States. In 1857, the court ruled "citizenship was perfectly understood to be confined to the White race." In 1920, the court re-examined the 1790 law, upheld its validity, and ruled in Ozawa v. United States and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind that Asians could not become citizens because they were not White.

In 1882, Congress passed, and President Chester Arthur signed, the unambiguously titled "Chinese Exclusion Act," which barred most Chinese from immigrating to the U.S.

In the 1920s, the national origin quota system was created to guide immigration policy. That system allocated a limited number of slots - or visas - to each country, determining how many people from any country could come to the U.S. In devising this system, the plan's architect, Dr. Joseph A. Hill, a Census Bureau statistician, tellingly said in 1926, "The stream that feeds the reservoir should have the same composition as the contents of the reservoir itself." By "reservoir," Hill was referring to the racial composition of the U.S., which was nearly 90 percent white at the time. Accordingly, countries of color received very few slots, and most people from Asian countries were banned outright from entering the U.S. until 1965 (which explains why 74 percent of Asian American adults today were born outside of the United States).

It wasn't until the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 that the official policy of excluding non-whites from entering the country and becoming citizens was consigned to the dustbin of history.

And today, the current situation facing our immigration system - with large numbers of Mexican-born people living in the U.S. without visas - is itself an unintended result of trying to correct the racist history of immigration law with a simplistic, "colorblind" approach that is race-neutral on its face, but that is extremely problematic in practice.

Right now, every country in the world gets the same number of slots, whether that country's population is 1,000 people or 1 billion people. As Columbia University professor outlined in a 2013 New York Times op-ed piece, our visa system "stipulates that no country may have more than 7 percent of the total each year," resulting in an annual per-country limit of 25,620 visas. The result of this system is that "it is easy to immigrate here from, say, Belgium or New Zealand, but there are long waits - sometimes decades - for applicants from China, India, Mexico and the Philippines." This quota system explains why there are so many immigrants from Mexico without visas, as opposed to other countries.

It is not surprising that candidates seeking to navigate a path to the nomination of a party that is 93 percent white would promote policies and rhetoric that would make America white again. Although it's perhaps surprising to hear the words spoken out loud today, a "whites only" immigration system has actually been the policy of the United States for most of its history.

Steve Phillips is a national political leader, civil rights lawyer, and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action. He is the author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority, which was published on February 2nd by The New Press.

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The Racial Subtext To The GOP's Immigration Policies

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There is a strong racial context and subtext to the debate about immigration reform taking place in the GOP presidential primary. Frontrunner Donald Trump rocketed to the top of the polls after saying Mexican immigrants were "rapists," "drug dealers," and "criminals," and as his campaign has gotten stronger and stronger, his opponents have raced to keep up and show just how tough they are on the immigration issue.

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Fareed Zakaria looks at how the immigration systems work - and don't work - in Japan, Europe, Canada and the U.S. in the TV special: "Global Lessons: The GPS Roadmap for Making Immigration Work" which aired on CNN on Sunday, June 10. Watch on CNN International on Saturday, June 16, at 4 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET
Immigrants founded America hundreds of years ago, coming to the promised land in search of freedom and opportunity, in pursuit of the American dream.

Today, many Americans see immigrants as a danger to that dream.

They worry that immigrants are taking their jobs, using government services and changing the country's national identity. The average American believes that 39% of the U.S. population was born abroad. The real figure is 13%, still the highest level since 1920.

Related: How much do you know about U.S. immigration?

Immigration is divisive, a wedge issue in this election year. But most Americans (73%) agree that the government is doing a poor job of managing it.

So, how should the U.S. handle immigration? Does anyone else do it better? What can the U.S. learn from successes - and possible mistakes - from other countries?

Let's look at three examples: Japan, Europe and Canada.
JAPAN: A CAUTIONARY TALE
Japan has one of the strictest immigration policies in the world and has historically been closed off to outsiders. It has a foreign population of less than 2% - six times smaller than the percentage of the U.S.

But what are the effects of keeping foreigners out?

Japan is facing an alarming labor shortage, says Robert Guest, the business editor of The Economist and author of "Borderless Economics."

Japan's current population is around a 127 million. It's on pace to be just 90 million by 2050, a drop-off of almost one-third. The nation is also aging. Almost one in four people are 65 or older - making Japan the oldest country on earth.

Guest says there's a solution to the labor shortage: open the borders and invite more immigrants.

But that idea has hurdles.

"They don't have the idea that you can become Japanese," says Guest. "And they don't have the idea that you can solve some of the country's chronic labor problems by importing foreign hands."

In its health care sector, for example, Japan is estimated to be short almost 900,000 workers 2025. It started to invite foreign nurses, and since 2008 almost 600 have come to Japan.

But only 66 have passed Japan's notoriously difficult nursing proficiency exam, which requires an expertise in written Japanese.

Japan's health ministry has made the test easier, adding some English translations, but critics say it's still unreasonable.

"It should be good enough that they are able to communicate verbally with people and that they are able to read the words they need to know for the tools of their trade," says Guest. "It worked perfectly well in other countries."

And it's not just foreign workers who might run into obstacles. In some cases, it's immigrants who have been living in Japan for decades.

In 1990, facing a labor shortage, Japan gave ethnic Japanese from South America long-term residence status, filling gaps in its workforce.

Japanese-Brazilians filled manufacturing jobs and became the third largest minority in Japan.

But in 2009, with unemployment running high, Japan actually offered money to them to leave the country - $3,000 for each worker to cover travel expenses.

And the flight was essentially a one-way ticket - anyone who took the offer couldn't come back to Japan with the residence status they once had.

The government says it was only trying to help unemployed Japanese-Brazilians. They've stopped offering the deal and are reconsidering the residence status of those who took the money.

So if Japan won't let in immigrants, what is it doing about its labor shortage?

It's encouraging families to have more children, giving them $165 a month for each child. But that hasn't been enough to inspire a growth spurt.
EUROPEAN UNION: WORK IN PROGRESS
Europe faces a similar demographic crisis as Japan, but it's trying a more open approach to immigration.

It's easy to forget that the European Union itself is one of the most ambitious migration experiments in history. Half a billion people are allowed to roam freely within the EU's borders.

Many predicted that swarms of people from poorer nations like Poland and Romania would move to rich countries like Germany and France. That never happened - only 3% of working-age EU citizens live in a different EU country.

But the EU has not dealt well with immigrants from outside its borders.

There's been a nasty political backlash - with anti-immigrant parties thriving in Greece, the Netherlands and France.

Rather than rejecting these extremists, Europe's mainstream politicians have pandered to them. Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have all declared that multiculturalism in their countries is a failure.

"They all agree multiculturalism is dead," says Chem Ozdemir, born in Germany to Turkish migrant workers. "It's amazing that they agree on that, but they do not agree when it comes to euro and on other issues."

Ozdemir, now head of Germany's left-leaning Green Party, became the first ethnic-Turkish member of Parliament at age 28.

Now, he helps his nation to answer a very basic question: What does it mean to be German?

"Can you be a German and have a head scarf at the same time? Can you be a German and practice Islam at the same time?" Ozdemir says.

Jonathan Laurence, author of "The Emancipation of Europe's Muslims," is hopeful on Islam's place in Europe. In a GPS guest post this week, Laurence writes:

The key development is that as the proportion of Muslims of foreign nationality residing in Europe decreases - because the number of native-born Muslims is growing - Europe's democratic political institutions are increasingly kicking in. For decades, the absence of integration policy allowed foreign governments and transnational movements to capture the religious and political interests of this new minority. This wasn't multiculturalism so much as indifference.

The series of terrorist attacks against Western capitals from 2001-2005, however, in combination with high unemployment and educational under-performance, ended Europeans' hands-off approach. After leaving them outside domestic institutions for decades, governments gradually took ownership of their Muslim populations. Authorities began to treat Islam as a domestic religion and encouraged Muslims to embrace national citizenship.

In Germany, for example, the government has met with Muslim leaders at an annual German Islam conference since 2006, in an effort to better integrate Muslims with the rest of the population.

Germany and others are certainly making strides, but throughout Europe, there are still obstacles to immigrants' inclusion.

So, is there any nation that's getting immigration right?
CANADA: GETTING IT RIGHT
If Japan's strict immigration policy serves as a cautionary tale and Europe's experiment is still a work in progress, then take a look at Canada - a nation with more foreign-born per capita than the United States.

Canada may not have the cache the U.S. does - but it holds great appeal for would-be immigrants, says The Economist's Guest.

"Canada offers many of the same things that America does - a very high standard of living, the rule of law, peace, safety," he says.

To determine whom it should let in to live and work, Canada uses a point system. You don't even need a job or employer, just skills. Applicants are awarded points for proficiency in education, languages and job experience.

Just why is Canada so ready to accept immigrants with open arms?

Because it has to be.

The nation is sparsely populated, has a low birth rate, and needs immigrants for population growth - and economic growth.

In Canada, almost two-thirds of permanent visas last year were given for economic needs - Canada's economic needs, that is.

The country brings in the majority of foreigners to fill labor holes.

Only 22% of its immigration was for family reasons: reuniting mothers with children, brothers with sisters, grandparents with grandchildren.

In the U.S., the opposite is true. Only 13% of green cards last year were doled out for economic reasons, while two-thirds were for family reunions.

When Nahed Nenshi became the first Muslim mayor of a major Canadian city in 2010, he shattered Calgary's "redneck" stereotype.

"When I was running for office, it was only people who were not from here who said 'Whoa, is Calgary ready for a mayor like that?'" he says. "The people in Calgary just said, 'Ah, it's a kid from the East End. We know him.'"

Canada's real challenge, says Nenshi, is ensuring the economic and social integration of immigrants once they are living in the country.

"It's not about burkas and kirpans. It's about saying to an engineer who was trained in Iran or China, how can we get you working as an engineer instead of a janitor as quickly as possible?" he says. "These are very serious challenges. And we haven't got it right. But I would much prefer we focus our energies there rather than on these meaningless culture war discussions that occasionally crop up ... because those don't make a difference in people's lives."

The public and Parliament in Canada generally support continued immigration. "Immigration is unambiguously good for the economy. We know that those folks come, they invest here, they create jobs, they work here," says Nenshi. "There's not much of a policy debate on that in Canada."

While the prime minister of Great Britain, the former president of France and the chancellor of Germany have all declared that in their context multiculturalism has failed, that's not so in Canada, says Nenshi.

"I'm not here to question their reality. It's their reality," he says. "But I think it's important for us Canadians, and particularly for Calgarians, to really tell a story loudly and proudly about a place where it works, where diversity works, where multiculturalism works, where pluralism works. It ain't rocket science."
FUTURE IN THE U.S.
Canada and also Australia now have smart immigration policies that take in talented foreigners who have skills the country needs and determination and drive to succeed.

As a result, they have transformed themselves into immigrant countries, with a foreign-born population that is higher than the United States.

Australia, which only 15 years ago had strong strains of nativism and xenophobia dominating its political culture, now has more than a quarter of its population as foreign born - double America's share - and is thriving because of the economic growth and cultural diversity.

Canada's foreign-born population is almost 20%; the U.S. is 13%, just a little higher than Great Britain's.

Related: Why American needs immigration

The United States is not the world's only - nor the largest - immigrant society anymore.

And that will have consequences economically, culturally and in other ways, says Fareed Zakaria:

It's a sad state, because the U.S. remains a model for the world. It is the global melting pot, the place where a universal nation is being created. We may not do immigration better than everyone else anymore, but we do assimilation better than anyone else. People from all over the world come to this country and, almost magically, become Americans.

They - I should say we - come to the country with drive and dedication and over time develop a fierce love for America. This infusion of talent, hard work and patriotism has kept the country vital for the past two centuries. And if we can renew it, it will keep America vital in the 21st century as well.

What do you think? What can the U.S. learn from other countries' immigration policies? Share your comments below and check out some past responses.

Or see what Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has to say, from this excerpt from "Global Lessons: The GPS Roadmap for Making Immigration Work"

and also New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg

More from Global Lessons: Immigration

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Immigration lessons for the U.S. from around the world

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Fareed Zakaria looks at how the immigration systems work - and don't work - in Japan, Europe, Canada and the U.S. in the TV special: "Global Lessons: The GPS Roadmap for Making Immigration Work" which aired on CNN on Sunday, June 10. Watch on CNN International on Saturday, June 16, at 4 a.m.

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6-MONTH DETENTION

Country: Italy

THE "BLACK SHEEP" LAW

Country: Switzerland

MANDATORY DETENTION

Country: Australia

Reactions: The law has seriously irked human rights NGOs. In 2001, Human Rights Watch sent Prime Minister John Howard a forceful arguing that the legislation "seriously contravenes Australia's obligations to non-citizens, refugees and asylum seekers under international human rights and refugee law." Three years later, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission released a condemning the government for the abuses and human rights violations child refugees suffered while being detained. Although Kevin Rudd's government has certain provisions of the law, it is being employed to intercept and detain illegal immigrants.

THE "NIKKEI" LAW

Country: Japan

What the law does: Japan has long struggled with its demographics and immigration problems. Although the country's aging population necessitates the importing of cheap labor, recently the Japanese government has sought to curtail immigration in an effort to shore up its unprecedentedly high unemployment figures. The most infamous of Tokyo's new anti-immigration policies is the "Nikkei" Law. Passed in spring 2009, the law allows the Japanese government to pay $3,000 to each unemployed Latin American immigrant of Japanese descent (known as Nikkei in Japanese) and $2,000 to each of that unemployed worker's family members to return to their country of origin. The catch? These workers and their family members would be prohibited from ever returning to work in Japan. An estimated 366,000 Brazilians and Peruvians lived in Japan at the time.

Reactions: Although the law is voluntary, it's nevertheless stirred up a deal of controversy within Japan. Some support the measure as being economically prudent, while others, such as Angelo Ishi of Musashi University in Tokyo, describe the law as "" to Japan's immigrant communities. Much of the Western press has taken a relatively neutral stance on the issue, aside from Time, which ran a with the headline "Japan to Immigrants: Thanks, But You Can Go Home Now."

DUBAI-STYLE HOSPITALITY

Country: United Arab Emirates

What the law does: An abundant supply of cheap immigrant labor from Southeast Asia and India has helped make the UAE a major destination for foreign direct investment. Yet despite a surge of immigration into the Emirates over the past decade, the government has yet to reform its many draconian immigration policies and labor laws. One of the toughest provisions in Emirati immigration law is the prohibition of foreigners from engaging in any sort of labor union-like activity. As a result, living conditions are often harsh, including 80-hour work weeks, back-breaking manual labor, and below-minimum-wage pay. It's not atypical for immigrants to live in "tiny pre-fabricated huts, 12 men to a room, forced to wash themselves in filthy brown water and cook in kitchens next to overflowing toilets."

Reactions: Whereas in the past criticism of UAE immigration and labor law seemed to come only from human rights NGOs and international organizations like the ., more recently the immigrants themselves have begun to denounce such laws. Immigrant workers in Dubai have been particularly vocal. In 2006, a group of blue-collar workers in Dubai held a union meeting and protested the unfair working and living conditions that their employers subject them to. More recently, in September 2009, construction workers went on strike and in the streets, demanding higher wages and overtime pay.

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6-MONTH DETENTION Country: Italy THE "BLACK SHEEP" LAW Country: Switzerland MANDATORY DETENTION Country: Australia Reactions: The law has seriously irked human rights NGOs. In 2001, Human Rights Watch sent Prime Minister John Howard a forceful arguing that the legislation "seriously contravenes Australia's obligations to non-citizens, refugees and asylum seekers under international human rights and refugee law."

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The Complexities of Immigration: Why Western Countries Struggle with Immigration Politics and Policies

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The Complexities of Immigration: Why Western Countries Struggle with Immigration Politics and Policies

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THE COMPLEXITIES OF IMMIGRATION : WHY WESTERN COUNTRIES STRUGGLE WITH IMMIGRATION POLITICS AND POLICIES Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, Harvard University, and John Mollenkopf, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center I. Introduction
Almost 200 million individuals, about 3 percent of the world's population, live outside the country where they were born, according to United Nations estimates. Over 100 million migrants live in the more developed regions of the world, including 9 million in Northern Europe, 22 million in Western Europe, and 38 million in the United States. Proportionally, 9 percent of residents of Northern Europe, 12 percent in Western Europe, and 13 percent in the United States are immigrants.[1] If we were to include their children born in these destinations (the so-called second generation), the figures would roughly double. The global number of migrants more than doubled between 1970 and 2002, and the number continues to rise.[2] As international migration flows expand, so do both the benefits and complexities for governments.

The political puzzles that high levels of immigration create may be even more difficult to solve than the economic, cultural, or security puzzles. At any rate, they must take priority, since governments cannot promulgate and implement economic, cultural, and security policies unless sufficient political forces are mustered. Immigrants should also make politics a priority (although they usually do not do so). After all, immigrants will be successfully incorporated into their host countries only after they have enough involvement and influence in decision making that they can help shape relevant policies. So politics matters - but for reasons we explain below, supporters of various ideologies in widely different countries all run into trouble when they consider immigration and immigrants.

Western liberal democracies enthusiastically promote free or only slightly restricted movement of information, capital, and goods and services -- but not of people. Membership is simply too important for any government to relinquish control over who leaves and enters its territory. Clearly, control is never perfect, the composition of a country's population is never ideal, and any sort of immigrant population will bring both benefits and costs. But every competent and rational state will seek to control its borders, attain the right balance of residents' skills and loyalties, and maximize immigration's benefits while minimizing its costs.

There are no recipes here. Each state makes different choices to attain these goals, and new leadership or changes in circumstances lead many states to change their choices over time. The policy issues are numerous, and are further complicated by the fact that immigrants from different nations present distinct demands, needs, and values. Issues for policy makers include, but are not limited to

regularizing the status and future of undocumented immigrants;

redesigning electoral systems and party structures to give immigrants genuine political voice;

developing and coordinating supranational policies toward immigrants and immigration;

controlling native-born residents' hostility to and violence against immigrants, and vice versa;

enabling churches and mosques, advocacy groups, and civic organizations to integrate immigrants into communities;

figuring out the implications of transnational sentiments and legal statuses;

incorporating immigrants and their children into schools, jobs, and neighborhoods;

striving to prevent alienation and radicalization among poor, isolated, or ideologically motivated youth.

This policy brief does not address such issues despite their urgency and importance. Instead, we want to explore the general political conundrums underlying them. Left and right both face normative and partisan differences over these policy choices within their own groups - as do immigrants themselves. Nevertheless, liberal democratic countries will need to somehow manage ideological and political disputes so they can address urgent cultural, economic, political, and moral questions over the next few decades.

II. The Puzzle of Rising Immigration in Democratic Polities

To begin with, the very fact of immigration creates a central puzzle for democratic theory: for several decades, most Western countries have had high and rising levels of immigration even though a majority of their populations consistently want immigration to stabilize or decrease. That public sentiment has been apparent since the early 1960s, when survey researchers first asked about immigration. Table 1 shows the pattern for 2003, the most recent year for which we have comparable data in North America and Europe:

Table 1. Views on Desirable Trajectories for Immigration in Selected Western Nations, 2003

Note: For some countries, these results include noncitizen respondents, so the table probably overestimates voters' support for more immigration.

Sources: column 2: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Table A.1.4, "Stocks of Foreign Born Population in Selected OECD Countries,"

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/8217.htm; columns 3-5: International Social Survey Program (ISSP), 2003.

With the notable exception of Canada, barely a tenth of the population of any of these countries favors increased immigration; half or more of the residents of these countries, except for Canada and Switzerland, want a decrease.

Governments pursue the opposite of what most voters want over a long period of time on a few other policies as well; the best example is free trade. But such policies are unusual, volatile, and always subject to political challenge and the possibility of a populist revolt. Therefore, governments tend to react defensively about immigration. They are vulnerable to nativist pressures and make a big show of hostility toward illegal immigration - but they continue admitting large numbers of immigrants while turning a relatively blind eye to the undocumented. Immigrants are simply too important to the economy, demographic health, and thus the fiscal health of host countries to be excluded even if governments could keep them out. However, immigration policy and policies toward immigrants rest on a shaky foundation from the perspective of any political party seeking to win elections, and this political weakness has consequences for all immigration-related policies.

III. Ideological Conundrums
Problems for the left
Within the context of popular distaste for immigration, native-born leftists in most Western nations are more welcoming to or at least tolerant of immigrants than are native-born rightists. Table 2 shows that members of left parties are consistently, if modestly, more favorable in their immigration position.

Table 2. Approval of Immigration among Supporters of the Two Largest Political Parties in Selected Western Nations, 2003

Note: The figures include respondents who favored increasing immigration "a lot," or "a little," or keeping it at the same level. A large majority in both columns chose "the same." For some countries, the sample size for respondents identifying with even the two largest parties is small, so these figures are not completely reliable. Party labels were provided by ISSP.

Source: International Social Survey Program (ISSP), 2003

These figures accord with our general understanding of left and right ideologies. Social democratic (in the European context) and liberal (in the American context) activists tend to be relatively more oriented toward the international arena and less isolationist.[3] They tend to be more culturally flexible or cosmopolitan in their commitments, if not necessarily in their behaviors, and they sympathize with the desire to escape poverty and oppression that drives many to emigrate from their home country. In recent years, European (and increasingly American) leftist support for Palestinians in the Middle East has augmented sympathy for Muslim immigrants.

Leftists also believe in respecting cultural differences and honoring group identities, often through explicit public policies of multiculturalism. But they disagree profoundly with many immigrants' gender practices, their treatment of children (particularly daughters), and their views on homosexuality. Especially but not only in Europe, leftists are insistently secular, so they may be uneasy about immigrants' religious commitments and practices. Leftist political actors may also worry that low-skilled immigrants will take jobs from low-skilled, native-born workers. That dilemma is especially acute when the threatened native workers are disproportionately ethnic minorities, such as black descendents of slaves in the United States. So the left endorses at least some immigration but has many concerns about actual immigrants.
Problems for the right
Political actors on the right also face ideological and partisan dilemmas. Rightists tend to be unenthusiastic about immigration per se, for reasons that are the mirror image of the left: they are more isolationist, more culturally and politically nationalist, more concerned about the rule of law and legal status per se, and more inclined to rely on international markets than on migration to alleviate worldwide poverty. But rightists' views on gender and parental roles, homosexuality, and religiosity accord much more with the views of many immigrants than do leftists' views. Social conservatives are also more sympathetic to some immigrants' desire to bring religious values and practices into the public realm. Rightists, then, resist immigration but have much in common with a high proportion of actual immigrants.

The right faces additional dilemmas with regard to immigrants' political incorporation. Conservatives have little tolerance for illegal immigration, but they also sometimes manage or own businesses that depend on undocumented immigrants' labor power and their willingness to accept low wages and difficult working conditions. Industries of this sort, like a restaurant owners association or a construction trades association, can often be a potent national interest group. Conservatives might prefer regularizing the status of undocumented immigrants in order to maintain a stable workforce and to discourage the casual and widespread acceptance of illegality. Regularization would also eliminate the hypocrisy of the government spending tax revenues on border protection while employers hire workers who foil that protection - and generate profits that can be taxed. But conservatives find it unpalatable to publicly endorse "amnesty" in the United States or to be equivalently "soft" on undocumented immigrants in Europe.

The right faces an even deeper predicament regarding the ultimate goal of immigration policies and policies toward immigrants. Conservatives tend to be "national particularists" (in the words of political scientist Christian Joppke), meaning that they endorse unilateral assimilationism or liberal neutrality among individuals. But some conservatives are also nativists - and demonstrating hostility toward immigrants is not a good strategy for persuading them to assimilate. It is not easy for a political party or organization seeking to unify rightists to reconcile these two contradictory impulses.
Immigrants' choices
Immigrants also get caught up in these conundrums, which surely affect them more deeply. Should immigrants ally with conservatives, who may hold similar cultural values and provide employment, but who may also oppose further immigration, want to exact a stiff price for incorporation, and flirt with xenophobia? Or should they ally with leftists, who oppose and even scorn some of their cultural or religious values, but who might help enact their cultural preferences, provide more social services, or support their access to the labor market?

The right strategy for building coalitions with other immigrants is just as unclear. Should immigrant groups ally with refugees, undocumented, or highly skilled temporary workers, even if they come from a different part of the world and are otherwise dissimilar? Or should they seek to form coalitions with native-born residents of the same nationality or even of the same broad social class, in the hopes of avoiding competition over jobs and tension over status and resources? Another question: should immigrants aim to enter their new polity as individuals or as members of an ethnic group? Can they retain ties to their countries of origin while becoming a citizen of the receiving country; should they ally with co-religionists across national borders; should they permit or encourage their children to become full-fledged Germans, Dutch, or Americans?

Variants of these questions have always faced migrants, as a rich literature of memoirs and histories shows. But some issues and options are new or have attained a new urgency in this era of easy international travel, stateless organizations willing to use violence to attain their goals, and host countries increasingly nervous about security and national unity. For instance, Muslim immigrants might ponder how they can stay committed Muslims without being drawn into international radicalism, while migrants from former colonies might wonder how they can take advantage of their linguistic and cultural ties while avoiding demeaning ethnic stereotypes. And even the old questions have no settled answers.

IV. Policy Choices

Crosscutting political and ideological commitments not only make life complicated for party leaders, they also make it even more difficult for host countries to address political, cultural, and economic questions. Like the partisan dilemmas, these policy dilemmas contribute to high levels of uncertainty about the eventual success of immigrant integration.

Economic policies

Western nations face low birth rates and the retirement of native-born workers born during the baby boom. The native-born population also will not take certain jobs (especially dirty jobs) unless those jobs pay relatively well. This means Western nations must balance their need for immigrant workers to compensate for these circumstances with the need to regulate migrant flows, reduce unemployment, and control public dependency. They appear unable to get this balance right for very long.

Nations have experimented with a variety of policies: short- and long-term guest worker programs, higher and lower overall quotas, ignoring and cracking down on low-skilled undocumented immigrants, raising and lowering the number of slots for high-skilled immigrants, enhancing and limiting public services, expanding and contracting educational and language programs, and encouraging workers to move to underdeveloped parts of the nation and concentrating them in major cities, among other policies.

No single set of choices may be "right" over the long term for maintaining the balance between too many and too few workers of a given skill level. At best, a nation can hope to adopt intelligent policies that solve actual problems in the short term rather than pursuing partisan or ideological ends that have little to do with genuine economic needs or market forces. With luck, skill, and appropriate advocacy and care, those policies need not sacrifice immigrants themselves for actual or perceived national imperatives.
Cultural policies
Western nations must also balance the need for national integrity and unity with the attractions of diversity, fresh ideas and energies, and freedom for individuals and groups to remake themselves. Here, too, they may not be able to find just the right balance or maintain any balance for long. Host countries have tried an array of policies: liberal neutrality, multiculturalism, national particularism, republican universalism, affirmative action, energetic assimilationist efforts, regional or national homogeneity, separatism, pillarization, transnationalism, supranational legislation and regulation, and others.

All of these policies have virtues and flaws as well as exceptionally passionate advocates. Moreover, analysts and political activists disagree on what the virtues may be or whether overcoming the flaws requires a more intense application of the same policies or shifting to different ones. A nation must not expect stable solutions; rather, it should aim for intelligent strategies that solve actual problems in the relatively short run. This seems obvious but is sometimes rare; politicians and advocates often find themselves promoting polarization in cultural arenas instead of adopting pragmatic political compromises about cultural disputes.

Political incorporation

Finally, political systems must balance between too much and not enough openness to new constituents, demands, and activists. Political parties are always attuned to the forthcoming election and always compelled to respond to their current electoral base. But in order to thrive, they must also look to the future and appeal to new interests. This conundrum explains why the American Republican party (and the Democratic party to a lesser degree) is split between wanting to restrict immigration and punish illegal immigrants and seeking to attract the huge pool of current and future Latino voters.

Policymakers face a slightly different dilemma from political parties. Elected and appointed officials need stability and predictability in order to make and implement policies, but they must also accommodate major demographic shifts that inevitably change their tasks, especially in gateway cities and rapidly transforming small towns. That conundrum plays out in the institutions that have the least control over their circumstances and are closest to the most vulnerable among the native born and immigrants: schools, religious organizations, social service agencies, health-care providers, and criminal justice systems. Policymaking may lose coherence under these cross-pressures. For example, in the United States, some local jurisdictions have adopted harsh regulations against undocumented immigrants while others work strenuously to manage immigrants' presence in ways that benefit all residents through programs of bilingual and adult education or new training for police and social service workers.

Central governmental officials must also balance domestic needs and pressures with those of the international or intergovernmental arena. Transnational links among countries, or the relationship between national and EU-level parliaments, will inevitably involve complex and simultaneous political negotiations. Once again, a search for ideal or even stable solutions may well be a waste of effort. The more appropriate goal is to try to steer the polity toward accommodating new groups without excessively disrupting the old ones.

V. Conclusion

Immigration has helped drive the development of some Western countries and has changed most others - how could it not? It is an exciting, powerful force with the potential to benefit the movers, the stayers, and the receivers. But immigration provokes difficulties that cut across party lines and disrupt old coalitions, requiring governments to constantly adjust established policies and invent new ones. Involving immigrants themselves is essential to designing any successful strategy, but their incorporation into political decision making is itself one of the problems to be solved. How political officials and policymakers deal with immigration over the next few decades will be just as important as how they deal with the movement of money, ideas, goods, and boundaries across the continent of Europe.

[1] United Nations, International Migration 2006 The overall figure includes refugees displaced by conflict as well as the economic migrants who live in the more developed regions. www.un.org/esa/population/publications/2006Migration_Chart/2006IttMig_chart.htm.

[2] United Nations, International Migration Report 2002 www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ittmig2002/2002ITTMIGTEXT22-11.pdf

[3] The present American political configurations with regard to Iraq, and earlier with regard to Vietnam, are historical anomalies.

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The Complexities of Immigration: Why Western Countries Struggle with Immigration Politics and Policies

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THE COMPLEXITIES OF IMMIGRATION : WHY WESTERN COUNTRIES STRUGGLE WITH IMMIGRATION POLITICS AND POLICIES Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, Harvard University, and John Mollenkopf, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center I.

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Immigration policies: General Election 2015 and how each party will tackle it

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Immigration policies: General Election 2015 and how each party will tackle it

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What the political parties say

Conservatives

David Cameron promised to cut net immigration to "tens of thousands". Official figures released in February show net immigration is now running at 298,000 a year, higher than when he took office.

Theresa May has accused her colleagues of not doing enough to tackle immigration levels (PA)

What now? George Osborne has said cutting migration to tens of thousands was Mr Cameron's "ambition" for the next Parliament, but declined to say it was a "promise". Theresa May later bound a future Tory government to the same net migration target that was missed during this parliament. The manifesto says this target remains an "ambition".

Under other Tory plans, migrants will be barred from claiming benefits such as tax credits and housing benefit for four years, as well as having entitlement to social housing reduced.

Those from within the EU will also have benefits entitlements curtailed and will no longer be able to send child benefit to youngsters living abroad.

EU migrants' rights of "free movement" will be re-negotiated with Brussels and there will be further crackdowns on abuse of the immigration system by closing bogus colleges and making it tougher for illegal immigrants to remain in Britain.

Do you believe the Conservatives can reach their 100,000 cap?

Labour

The last Labour government's policy on immigration boosted the population by 3.6 million, according some estimates. Even by their own admission, "Labour got things wrong in the past", but where do they stand now?

Ed Miliband says an EU referendum under Labour is "unlikely" (DAVID ROSE)

"Immigration is important for Britain's future and that's why it needs to be properly controlled and managed," Labour says on its website. "We are proud of our diverse and outward-facing country, where people have come from abroad over many generations to build Britain's businesses, work in our public services and contribute to this country. We also understand that people have legitimate concerns about immigration policy - that's why we believe reforms are needed."

Those reforms:

Migrants will not be able to claim benefits for at least two years.

Border controls will be strengthened, plus an extra 1,000 border staff, making it easier to deport foreign criminals and stop illegal immigration.

Exploitation of illegal immigrants in the workplace will be deterred by tougher penalities.

Also promised is a "smarter system of controls" to encourage "top talent" and to control low skilled migration, while workers in "public services in public facing roles" will be required to speak English.

A referendum on the EU under a Labour government is "unlikely" according to Ed Miliband, who said that there was an "overwhelming economic case" for EU membership.

Should immigrants be banned from taking benefits in their first two years of living in the UK?

Liberal Democrats

Nick Clegg claims the Lib Dems are "Britain's only real internationalist party" (PA)

Nick Clegg has been very open in his support for immigration. Last year, he said: "It should come as no surprise that I'm a believer in the benefits of well-managed immigration. I lead, in my view, Britain's only real internationalist party. For the Liberal Democrats this nation is always at its best when we are open and outward-facing. I am never going to advocate pulling up the drawbridge because I think it's what people want to hear. The Liberal Democrats are never going to mimic the likes of UKIP and others - the scaremongering, the immigrant-bashing, the seductive promise that all our problems will disappear if only we shut up shop and stick a 'closed' sign on the door."

That said, his party has advocated restricting Universal Credit payments to migrants for a six month period only - and only issuing them after their first six months in the country. In-work benefits would also only be paid to those migrants working the equivalent of 35 hours per week on minimum wage. And child benefit payments for youngsters living abroad would be reduced.

The party pledges in its manifesto to remain a member of the EU, and to allow "high-skill immigration to support key sectors of the economy, and ensure work, tourist and family visit visas are processed quickly and efficiently."

Ukip

Ukip leader Nigel Farage says he would not set an "arbitrary immigration target" if Ukip helps form the next government. He also commits the party to setting up a new quango called with Migration Control Commission, tasked with bringing down net migration.

Nigel Farage does not want to see an immigration target

* Nine Ukip immigration policies explained

Leaving the EU would allow the UK to limit the arrival of EU citizens.

A new commission will decide on the best level of net immigration, and establish a visa system based on the Australian points based system. Preference will be given to Commmonwealth nationals.

At the border there would be one passport queue for British citizens and a second passport queue for "Rest of the World",rather than the current EU/non-EU system.

There would be "no amnesty on illegal immigration" and police will get improved technology at police stations to identify illegal immigrants. Criminals will lose the right of citizenship.

Are Ukip right to ban terminally ill foreigners from entering the UK?

Green Party

Migration policy would "not discriminate directly on grounds of race, colour, religion, political belief, disability, sex or sexual orientation".

Foreign nationals with "resources or desirable skills" should not be given preferential treatment.

People overseas who are "victims of past errors in immigration decisions" will be able to come to Britain "where these decisions have resulted in continuing serious deprivation".

People who have lived illegally in the country for five years will be allowed to remain unless they pose a serious danger to public safety.

Natalie Bennett is leader of the Green Party (EDDIE MULHOLLAND/THE TELEGRAPH)

The party's leader Natalie Bennett said: "People who come to Britain, seeking to follow on our proud tradition of providing asylum, should be allowed to work if they can, should be given decent benefits equivalent to those of everyone else, and decent housing. We must demand that human rights and human feelings are respected. We must abandon an artificial immigration cap, ensure a labour market that provides jobs that every worker can build a life on, and ensure education and training in schools, colleges, universities and on-the-job to equip all of our workers for these jobs."

Scottish National Party

The Scottish National Party has described the UK's immigration policy as "inflexible" and is calling for devolved powers on the issue. In the independence referendum, the party advocated a "controlled points-based system to support the migration of skilled workers for the benefit of Scotland's economy".

Should Scotland be given devolved immigration powers?

Want to read our handy guides to political party policies?

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Immigration policies: General Election 2015 and how each party will tackle it

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David Cameron promised to cut net immigration to "tens of thousands". Official figures released in February show net immigration is now running at 298,000 a year, higher than when he took office. Theresa May has accused her colleagues of not doing enough to tackle immigration levels (PA) What now?

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By: Iain Walker, Senior Research Officer

Migrant workers and the Gulf states go together like bread and butter, but there are changes in the air. It started in the late 1980s with Omanization in Oman, which has been reasonably successful (in the public sector at least, the private sector is another matter); of late it has spread to other Gulf states, for even if policies aimed at reducing dependency on expatriate migrant labour have been in place for a long time very little has actually been achieved. In Saudi Arabia, for example, Saudization-the policy of replacing migrant workers with Saudi citizens-was first officially announced in 1994 but only recently has policy been put into practice. The aim, of course, is to encourage Saudi citizens, particularly the young, to work.

Although Saudi Arabia has the lowest percentage of migrant labourers in the workforce of all the Gulf states-officially just over 50% but probably somewhat higher in reality-the sheer numbers involved have far reaching implications, not only for Saudi Arabia itself, but for the region and for sending countries. The country has a population of 30 million, of whom 10 million are immigrants, and almost all of them are employed-it's difficult to remain in the kingdom without a job and few immigrants are accompanied by their families. Official figures therefore cite eight million expatriate workers, to whom should be added a million or more irregular migrants, some of whom arrive on Umrah (pilgrimage) visas and overstay, others illegally cross the border from Yemen.

In Saudi Arabia, as in the other Gulf states, immigrant labour is managed through the kafala (sponsorship) system: immigrants must have a confirmed job before entering the country, and must work for their sponsor for the duration of their stay. Sponsorship (and a job) is a requirement for a residence permit ( iqama). In theory, therefore, if the job ends the immigrant loses her sponsor, and consequently her iqama, and must return home. This is the theory. In practice there is a rampant black market aimed at circumventing the rules, selling "free visas", and thousands of immigrants do not work for their sponsors. Although these loopholes in the system have led to exploitation, it is clear that a formal "blind eye" to such practices has also permitted immigrants to contribute positively to the Saudi economy.
Saudization
In 2011, the government got serious about Saudization and introduced the Nitaqat programme under which companies were classified as red, yellow, green or platinum according to the percentage of Saudi citizens in their workforce. At one extreme, red companies are prohibited from employing immigrants or renewing permits for those already employed, at the other, platinum companies can not only continue to employ foreigners but may poach employees from red companies at will.

The implementation of this system requires a systematic inventory of the workforce profiles of companies as they came under the scheme and, consequently, a regularisation of the status of those not working for their sponsors. Initially a deadline of April 4 was set for immigrants to regularise their status or leave the country without penalty, but it rapidly became clear that neither the government nor the various foreign consular services had the resources to meet this deadline. Lengthy queues of irregular migrants seeking passports, whether to leave or to obtain iqama s, became a permanent feature outside many consulates, and in some cases violence has broken out; as a result the amnesty period was extended to July 3. This also proved to be ambitious and the date has again been extended, to the end of the Islamic year in early November.

As an indication of the laxity surrounding the system (and the gap between discourse and reality) it is estimated that seven and a half million expats (that's pretty much all of them) amended their status during the first four months of the amnesty period and more than one and a half million have changed their status entirely.

What does all this mean for the local labour market and for the immigrants themselves? The Saudi government has suggested that the crackdown could create up to 600,000 jobs for locals, which will go some way to alleviating the high levels of unemployment amongst a young population with a reputation for being idlers. However, for many immigrants, some of whom may have been in the country for decades-indeed, Saudi citizenship is so difficult to acquire many were born there and have no other home-and consider it their home, things are not so rosy. The ministry has reportedly been issuing 500 exit permits per day-a significant number; but estimates of actual numbers leaving vary wildly.

One Indian newspaper suggested that 27,000 Indian citizens would be leaving, only to publish a retraction the next day. The Saudi Gazette cited the passports authority as saying that 180,000 irregular migrants had left during the amnesty period, while the Yemeni government has asked the IOM for assistance as 200,000 migrants return from their northern neighbour. While these numbers are far from the 800,000 who returned to Yemen during the Gulf War crisis of the early 1990s, there are suggestions that more could return and they nevertheless represent a massive influx with which neither the Yemeni government nor the Yemeni economy is able to cope. To these should be added the tens of thousands of refugees and economic migrants currently in Yemen, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, and many of whom were intending to cross the border into Saudi in search of work. The new Saudi policies, increased border patrols and a new border fence, have made this almost impossible, thus placing increasing strain on Yemen as destitute migrants find themselves stranded in the border town of Haradh.
Are immigrants good or bad for the Saudi economy?
Immigration discourses in Saudi are much as they are elsewhere in the world: are immigrants good or bad for the economy, do they corrupt our culture or contribute to it? Are they all illegal, beggars or, worse, thieves, or do they do valuable jobs that Saudis are unwilling to do? The later proposition is perhaps the most realistic. Saudis will themselves admit that they have a reputation for being unwilling to work, and it's generally recognised that many businesses have two managers, one, an expat, to run the company, the other, a Saudi, who is "in a meeting" when the inspectors arrive but will show up shortly. Saudis are unwilling to work for the low wages that expats receive, or run corner stores that stay open day and night for meagre profits. However, unemployment is high among Saudi citizens and many admit that there needs to be a cultural shift in attitudes towards work. Immigrants will not run the country forever, say some.

But radical and rapid shifts such as the one currently in progress have ripple effects elsewhere. Saudi Arabia is the world's second remitting country, sending 26 billion dollars a year to families in homelands across Asia and elsewhere: the Saudization target of Saudi citizens making up 75% of the workforce would theoretically see four million expats-more than half of them-leave the country and, all other things being equal, a loss of an equal proportion of the remittances. This might be good for the Saudi economy but would have devastating effects elsewhere.

Similarly, migrants obliged to leave will want to go elsewhere, and many are already applying for visas to Canada (a perennial favourite) and the UK, and entering the US green card lottery scheme. And other social changes-and Saudi Arabia, under King Abdullah, more moderate than his predecessors, certainly seems to be changing- can also have an effect on migrants. Permitting women to drive, for example, would on the face of it, be an entirely positive move-but what about the 500,000 immigrant drivers who risk losing their jobs?

Saudi Arabia is the largest of the Gulf states, with a heterogeneity that the others lack, with their small populations and hydrocarbon-based economies: a large population, with both wealth and poverty, culturally diverse and geographically varied (with much scope for tourism) and a large agricultural sector-something that often comes as a surprise to those whose images of Saudi are of bedouin, camels and oil wells. But these are also difficult times for the kingdom. It is no longer isolated: facility of travel and, particularly, the internet, have brought foreign influences, for better or for worse. Economically the country is perhaps more dependent on its foreign partners that during the oil-boom years of the 1970s, and among them are the immigrants who have made the country what it is. Immigrants, particularly in Mecca and Jeddah, have long been part of Saudi life and their contributions to Saudi society have generally been beneficial. If the country is to continue to prosper, economically and socially, it is likely they will remain part of it for some time to come.

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By: Iain Walker, Senior Research Officer Migrant workers and the Gulf states go together like bread and butter, but there are changes in the air.

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What the Conservative Grassroots Get Right on Immigration — and What the GOP Establishment Gets Wrong

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What the Conservative Grassroots Get Right on Immigration — and What the GOP Establishment Gets Wrong

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David Brooks has just written a stinging denunciation of the Republican party. Though he reserves his harshest criticism for self-described Republican radicals, his larger argument is that the party as a whole has "abandoned traditional conservatism for right-wing radicalism." To give Brooks his due, many aspects of his critique ring true. His frustrations are my frustrations. In one passage, for example, Brooks observes that even as Republicans denounce government in the most strident terms, they make ever more outlandish promises about what they can accomplish once elected. When the accomplishments themselves inevitably fail to materialize, members of the outrage caucus find some shadowy villain to blame. This cycle of overpromising and recrimination engenders a great deal of cynicism among rank-and-file conservatives, which in turn further strengthens the hand of the radicals who want to burn the GOP establishment to the ground.

Unlike Brooks, however, I have some sympathy for the Republican radicals. That is because in at least one respect, it is the GOP establishment that has embraced radicalism while the Republican Right stands against it. House Republicans are divided on many policy questions, but the most important of them by far is the question of immigration reform. Though Brooks never mentions this divide over immigration, I would argue that it is playing a central role in the ongoing Republican civil war.

Broadly speaking, establishment Republicans favor an approach to immigration reform that would, among other things, grant legal status to unauthorized immigrants and increase legal immigration, including that of less-skilled workers. Anti-establishment Republicans oppose this approach. If the rise of Donald Trump proves anything, it is that immigration matters a great deal to Republican voters. Indeed, one recent survey found that a large (67 percent) majority of Republicans favors decreasing immigration levels. Almost half (49 percent) of independents feel the same way, as does a significant (33 percent) minority of Democrats. Is it surprising that many conservatives object to a House GOP leadership dominated by proponents of increased immigration levels when only 7 percent of Republicans favor such an increase?
RELATED: Half a Century of Barely Controlled Immigration
There are many thoughtful and intelligent people who support comprehensive immigration reform, and who believe that welcoming more low-skilled workers at a time when the American economy subjects such workers to intense wage pressure is a wise course of action. David Brooks is one of them. He has consistently made a humane, decent, optimistic case for a more inclusive immigration policy, and our public conversation has been greatly enriched as a result. Nevertheless, I've come to see the immigration question quite differently.

#share#For a variety of reasons, the United States has a large population of people who are not just poor, but who are the children and grandchildren of poor people, and who are isolated from our society's economic and cultural mainstream. One of the great dangers we face is that while less-skilled immigrants are upwardly mobile, in that they generally lead better lives in the U.S. than in their native countries, their children and grandchildren are in many cases experiencing "downward assimilation." That is, they find themselves stuck on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, suffering from many of the same problems that plague other very poor Americans - they are being raised in unstable families, they are victimized by criminals at high rates, and they have far less faith in American institutions than their immigrant forebears did. This is not because these men and women are any less admirable than more affluent, more established Americans. It just so happens that there is only so much that government can do to ensure that the children of parents with low levels of literacy and numeracy will flourish in a society that prizes skills and social capital. Congress can increase transfers, certainly. But it can't repair frayed social bonds.
RELATED: Readin', Ritin', 'Rithmetic - After Waves of Immigration, Millions of Americans Lack Basic Skills
I'm of the view that government can and should do more to help the poorest Americans. I also recognize, however, that providing labor-intensive services to the very poor is expensive, and that greatly increasing the number of very poor people in our country is not in fact a free lunch when we factor in the challenges faced by their descendants. If conservatism stands for incremental change and for prudence, balance, and order, as David Brooks and I both believe it should, it seems clear that conservatives must advocate a more humble immigration policy.

#related#What might such a policy entail? Over the course of the last 50 years, we have found that the immigrants who do best in the United States are those who can read and write in English at a high level, and who are capable of doing the kind of knowledge-intensive work that is increasingly prized in an economy like ours. Again, these immigrants are not somehow better than those who do more physically demanding jobs. They are, however, far less likely to rely on safety-net programs and wage subsidies to lead dignified lives. A more humble immigration policy would mean giving up on the romantic illusion that America hasn't changed in the slightest since the early 1900s, when back-breaking physical labor was a viable path to middle-class prosperity. It would recognize that our country has an entrenched poverty problem, and that helping the large number of less-skilled immigrants who already live here to climb the economic ladder will take a lot of money and a lot of hard work.

We need immigrants who are in the best possible position to help our country finance its aging population, and the education of the tens of millions of children who are growing up in chaotic American households, more than immigrants who will themselves need very expensive assistance. In this one respect, it is the Republican radicals who have a sense of limits and proportion that the GOP establishment does not. And it just so happens that this is the most important issue we face as a country.

- Reihan Salam is the executive editor of National Review and a National Review Institute Policy Fellow.

Reihan Salam - Reihan Salam is executive editor of National Review and a National Review Institute policy fellow.

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What the Conservative Grassroots Get Right on Immigration - and What the GOP Establishment Gets Wrong | National Review

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David Brooks has just written a stinging denunciation of the Republican party. Though he reserves his harshest criticism for self-described Republican radicals, his larger argument is that the party as a whole has "abandoned traditional conservatism for right-wing radicalism." To give Brooks his due, many aspects of his critique ring true.

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						BOOTSTRAP IMMIGRANTS:
ASSESSING THE
CONSERVATIVE
TRANSFORMATION OF
CANADA’S IMMIGRATION
POLICY 
					
				
			
		

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						BOOTSTRAP IMMIGRANTS:
ASSESSING THE
CONSERVATIVE
TRANSFORMATION OF
CANADA’S IMMIGRATION
POLICY 
					
				
			
		

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Thirty-five Egyptian migrant labourers and their family members were released Wednesday from immigration detention centres in Libya after they were detained by authorities of the Tobruk government.

Despite the current conflict in Libya, the flow of migrant labours between Egypt and Libya has continued unabated. The number of Egyptian nationals who have migrated to Libya for work ranges between 800,000 and 1 million, a figure inclusive of both formal and informal migration, according to a statement made by the Deputy Minister of Manpower and Immigration Ashraf Riyad in comments to Daily News Egypt in March 2015.

The Egyptians were detained in the cities of Misrata, Garabulli and Al-Khums and held on charges of illegal immigration. Others have additionally been charged with panhandling, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The 35 detainees, which include eight women and two children, departed from Garabulli Wednesday morning to be transported to Tunisia, from where they will be repatriated to Egypt on Thursday.

Assistant Foreign Minister for Consular Affairs and Egyptians Abroad Hisham Al-Naqib reiterated that the travel warning issued to Egyptian nationals travelling to Libya is still in effect, and that Egyptians in Libya should take maximum precautions and should stay away from regions of conflict.

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35 Egyptians released from immigration detention centres in Libya - Daily News Egypt

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Thirty-five Egyptian migrant labourers and their family members were released Wednesday from immigration detention centres in Libya after they were detained by authorities of the Tobruk government. Despite the current conflict in Libya, the flow of migrant labours between Egypt and Libya has continued unabated.

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What you need to come to Egypt: Whether you are coming to Egypt for work, tourism or studies, you will need a visa. If you want to work in Egypt, you will need a work permit.

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U.S. Immigration Policy in Global Perspective: International Migration in OECD Countries

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U.S. Immigration Policy in Global Perspective: International Migration in OECD Countries

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International Migration Policies: Government Views and Priorities

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International Migration Policies: Government Views and Priorities

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The Senate last week overwhelmingly approved a bill aimed at comprehensive immigration reform. But conservative opposition to creating a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally gives the sweeping legislation an uncertain fate in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Eleven million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, but not everyone who leaves their native country for a better life aims to settle in America. Countries across the globe have had to decide who to let inside their borders.

As immigration reform comes to a head, we take a look at how other countries - those that have been recognized for having some of the most open, or the most restrictive, immigration policies-are dealing with their huddled masses.

To combat a shortage of skilled labor that has been stifling the country's economic growth since the 1970s, Canada has adopted one of the most open immigration policies in the world. As of 2010, the foreign-born population makes up 21.3 percent of the country's total population.

On April 1, the already immigration-friendly country launched a Start-up Visa Program in an effort to attract highly skilled foreign entrepreneurs. Immigrants with funding from Canadian venture capital firms or investment groups for a start-up business will be eligible for immediate permanent residency. If the new business fails, the entrepreneur will not be subject to deportation.

In a country where nationals favor a racially unique and homogenous society, the foreign population accounted for only 1.7 percent of the total population in 2010, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Japan's strict immigration-or, rather, anti-immigration-policies have drawn heavy criticism.

Like Canada, Japan is facing a rapidly declining population in which the low birthrate can barely match the death rate of the country's senior citizens. The population now sits at 128 million, but analysts estimate the number will have shrunk by a third in 2060, forcing the country to embrace more open policies.

Following the examples of Canada and the United Kingdom, Japan rolled out a new point-based system last spring to rate immigrants. Immigrants earn points based on their academic background and research or business experience, among other factors. Those who score higher-mainly professionals like professors, doctors, and corporate managers-will be given preferential treatment.

In 2012, Australia received a total of nearly 15,800 asylum claims, up 37 percent from the previous year, according to the United Nations. The country's Department of Immigration and Citizenship states that the Migration Act 1958 requires any noncitizen or person who is unlawfully in Australia to be detained. People without a valid visa are considered unlawful-including children. Migrant children, especially asylum seekers, have been detained in immigration detention centers for months or even years.

The Australian Government has responded to human rights complaints by removing children from detention centers and into community detention, or local housing. However, as of February 2013, there were still 1,062 children in the detention centers, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Amid all the controversy, reports in April indicated that preparations have been made to bring children back to the notorious Curtin Immigration Detention Centre, which closed down in 2002 due to riots and protests. It reopened in 2011 and currently holds only adult single men. A portion of the center could be declared an " alternate place of detention," which the government does not define as a detention center.

Denmark's stance on immigration has often been considered controversial. The largely homogenous country has reportedly offered immigrants cash incentives to leave if they cannot assimilate into Danish culture. The incentive was driven by the far-right Danish People's Party, which states on its website that "Denmark is not an immigrant-country and never has been. Thus we will not accept transformation to a multiethnic society."

One of Denmark's most scrutinized laws on immigration is the 24-year rule, which states that in order for the foreign spouse of a Danish citizen to qualify for citizenship both the Danish spouse and the foreign spouse must be at least 24 years old. The rule's purpose is to limit the number of immigrants, prevent forced marriages, and create a better integration process, according to a report by humanityinaction.org.

However, the law has prevented families from reuniting, sparking a debate over possible human rights violations. There are special circumstances where the law can be waived, such as if the spouse is a refugee, has underage children with connections to Denmark, or is handicapped or seriously ill.

Sweden, which ranked first among 33 countries in the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), is well-known for welcoming Muslim refugees fleeing war-torn nations like Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. But growing unemployment, which sits at 16 percent among foreign residents, and a recent string of violent riots have politicians and citizens questioning its open-door immigration policy.

Some critics point their fingers at costly liberal policies that created an abundance of jobs and attracted a steady flow of immigrant labor from nearby European countries. When job creation slowed, working immigrants stopped entering the country while the flow of unemployed, government-dependent asylum seekers picked up. In 2012, the number of asylum seekers arriving in Sweden jumped nearly 50 percent from the year before-hitting 43,900, the second highest year on record.

Opposition to immigration may still be in the minority, but the need for a more sustainable immigration policy has shot the Sweden Democrats, the far-right anti-immigration political party, up to third place in the polls and may give them political momentum in the 2014 elections.

The United Kingdom saw a dramatic spike of immigrants in the last decade-from 4.6 million in 2001 to nearly 7.5 million in 2011, according to the U.K. Census. With the annual number of people entering the country far exceeding the number of those leaving, immigration has become the public's most important issue.

Adding to the problem, the U.K. Border Agency discovered last July that hundreds of thousands of migrants with expired visas may still be residing in the country, prompting the prime minister to call for tougher immigration reforms aimed at visa abusers. In late March, Immigration Minister Mark Harper announced that the government was considering a measure that will slap a £1,000 (U.S. $1,532) fee on migrants coming to the U.K. to work or study. The fee will serve as a security bond to be returned only when immigrants return home following the expiration of their visas.
Have you tried to immigrate to another country? Share your experiences in the comments.

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The Senate last week overwhelmingly approved a bill aimed at comprehensive immigration reform. But conservative opposition to creating a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally gives the sweeping legislation an uncertain fate in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

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Saudi Arabia cracks down on illegal immigrants

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Saudi Arabia cracks down on illegal immigrants

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On Immigration Policy, Wider Partisan Divide Over Border Fence Than Path to Legal Status

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On Immigration Policy, Wider Partisan Divide Over Border Fence Than Path to Legal Status

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Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

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60% of Public Opposes Ending 'Birthright Citizenship'

As immigration emerges as a key issue in the presidential campaign, there is little common ground between Republicans and Democrats in views of several immigration policy proposals. But partisan disagreements are much more pronounced on some issues than others.

Overall, the public continues to be divided over building a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexican border: 46% favor erecting a fence, while 48% are opposed, little changed from 2011.

A large majority of Republicans (73%) support a border fence, while 23% are opposed. Democrats oppose building a border fence, 66% to 23%. Among independents, 43% favor a border fence, while 52% oppose this idea.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Sept. 22-27 among 1,502 adults, finds that most Americans (60%) oppose the idea of changing the U.S. Constitution to prohibit children of those who are not legal residents from becoming citizens; 37% favor changing the Constitution to end "birthright citizenship."

Again, Republicans and Democrats are far apart on this issue: By 75% to 23%, Democrats oppose changing the Constitution to ban birthright citizenship. Republicans are evenly divided: About half (53%) favor amending the Constitution, while 44% are opposed.

By contrast, large majorities in both parties continue to favor a way for allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. legally, if certain requirements are met. About two-thirds of Republicans (66%) say people in the U.S. illegally should be allowed to stay if they meet certain requirements, while 32% say they should not be allowed to stay legally. By nearly a factor of five-to-one (80% to 17%), Democrats say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. legally, provided certain requirements are met.

Little Overall Change Since 2007 in Views of a Border Fence

Public opinion about building a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexican border has shown virtually no change since 2007 or 2o11. But age and partisan differences in opinions about a proposed border fence have widened, with Republicans becoming more supportive and Democrats less so over the past four years.

Nearly three-quarters of Republicans (73%) now favor building a fence across the entire border with Mexico, up from 62% in 2011. Since then, support for a fence has increased 17 percentage points among moderate and liberal Republicans (from 54% to 71%) and eight points among conservative Republicans (66% then, 74% now).

Over the same period, the share of Democrats who favor building a border fence has declined 10 points (from 39% to 29%). Independents' views (43% favor) are unchanged since 2011 (44%) or 2007 (43%).

Today, adults 50 and older are 18 points more likely than those under 30 to favor building a fence across the entire border (52% vs. 34%). In 2011, there was a seven-point difference in support for building a fence (48% of those 50 and older vs. 41% of those younger than 30). In 2007, identical percentages of older and younger people favored building a fence.

Most Favor Continued Birthright Citizenship

There is broad awareness of birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants in the United States: 90% say they are aware that these children are automatically citizens. About four-in-ten (37%) favor changing the Constitution so that parents must be legal residents of the U.S. in order for their newborn children to be citizens; 60% favor leaving the Constitution as it is.

Large majorities of those under 30 (71%) and those ages 30-49 (66%) oppose limiting birthright citizenship. Older age groups are more divided: Among those ages 50-64 as many favor (47%) as oppose (48%) this change to the Constitution. Among those 65 and older, 43% favor changing the Constitution, while 52% are opposed.

Whites are far more supportive (44% favor) of changing the Constitution to end birthright citizenship than are blacks (26%) or Hispanics (17%). There are only slight differences in opinions among those of differing levels of education.

Opinions about birthright citizenship have changed only modestly among most sub-groups since the Pew Research Center began asking the question in 2006. But partisan differences have widened over the last four years: In 2011, 47% of Republicans and 32% of Democrats favored changing the Constitution to end birthright citizenship. Today, the gap is 30 percentage points (53% of Republicans, 23% of Democrats).

Broad Support for Providing Legal Status to Undocumented Immigrants

The public's views on how to handle undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has changed little since May. Currently, 74% say there should be a way for them to stay in the country legally, if certain requirements are met. About a quarter (24%) say undocumented immigrants should not be allowed to stay in the U.S. legally.

Most of those who favor providing legal status to people living in the U.S. illegally say they should be allowed to apply for U.S. citizenship (47% of the public), while 24% say they should be able to apply for permanent residency, but not citizenship.

As in the past, majorities across all demographic and partisan groups favor providing legal status to undocumented immigrants. Republicans (66%) continue to be less likely than independents (74%) or Democrats (80%) to support a path to legal status for those in the U.S. illegally.

However, Republican support for finding a way to allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. if they meet certain requirements has increased 10 percentage points since May, from 56% to 66%. There has been virtually no change in opinion among Democrats or independents.

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On Immigration Policy, Wider Partisan Divide Over Border Fence Than Path to Legal Status

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60% of Public Opposes Ending 'Birthright Citizenship' As immigration emerges as a key issue in the presidential campaign, there is little common ground between Republicans and Democrats in views of several immigration policy proposals. But partisan disagreements are much more pronounced on some issues than others.

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Americans encouraged relatively free and open immigration during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and rarely questioned that policy until the late 1800s. After certain states passed immigration laws following the Civil War, the Supreme Court in 1875 declared regulation of immigration a federal responsibility. Thus, as the number of immigrants rose in the 1880s and economic conditions in some areas worsened, Congress began to pass immigration legislation.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Alien Contract Labor laws of 1885 and 1887 prohibited certain laborers from immigrating to the United States. The general Immigration Act of 1882 levied a head tax of fifty cents on each immigrant and blocked (or excluded) the entry of idiots, lunatics, convicts, and persons likely to become a public charge.

These national immigration laws created the need for new federal enforcement authorities. In the 1880s, state boards or commissions enforced immigration law with direction from U.S. Treasury Department officials. At the Federal level, U.S. Customs Collectors at each port of entry collected the head tax from immigrants while "Chinese Inspectors" enforced the Chinese Exclusion Act.

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Americans encouraged relatively free and open immigration during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and rarely questioned that policy until the late 1800s. After certain states passed immigration laws following the Civil War, the Supreme Court in 1875 declared regulation of immigration a federal responsibility.

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While much attention has focused on President Trump's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, the administration has moved, via a much wider scope of actions, to reduce legal immigration to the United States. This article explores changes including slowed processing of family- and employment-based visas, dramatic cuts in refugee admissions, and heightened vetting and evidence requirements for would-be immigrants.

The Trump administration's announcement that it will end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan has brought unprecedented attention to the program and its future. Established in 1990, TPS offers work authorization and deportation relief to foreign nationals already in the United States unable to return to countries embroiled in conflict or the effects of a natural disaster. This Policy Beat explores past and current TPS designations and debates surrounding the program.

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The U.S. Immigration Policy Program analyzes U.S. policies and their impacts, as well as the complex demographic, economic, political, foreign policy, and other forces that shape immigration to the United States. The program also offers influential thought leadership and policy recommendations regarding ways to improve the U.S. immigration system.

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Public concern will only intensify if voters focus on official population projections for the UK. Our population is set to grow by nearly 10 million people in the next 25 years - to over 74 million. About two-thirds of this increase will be due to future immigrants and their children. The tale doesn't end there, though.

This official projection assumes that net migration will average only about 185,000 a year over that period; a little over half the current rate of 330,000. There is an official "high migration" assumption that envisages net migration at 265,000 a year and notes that if this occurs our population will increase by 16 million over the next 25 years. That's 16 more Birminghams. No one believes that anything like the equivalent increase in house building, roads or schools is on the cards. The result is bound to be a decline in living standards.

Casting their eyes over the official projections, voters are likely to conclude that current levels of immigration, with many new arrivals coming from Eastern Europe, are completely unsustainable. Indeed, 70 per cent of the public already wish to see a reduction in immigration. To continue with an open-door policy therefore goes against the grain of voters' wishes, and carries the risk that social cohesion could also suffer. Our country already has changed beyond recognition over the past decade.

Almost on a daily basis we are confronted with the problems of having no firm borders with Europe, and of Europe itself having no firm borders with the rest of the world. Germany too is undergoing rapid change, having added a million people to its population in around six months.

It is therefore vital for the Prime Minister to achieve an agreement with other European leaders that offers a fighting chance of being able to control the mass movement of people. Given that public budgets will continue to be screwed down, an unprecedented population increase will clearly have massive consequences for our public services and infrastructure. For all the key services - housing, schools and health - voters know how tough it will be to meet the needs of the existing population, let alone the 10 million (or 16 million or more) newcomers of the next 25 years.

The need for housing is now really urgent. It is estimated that the UK needs to build 240,000 homes a year - nearly one every two minutes. Between 2000 and 2014 two-thirds of the additional households created in the UK were headed by a person who was born abroad. While the recent announcement of 13,000 new homes on public land is to be welcomed, it is a drop in the ocean compared with the huge scale of the population increase now confronting us.

The UK compared to other G8 nations

Any serious attempt to solve the housing shortage must include redoubling efforts to bring net migration back to the levels of the 1990s - tens of thousands - and an even larger house building programme to meet the needs of those families already waiting for far too long in the housing queue.

Moreover, each year, a large and growing number of parents find they cannot get their children into their chosen school. In London, where the shortage of places can be particularly acute, two-thirds of births are now to parents where one or both was born overseas.

As for the health service, the NHS patient base will have risen in the decade come 2020 by 4.5 million - a giant 7 per cent increase in the number of people using a service while its real budget, allowing for inflation, is falling. This is likely to bring about, sooner rather than later, a financial implosion within the NHS.

We both hope that the Prime Minister will return with a genuine and effective deal on immigration, lest he finds that his case to remain in the EU has been seriously undermined.

Sir Nicholas Soames MP and Frank Field MP are co-chairmen of the cross-party group on balanced migration

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This open-door immigration policy can't go on

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Public concern will only intensify if voters focus on official population projections for the UK. Our population is set to grow by nearly 10 million people in the next 25 years - to over 74 million. About two-thirds of this increase will be due to future immigrants and their children.

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DRESDEN, Germany - Anti-immigration and anti-Muslim groups from across Europe demonstrated Saturday as migrants fleeing a renewed offensive by the Syrian government surged by the tens of thousands along Turkey's border.

In Dresden, a stronghold of Germany's Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident, or PEGIDA, thousands took part in a rally to express disapproval with Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy toward migrants. More than a million asylum-seekers are now living in Europe's wealthiest country, with more arriving each day.

Many in the crowd chanted "Merkel must go" and held signs comparing the German leader to a dictator. The chancellor's popularity ratings have tumbled amid the crisis.

Siegfried Däbritz, one of PEGIDA's leaders, said in an address that he doubted those granted asylum in Germany could integrate into the nation's culture. He called for "resistance to immigration from the Islamic area" and said politicians and the "lying press" were to blame for Germany's current "misery."

The independent group Durchgezaehlt, which monitors attendance figures, said 8,000 people took part in the Dresden rally. PEGIDA said it tallied more than twice that amount.

Martin Dulig, the premier of Saxony - the eastern German state where Dresden is located - called for tolerance. "We want to show that Dresden does not believe in incitement. We are here because we want to show Dresden's true heart," he said.

Far-right protests were held in more than a dozen other nations in Europe on Saturday including the Czech Republic, France, Poland and the Netherlands. The marches and demonstrations were part of a coordinated attempt by PEGIDA and like-minded groups to hold a so-called European Action Day. Riot police clashed with protesters at several of the rallies including in Calais, France, where police used tear gas to disperse crowds. Ten people were arrested.

The synchronized demonstrations came as the number of Syrian refugees assembled on Turkey's border jumped to 35,000, according to Reuters.

The latest exodus is a result of a renewed offensive by Syria's President Bashar Assad to retake ground controlled by opposition groups near the city of Aleppo, previously a valued commercial center.

Turkey refuses to open the border. It already hosts over 2.5 million Syrian refugees.

A PEGIDA rally in Dresden, Germany, on Feb. 6. [Via MerlinFTP Drop] (Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

Back in Dresden, about 2,000 anti-PEGIDA political activists gathered less than a mile away on the other side of the city's Elbe River. A massive police presence with dozens of security officers and vehicles including large tank-like machines equipped with water canon were deployed to make sure the opposing rallies remained peaceful.

Stephan Baumann, 43, a senior member of the PEGIDA organization, said the group is consistently mischaracterized by left-wing activists, the German media and the country's government. "On television we are always the bad guys, racists, Nazis. For me, I don't care. I really don't. I know it's not true," he said.

"It's wrong to say that (PEGIDA) is worried about immigration. We don't want it, that's all. We want to keep our Germany as it is. Our culture. Our people. Our views."

Lisa Pflugradt, 25, a research student at the Technical University of Dresden, said she did not agree with the substance of PEGIDA's ideas about immigration and keeping Islam out of Europe. But she does feel the group is misrepresented because "most Germans don't come to PEGIDA rallies and so have no idea what goes on there."

Pflugradt, who described her political views as "inclined to the left," attended 10 PEGIDA rallies over the past year as part of a research project. She said she found a less extreme organization than she expected and, like the group, she believes Merkel did a poor job handling of the European migrant crisis.

When Merkel suggested migrants would be welcome in Germany, more should have been done to anticipate how the country would adequately look after them, Pflugradt said.

She said she is frustrated migrants didn't receive enough information about German customs and behavior, particularly in relation to the treatment of women - a reference to robberies and sexual assaults on hundreds of women in Cologne, Germany, on New Year's Eve. Police identified the perpetrators as foreign-born men, at least some of whom are asylum-seekers.

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Anti-immigration groups rally across Europe amid ongoing tensions

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DRESDEN, Germany - Anti-immigration and anti-Muslim groups from across Europe demonstrated Saturday as migrants fleeing a renewed offensive by the Syrian government surged by the tens of thousands along Turkey's border. In Dresden, a stronghold of Germany's Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident, or PEGIDA, thousands took part in a rally to express disapproval with Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy toward migrants.

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Right, Traditional

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Centrist, Center

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Left, Liberal