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IMMIGRATION

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False Choice: Ending DACA or Building the Border Wall President Trump doesn’t have to choose. And he shouldn’t. Michael Cutler

By on August 30th, 2017

Though there is no shortage of “fake news” appearing in the mainstream media, there are a number of reports claiming that members of the Trump administration are attempting to convince President Trump to renege on his campaign promise to rollback the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in exchange for funding for the construction of the border wall.

Before we consider this news, let’s be clear about the absolute need to secure the dangerous U.S./Mexican border. I have frequently compared securing that border with a wing on an airplane. Without a wing an airplane will not fly. However, a wing by itself goes nowhere. Though it has been estimated that nearly half of all illegal aliens did not run the southern border, and instead were admitted through America’s 325 ports of entry, securing that border is nonetheless a vital element of our immigration law enforcement system and national security.

The U.S./Mexican border is particularly dangerous because of endemic corruption of the Mexican government on all levels and the extreme level of violence in Mexico, both attributable to the Mexican drug cartels. Mexican government officials are given the choice of “silver or lead.” Either take a bribe (silver) or expect to be shot (lead).

That violence and potential for corruption flows across our border: The majority of violent crimes in the United States have a connection to the drug trade and drug addiction.

For years I have written about how the most reliable metric to determine the level of border security for the United States is not the arrest statistics by the Border Patrol, but the price and availability of heroin and cocaine in the United States since those substances are not produced in the country. Every gram of those narcotics is smuggled into the United States.

Today the United States is experiencing unprecedented levels of heroin addiction that wreaks havoc on lives and our communities. Drug smugglers also engage in human trafficking and smuggle transnational gang members into the United States.

While not all drug smuggling involves the U.S./Mexican border, a huge amount of narcotics does enter the United States along that dangerous corridor that stretches roughly 2,000 miles.

Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission made the compelling case for making border security a cornerstone of national security policy. This conclusion, in point of fact, was laid out in the preface of the official report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.”

Now let’s consider the wrong-headed program created by the Obama administration, DACA.

The mainstream media and immigration anarchists have, since the inception of the illegal implementation of the DACA program on June 15, 2012 by the Obama administration, provided blatantly false and misleading statements about this program, duping Americans into believing that DACA is for alien children.

While President Obama sold this program to the American people as providing lawful status for young aliens, in reality aliens as old as 31 years of age could qualify if they claimed to have entered the United States prior to their 16th birthdays.

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America Undermines Its National Security By Educating Its Adversaries Michael W. Cutler

By on August 27th, 2017

For decades the United States has professed to have an official policy of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.

In the 1950’s the Rosenbergs were executed for spying and passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, today more than 500,000 foreign students are enrolled in universities in the United States to study the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curricula.

While not all of these students are studying disciplines that have a direct nexus to nuclear technology, many disciplines do intersect with aerospace and nuclear technology.

Foreign students are permitted to engage in Optional Practical Training to put their education to use and learn how to apply what they have learned in the classrooms and university laboratories in the “real world.”
Sometimes these students work for companies that engage in military-related work.

Not long ago I wrote an article that focused on how our policies had the effect of Educating ‘Engineers of Jihad’ At US Universities.

Today we should be as concerned that China’s acquisition of U.S. technology through its students in the United States poses an increasing threat to our nation.

On May 19, 2016 Reuters reported, “U.S. charges six Chinese nationals with economic espionage.”

The U.S. Navy’s underwater drones seem to have drawn particular interest by China’s military that has constructed an artificial island in the South China Sea. On April 22, 2016 Newsweek reported, “Chines Spy in Florida Sent Drone Parts to China for Military.”

The New Yorker published a revealing article A New Kind of Spy How China obtains American technological secrets under the sarcastic heading, “The Department of Espionage”

Furthermore China provides technology to North Korea’s tyrannical and bellicose leader Kim Jong-Un who continues to order his military stockpile nuclear weapons and perfect ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles) that could reach the continental United States.
On August 20, 2017 Newsweek reported, North Korea ‘Nuclear War’ Warning Ahead of Joint U.S./South Korea Military Exercises.

According to current statistics provided by the DHS, the greatest number of STEM students are citizens of India (173,258) while the second largest contingent of students are from China (152,002) and the number of Saudi Arabian students (25,125) is the third largest.

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Immigration Twilight Zone Objections to President Trump’s proposed new system run the gamut from hyperbolic to self-serving. Seth Barron

By on August 23rd, 2017

Early this month, President Trump announced plans to change the way America admits immigrants. Trump would replace the current arrangement, in which most new immigrants are relatives of U.S. citizens or permanent residents, with a system that prioritizes language and technical skills over family ties. Other countries that migrants find attractive—including Canada and Australia—maintain points-based systems to determine immigration eligibility, and Trump’s RAISE Act proposes to use them as a model for the United States.

Critics of the president and advocates for the present system were outraged by the proposal. They cited Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus,” with its call for the United States to be the depository for the world’s “wretched refuse,” as evidence that Trump was overturning a venerable American tradition of (nearly) open borders. The Anne Frank Center warned that Trump was establishing an “ethnic purity” test; the Southern Poverty Law Center likened it to a “racist quota system.” Jose Calderon of the Hispanic Federation said that Trump’s plan “punishes immigrants, undermines our economy, and emboldens nativists.” The libertarian Cato Institute called the White House’s argument for the RAISE Act “grossly deceptive” and said that limiting immigration would slow job growth.

From other corners came a different objection to prioritizing skilled over unskilled immigrants: had such stipulations been in place long ago, they said, their families might never have made it to America. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City repeated versions of this formulation several times. On August 2 he tweeted, “My grandparents would not have passed Donald Trump’s test. They wouldn’t have been able to contribute to a country they loved.” Asked the next day what criteria, if any, for immigration he thought would be appropriate, de Blasio replied, “based on everything I’ve seen about what President Trump proposed—it literally would have excluded my grandparents and it would have excluded probably the parents and grandparents of a lot of people in this room. My grandparents didn’t speak English when they got here from Italy. My grandparents didn’t have college degrees. They became exemplary Americans.”

A few days later, The New York Times published an op-ed entitled “Immigrating to Trump’s America? Philosophers Need Not Apply,” by Carol Hay, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Hay, originally from Canada, explains how she earned a Ph.D. “from a department ranked in the top 25 in the United States” and received a job offer at an “up-and-coming state university in the Northeast.” If the RAISE Act had been in effect then, however, Hay says that she would not have qualified to stay here, and would have been “deported back to Canada.” The problem, she states bluntly, is that “I’m a philosopher,” and the proposed system—modeled on that of her home country—would not accord philosophers automatic right of entry to the United States.

Dianne Feinstein’s mother “emigrated from Russia as a young child. She couldn’t speak English and had no education,” the California senator says. “Her father died at age 32, leaving the family destitute. An uncle, who worked as a carpenter, supported the family. Both my grandfather and mother would have been turned away under the Trump-backed proposal because, in his view, they had nothing to offer.” Actually, the RAISE Act specifically allows minor children to accompany their parents and doesn’t require young children to speak English or be educated.

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An Immigration System That Puts America First Trump’s common-sense reforms will make U.S. immigration policy sane again. Matthew Vadum

By on August 4th, 2017

President Trump’s newly-unveiled immigration reforms represent an earth-shattering, fundamental change in U.S. immigration policy that is desperately needed after the never-ending waves of poorly educated, hard-to-assimilate immigrants from unenlightened corners of the earth unleashed by Democrats in the Sixties.

“Our question as a government is, to whom is our duty [owed]?” said White House Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller. “Our duty is to U.S. citizens and U.S. workers to promote rising wages for them.”

The proposal is “a major historic change to U.S. immigration policy,” he said.

“The effect of this, switching to a skills-based system and ending unfettered chain migration, would be, over time, you would cut net migration in half, which polling shows is supported overwhelmingly by the American people in very large numbers.”

“This is what President Trump campaigned on,” Miller said. “He talked about it throughout the campaign, throughout the transition, and since coming into office.”

Miller added: “It’s been my experience in the legislative process that there’s two kinds of proposals. There’s proposals that can only succeed in the dark of night and proposals that can only succeed in the light of day. This is the latter of those two.”

“The more that we as a country have a national conversation about what kind of immigration system we want and to whom we want to give green cards,” Miller said, “the more unstoppable the momentum for something like this becomes.”

The Trump administration’s long overdue revamping of America’s antiquated immigration laws, reverses the systemic discrimination against well-rounded would-be immigrants who speak English. Trump wants the immigration system to emphasize merit and employability, as opposed to familial relationships.

The new immigration system puts the interests of America first, so naturally, the Left is fighting it. It has been axiomatic in the Trump era that the better the president’s proposals are, the more fiercely the Left opposes them. Take President Trump’s intensifying crackdown on the transnational crime gang MS-13. No matter how horrifying and brutal the group’s crimes against innocent Americans may be, the Left denounces the law-and-order push as racist button-pushing that won’t accomplish anything good. Left-wingers promote so-called sanctuary cities which are magnets for illegal aliens and the crime that accompanies them. They don’t care about the damage such policies do to American society. It is enough that Trump is taking aim at these havens of seditious lawlessness for leftists to defend sanctuary cities.

Trump advisor Miller coherently and forcefully laid out the rationale for the proposed immigration law changes on Wednesday in a much-watched press conference in which he did battle with the insufferably arrogant left-wing journalist Jim Acosta of CNN. Acosta accused the Trump administration of racism, even white-supremacism, because the proposed “Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act” (RAISE Act) will make would-be immigrants in the Third World compete against better skilled workers who speak English.

Miller correctly referred to the plan as “the largest proposed reform to our immigration policy in half a century.” (Lyman Stone has a useful summary of the RAISE Act at the Federalist.)

“The most important question when it comes to the U.S. immigration system is who gets a green card,” he said. “A green card is the golden ticket of U.S. immigration.”

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Immigration: How Trump Derangement Syndrome Dumbs Down the Press By Roger L Simon

By on August 3rd, 2017

How many IQ points do you lose from Trump Derangement Syndrome or similar conditions of blind political rage?

I was asking myself that while listening to the stupefying question asked of Trump adviser Stephen Miller by CNN’s Jim Acosta at Wednesday’s White House press conference. Miller had been explaining — with a level of clarity and specificity not often seen at these events — the immigration proposal being proffered by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue and now being backed by the president. The press audience appeared impatient with these details, however, waiting to pounce as it almost always does.

And the pounce came from Acosta, who was irked the proposal listed some level of facility with the English language as one of the new preference points for possible immigration applicants. Wasn’t that de facto discrimination in favor of people from the UK and Australia (read: white skin privilege)?

Earth to Acosta: As of 2015, there were 54 sovereign states and 27 non-sovereign entities where English was an official language. These include India (population: 1,247,540,000), Pakistan (199,085,847), Nigeria (182,202,000), the Philippines (102,885,100), Tanzania (51,820,000) and Kenya (45,010,056) among, obviously, many others. In China (population 1.39 billion), almost all school children begin English in the third grade. In Japan, South Korea and Singapore, it’s also mandatory beginning about the same time. Anyone who’s been to Europe recently knows it’s hard to find anyone under fifty in those countries now who doesn’t speak some degree of English. I could go on, but it’s pointless. English has become, for all intents and purposes, the world lingua franca. The number of possible immigrants from the UK and Australia is less than minuscule by comparison and the implication of racism (hidden in plain sight in Acosta’s question) therefore ludicrous. It’s the opposite.

So, assuming he didn’t have a lobotomy on the way to the press conference, what made the CNN reporter so (to be blunt) catastrophically uninformed that he would ask such a thing?

Answer: a cocktail of blind rage, the overwhelming self-centered need for you and your side always to be right with (for bitters) a healthy splash of malignant moral narcissism. In 2017, that’s called “The Trump,” served neat or on-the-rocks and stronger even than Dorothy Parker’s martini. Two glasses and the only word left in your vocabulary is “Russia,” three and it’s “impeachment” (slurred heavily). Rational discussion has gone out the window. It isn’t even a possibility.

I could say it’s unfair to Acosta to single him out, but it’s really not. He has been especially bad, ensconced in a front-row seat at these events as if he were a wannabe starlet preening for a photo opportunity. (“Are you watching, Mr. DeMille?”) He was also constitutionally incapable of letting Miller speak for fear, as is so often the case, he would have to deal with what Miller was actually saying.

But the real loser in all this is not Acosta or even CNN. It’s the American people who learn less than zero from the press conferences, in fact are brutally misled by our media in a wanton and selfish matter. It’s all about them and not one jot about informing their audience. In fact, there is an almost palpable rejection of the latter because then they (that unwashed audience) might see something, anything, good in what Trump or one of his minions might be proposing. That is not allowed to happen under any circumstances. Dialogue nyet!

The immigration question on the table Wednesday is an excellent case in point. Miller was treating the press (and the television audience) as adults, carefully explaining the administration’s rationale for the proposal. It is their contention that some restriction on immigration is greatly for the benefit of the many unemployed American citizens already here — particularly minorities. Blacks and Latinos have the most to gain from this. CONTINUE AT SITE

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The Cotton/Perdue Immigration Plan Is a Great Start Reorienting the system around skills is long overdue. By Robert VerBruggen

By on August 2nd, 2017

There are two major problems with our legal-immigration system: One, it focuses too little on skills, and two, the part of it that does focus on skills is poorly designed. A new proposal would address both issues. It’s an updated version of the RAISE Act announced at the White House today by Republican senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue; at the event, President Trump called it “the most significant reform to our immigration system in half a century” and promised “billions and billions” in taxpayer savings.

One plausible estimate holds that just 6.5 percent of U.S. immigrants are given their green cards on the basis of economic merit. About 13 percent are admitted on the basis of employment more generally, but that system does not make particularly fine distinctions based on economic potential and bizarrely imposes a cap on each sending country.

Far more common is family-based immigration. We don’t just let immigrants bring their spouses and minor children but also give preferences to siblings, parents, and adult children, enabling the phenomenon known as “chain migration.” We also give out 50,000 green cards each year (about 5 percent of the total) on the basis of diversity, meaning applicants are selected literally at random from countries that don’t provide “enough” immigrants through other categories.

The new RAISE Act would take a sledgehammer to this system, dramatically reducing low-skilled immigration and revamping our system for skilled immigration. It would cut immigration by more than 40 percent immediately, and by half in a decade. (It would not affect temporary “nonimmigrant” visas such as the H-1B, which also need reform.)

It would end the diversity lottery and preferences for family members aside from spouses, minor children, and elderly parents in need of care. And it would put those seeking green cards on the basis of employment — 140,000 of which would be available annually, the same number as today — through a new point system similar to those used in other developed countries.

That point system is a thing of beauty. Immigrants would be scored on a scale of zero to 100, though in practice it’s more like a scale of zero to 45 — someone with a perfect score would need a Nobel Prize (25 points), an Olympic medal (15), and $1.8 million invested in a business (12), for instance. More typically, potential immigrants would be scored based on their level of education, their English fluency, their age (with ten points for those 26 to 30 and zero points for those 50 and up), and the salary they’ve been offered (with 13 points for compensation at least triple the median salary of the state where the job is located, and no points for an offer less than 50 percent above the median). Importantly, if an applicant wished to bring a spouse, the spouse’s education, age, and language skills would count for 30 percent of a combined score.

Those without at least 30 points would be ineligible, and ties would be broken by (in descending order) education, language, and age. Immigrants admitted through the point system would be ineligible for welfare benefits for five years.

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The Body Count at the Border Deaths are rising even as apprehensions are going down.

By on August 2nd, 2017

Every so often comes a dark reminder of the human costs of immigration dysfunction, and last month 10 people suffocated in an 18-wheeler in Texas while trying to move to the United States from Mexico and Central America. Congress could prevent similar tragedies with more legal visas for guest workers, as a new report details.

The National Foundation for American Policy in a report out this week notes that “more than 7,000 men, women and children have died along the Southwest border” over the past two decades. More than 200 people have died so far this year, and last year the count topped 300. This year there have been 7.8 deaths for every 10,000 apprehensions of illegal border crossers.

The number of deaths increased by about 80% between 1999 and 2012, even as apprehensions—a reliable proxy for illegal immigration—plummeted by more than 75%. As a result, a person picking their way across the border is now “5 times more likely to die in the attempt than 18 years ago,” the report notes. One reason is that an enforcement crackdown has encouraged people to slip across more treacherous or remote areas of the southwest.

Most immigrants come to the U.S. for work and opportunity, so the solution is to allow them to find jobs legally. The paper notes that the U.S. doesn’t have a visa program that permits immigrants to work legally in “year-round industries like construction, hotels and restaurants.” In the 1940s and ’50s the Bracero program allowed workers to enter legally from Mexico, and illegal immigration apprehensions dropped 95% between 1953 and 1959.

Some who make it across the border stay in the U.S. illegally because they can’t risk multiple crossings. A visa holder who could travel home freely might be less likely to venture a dangerous crossing with his entire family. By the way, more work visas would be a fillip for the economy; agriculture, construction and many other industries report labor shortages despite rising wages.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who has since decamped for the White House, put out a statement that the Texas smugglers “have no regard for human life and seek only profits.” But smugglers make money when politicians slap on new restrictions on immigration, and the way to bankrupt them is a system that allows safe, legal entry and exit. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) has a bill in the Senate to let states experiment with guest-worker programs, which would be a place to start.

The recent deaths are gruesome but hardly unprecedented: The policy brief recalls how a dozen men died in the Arizona desert in the 2000s, one of whom was Lorenzo Ortiz Hernandez, a father of five who took out a loan at 15% interest to underwrite an illegal crossing. He was looking to support his family. Such casualties will continue until Congress finds the political will to reform the broken U.S. immigration system.

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Maryland city to allow non-citizens to vote…again By Robert Knight

By on August 2nd, 2017

If you want to know where the progressive left wants to take U.S. elections, a trip through Maryland’s Washington, D.C.-area suburban counties is instructive.

The City of College Park in Prince George’s County is on the verge of becoming the ninth city in Maryland to allow non-citizens – including illegal aliens – to vote in municipal elections.

In a revealing 20-minute video of a June 7 council meeting, city officials discussed how best to get rid of the citizenship requirement so that virtually anyone of legal age living in the city can vote. A council vote is slated for August 8.

One councilwoman noted that in the hippie community of Takoma Park (modifier added), where 16-year-olds can vote, “they do not ask and do not care if the resident is in their city legally or not,” a policy she indicated should be adopted by College Park.

One lone College Park council member opined that immigration status should be a factor and that the council could serve all residents without letting unqualified residents vote.

Because elections loom in November, the council discussed creating a separate deadline for citizens and non-citizens to register before the election. Citizens must register 28 days ahead of an election. But non-citizens can register up to 14 days before the election if the city charter amendment is approved.

When someone asked whether legal residents who missed the 28-day mark could have a grace period up to 14 days, the idea was quickly dismissed. Welcome to the new America, where actual citizens are intentionally disadvantaged.

The eight other Maryland cities that already allow non-citizens to vote include Hyattsville, which is also in Prince George’s County and is a “sanctuary city,” and Mount Rainier, also in Prince George’s, which amended its charter in January. The others are Takoma Park, Barnesville, Glen Echo, Garrett Park, Martin’s Additions, and Somerset, all of which are in tony Montgomery County.

The radical nature of this voting scheme reflects the progressive view that borders are merely artificial inconveniences and that citizenship is a leftover concept from slave-holding days that should give way to global consciousness.

Apparently, no documentation will be needed at all for non-citizens, green card holders, undocumented fence-jumpers, or over-stays on visas. The council did informally agree to “retain the other qualifications” that Maryland law stipulates, barring felons and mentally incapacitated people – presumably Republicans.

At the July 11 council meeting, along with immigrants’ rights groups promoting the policy, some residents voiced opposition, including U.S. Army veteran Larry Provost.

According to the Diamondback, the University of Maryland newspaper, “Provost stood firmly opposed to the amendment. He said he and his wife try to teach their child, whom they adopted from overseas, about what it means to be a citizen.

“‘Voting is a right, but it is also a privilege,’ Provost said. ‘There are standards for voting. It is no mistake that the 14th Amendment gave citizenship and the 15th Amendment gave the right to vote. I would urge the council to look elsewhere to integrate our non-citizens.'”

Here is a voice of reason that should be heeded.

Robert Knight is a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union.

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Immigration Law Enforcement and Human Trafficking What exactly is pro-immigrant and compassionate about Sanctuary Cities? Michael Cutler

By on July 28th, 2017

On July 23, 2017 police officers in San Antonio, Texas made the gruesome discovery of the bodies of eight illegal aliens who had succumbed to the extreme heat in a tractor-trailer in which they were being transported, along with dozens of others who were rushed to the hospital where two more died.

My 30 year career with the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) included an assignment to the Anti-Smuggling Unit (ASU) at the New York City District Office of the INS where I found that the alien smugglers / human traffickers we investigated and arrested were among the most pernicious and violent criminals I encountered during my career.

The U.S./Mexican border is notoriously dangerous. Several years ago, during the Obama administration, I was interviewed for a documentary that is well worth watching, The Border States of America: Every State Is Now A Border State.

Most of the filming was done along the U.S./Mexican border and includes interviews with ranchers and law enforcement officers who live and work along that border, providing insight and a perspective on the scope and violence of human trafficking that is seldom, if ever, reported upon by the mainstream media.

On July 24, 2017 ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a news release, Federal alien-smuggling charge filed in San Antonio against driver of tractor-trailer when 10 died after smuggling trip that reported on this story and the fact that the driver of the vehicle, James Matthew Bradley Jr., is being charged in a federal complaint filed on July 24 alleging that he had unlawfully transported illegal aliens resulting in the death of 10 of those aliens. The press release noted that if convicted, Bradley would face a maximum punishment of life imprisonment or death, and a $250,000 fine.

To deter alien smuggling and related crimes, laws passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by past presidents certainly provide for some of the toughest penalties possible, yet today securing our borders against illegal entry, to combat alien smuggling and human trafficking, has for some, become extremely controversial.

This is only one of many of the incomprehensible inconsistencies where immigration is concerned, whether we consider how the media covers immigration or how some politicians, on all levels of government, view immigration law enforcement.

Transporting illegal aliens is an element of the smuggling statute: Title 8, United States Code §1324 because once across the border, these un-inspected illegal aliens need to travel from the borders to the interior of the United States, a need often fulfilled by the smugglers who facilitated their entry, once they are paid their exorbitant fees that virtually amount to ransom.

This can simply involve driving illegal aliens to airports and bus terminals or can involve transporting them in all sorts of motor vehicles including mobile homes and tractor-trailers.

The ICE press release also reported that the trailer had been packed with more than 100 illegal aliens who had been smuggled into the United States, held in a “stash house” and were being transported in the un-refrigerated trailer. The aliens had no water and took turns breathing through a couple of holes in the side of the trailer.

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E.R. Drabik The Great Immigration Non-debate

By on July 26th, 2017

If the only justification for sky-high immigration is it’s “good for the economy”, it is a policy fundamentally flawed. Judged through the prism of existing citizens’ interests, there is no economic case that can justify the transformative changes current policies are inflicting.

According to recent media reports, President Donald Trump and his team are working with Republican senators on a bill to halve legal immigration – to 500,000 per annum – into the United States. Across the Atlantic, Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed to reduce immigration to less than 100,000 a year. In launching the Tory’s recent election manifesto, May said immigration to the UK needs to be brought down to “sustainable” levels. In 2016, she argued that there was “no case, in the national interest, for immigration of the scale we have experienced over the last decade.”

Immigration has also erupted as a major issue in the lead-up to September’s New Zealand election. The country’s main opposition party, Labour, has pledged to slash the migrant intake, which is presently running at record levels. Perhaps more significant is the recent surge in support for the populist New Zealand First, led by the wily Winston Peters. The great survivor of Kiwi politics and known for his colourful utterances, Peters has slammed the government’s unfocused immigration “merry-go-round” and wants permanent visas restricted to 10,000 per annum. With his party likely to hold the balance of power come September, Peters may very well get his way.

Yet, while other Anglosphere countries look to curb immigration, Australia is moving in the opposite direction, with Canberra firmly planting its foot on the mass-immigration accelerator.

The numbers coming in are, quite frankly, insane. Over the last 12 years, annual average net immigration has tripled from its long-term historical average, to 210,000 people a year. Australia is importing a population equivalent to Hobart each and every year or an Adelaide every six years, with this turbocharged intake expected to continue for decades. By way of comparison, Australia’s annual immigration inflow is roughly equal to that of Britain’s, despite Australia only having around a third of the population.

While the populations of most other developed countries have either stabilised or declined, Australia’s population surged by a staggering 21.5% between 2003 and 2015 on the back of Canberra’s immigration-on-’roids policy. If current trends continue unabated, Australia’s population is projected to nearly double by 2050, to over 40 million. Needless to say, this immigration-fuelled population explosion will have a host of far-reaching social, cultural, demographic, economic and environmental consequences. But practically no effort has been expended by governments considering what Australia will look like in 10, 20, 40 or 80 years under this high immigration scenario. Canberra is rushing at breakneck speed while blindfolded towards a big, ultra-diverse Australia. In the long history of human folly, this must certainly be a stand-out.

Nor has the Turnbull government provided an official rationale as to why it is running the largest per capita immigration programme in the world. The entire sum of its immigration policy appears to be to bring in as many people as quickly as possible while assiduously burying any sort of public discussion on the issue. The government didn’t even mention the 2017-18 permanent intake number in the budget papers. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton made no public statement on the matter. Dutton’s position atop a new super ministry, ostensibly to enhance national security, has been pilloried by pundits on both sides of politics as ministerial overreach. Yet, at the same time it has been reported that Dutton is considering outsourcing vast swaths of Australia’s immigration system to the private sector, effectively surrendering control over our borders. Rorters, dodgy middlemen and fifth columnists will be rubbing their hands in anticipation.

There has been a steady stream of puff pieces in the mainly left-leaning media claiming that mass immigration is both necessary and beneficial. However, the arguments proffered tend to be exasperatingly specious and quickly fall apart under scrutiny. Despite the various claims by some business groups and others, Australia does not have a general skills shortage requiring heavy and sustained inflows. Moreover, current immigration policy is, in fact, largely detached from Australia’s labour market requirements. As a recent report by the Australian Population Research Institute found, any relationship that existed between skills recruited under the points-tested visa subclasses and particular shortages in the labour market has eroded under successive governments. This is resulting in large numbers of ‘skilled’ permanent migrants of dubious professional quality and relevance in fields such as IT and accounting, despite these sectors having a significant surplus of workers. In any case, the annual immigration report by the Australian Productivity Commission made it clear that about half of the skilled migrant steam includes the family members of skilled migrants, with only around 30 percent of Australia’s total permanent migrant intake actually ‘skilled’.

Nor can immigration realistically provide a solution to the ‘problem’ of an ageing population, as is frequently claimed by immigration enthusiasts. Again, the Productivity Commission has stated in numerous reports that immigration is not a feasible countermeasure to an ageing population since migrants themselves also age. As migrants grow old, even larger inflows will be required to support them, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, using immigration in an attempt to counter population ageing is the epitome of an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. Cambridge Professor of Economics Robert Rowthorn has memorably compared it to Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory’s insatiable demand for virginal victims. According to legend, the “Bloody Lady of Csejte” used to regularly bathe in the blood of chaste young women in an effort to preserve her fading youth. To stay young, she needed to constantly replenish the supply of virgins. At some point Australia’s Báthoryian policymakers are going to have to bow to the inevitable and deal with the ageing population, as Japan and other smart countries are already doing, rather than trying to delay the day of reckoning through misguided and ultimately counterproductive immigration policies.

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