Western nations should open up borders to millions of ‘climate refugees’, says Bangladeshi minister

UK should open borders to climate refugees, says Bangladeshi minister

Europe and US should also be responsible for millions who will be displaced by climate change, says Abul Maal Abdul Muhith

guardian.co.uk | Dec 4, 2009

by Harriet Grant, James Randerson and John Vidal in Dhaka

Up to 20 million Bangladeshis may be forced to leave the country in the next 40 years because of climate change, one of the country’s most senior politicians has said. Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, Bangladesh’s finance minister, called on Britain and other wealthy countries to accept millions of displaced people.

In a clear signal to the US and Europe that developing countries are not prepared to accept a weak deal at next week’s Copenhagen climate summit, Abdul Muhith said Bangladesh wanted hosts for managed migration as people began to abandon flooded and storm-damaged coastal areas.

“Twenty million people could be displaced [in Bangladesh] by the middle of the century,” Abdul Muhith told the Guardian. “We are asking all our development partners to honour the natural right of persons to migrate. We can’t accommodate all these people – this is already the densest [populated] country in the world,” he said.

He called on the UN to redefine international law to give climate refugees the same protection as people fleeing political repression. “The convention on refugees could be revised to protect people. It’s been through other revisions, so this should be possible,” he said.

Tens of thousands of people in Bangladesh and other low-lying areas of Asia are leaving their communities as their homes and land become inundated. But this is the first time that a senior politician from a developing country has openly proposed that those countries considered responsible for climate change should take physical responsibility for the refugees created.

Bangladesh, India, and many small island states such as the Maldives face having to relocate large populations over the next 50 years as sea levels rise up to one metre. This would have profound effects on the 1.5 billion people who presently live in coastal areas. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientific body that assesses the impact of climate change, has said there could be 200 million climate change migrants by 2050.

There is mounting evidence in India and Bangladesh and other low-lying countries that sea levels are rising faster than the global average of 1.2mm a year. Islands and coastal communities in the Ganges delta and the Bay of Bengal have recorded rises of up to 5mm a year. In Bangladesh hundreds of coastal villagers are forced to drink salty water as tides continue to rise and the sea intrudes on fresh water aquifers.

Abdul Muhith said managed migration could be positive for Bangladesh and the west: “We can help in the sense of giving the migrants some training, making them fit for existence in some other country.

Managed migration is always better – we can then send people who can attune to life more easily.” But he added, in another warning before Copenhagen where money will be a critical issue, that current levels of aid were inadequate. “Total aid in Bangladesh today is less than 2% of GDP. It is almost the same in China and in India. So we, the most populated, least developed country, gets peanuts. This inequity is terribly intolerable.”

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said the Bangladeshi migration proposal should be taken seriously. “This is clearly a warning signal from Bangladesh and similar countries to the developed countries. And I think it has to be taken very seriously. If you accept that those countries that have really not been responsible for causing the problem, and have a legitimate basis for help from the developed countries, then one form of help would certainly be facilitation of immigration from these countries to the developed world,” he said.

“If you had 30 or 40 million migrating to other parts of the world, that’s a sizable problem for which we have to prepare. And if it requires changes to immigration laws and facilitating people settling down and working in the developed countries, then I suppose this will require legislative action in the developed world,” he said.

Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, said: “As the largest international donor to Bangladesh, Britain has been urging the international community to provide extra money for climate change adaptation.” But Jean-Francois Durieux, who is in charge of climate migration at the UN refugee agency, cautioned against reworking the UN convention on refugees.

“The risk of mass migration needs to be managed. It’s absolutely legitimate for Bangladesh and the Maldives to make a lot of noise about the very real risk of climate migration – they hope it will make us come to their rescue. But reopening the 1951 convention would certainly result in a tightening of its protections.”

He said there was a danger of a backlash in rich countries. “The climate in Europe, North America and Australia is not conducive to a relaxed debate about increasing migration. There is a worry doors will shut if we start that discussion,” he said.

There is extreme sensitivity about adapting the UN convention on refugees. A UNHCR report in August warned: “In the current political environment, it could result in a lowering of protection standards for refugees and even undermine the international refugee protection regime altogether.”

Environmental laws put gaps in Mexico border security

Washington Times | Nov 16, 2009

By Stephen Dinan

In the battle on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the “virtual fence” and that threaten to create places where agents can’t easily track illegal immigrants.

Documents obtained by Rep. Rob Bishop and shared with The Washington Times show National Park Service staffers have tried to stop the U.S. Border Patrol from placing some towers associated with the virtual fence, known as the Secure Border Initiative or SBInet, on wilderness lands in parks along the border.

In a remarkably candid letter to members of Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department could have to delay pursuits of illegal immigrants while waiting for horses to be brought in so agents don’t trample protected lands, and warns that illegal immigrants will increasingly make use of remote, protected areas to avoid being caught.

The documents also show the Interior Department has charged the Homeland Security Department $10 million over the past two years as a “mitigation” penalty to pay for damage to public lands that agencies say has been caused by Border Patrol agents chasing illegal immigrants.

“I want this resolved so border security has the precedence down there. If wilderness designation gets in the way of a secure southern border, I want the designation changed,” said Mr. Bishop, Utah Republican, who requested the documents. “If it means you lose a couple of acres of wilderness, I don’t think God will blame us at the judgment bar for doing that.”

The conflict between the environment and border security has raged for the past decade as better enforcement in urban areas has pushed the flow of illegal immigrants into Arizona and straight into some of the nation’s most remote and fragile desert.

A major problem is wilderness – lands deemed so pristine that they should be maintained in that condition, free of man-made structures.

Wilderness is governed under a 1964 law that imposed strict rules that tie Border Patrol agents’ hands, and there is a lot of that land along the border. According to the Congressional Research Service, California has 1.8 million acres of wilderness within 100 miles of the border, and Arizona has 2.5 million acres. New Mexico and Texas have smaller plots.

According to e-mails obtained by Mr. Bishop, Park Service officials at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and at the Denver office that oversees the park said they will not allow the Border Patrol to place electronic surveillance towers on parts of the park that are designated wilderness.

In one 2008 e-mail, officials tell the Homeland Security Department to “pursue alternative tower locations.” In another 2008 memo, the superintendent of Organ Pipe says Park Service officials could reject towers even beyond wilderness areas if they deem the effects would spill over into wilderness.

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Passing on the Mantle of Deep North American Integration

nauresistance.org | Nov 3, 2009

By Dana Gabriel

With the demise of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America and the restructuring of many of its key priorities under the banner of the North American Leaders Summit, other trilateral initiatives are also passing on the mantle of deep continental integration.

The Fifth Annual North American Forum was held in Ottawa on October 4-6, 2009.  In a news release the group describes itself as, “a community of Canadian, Mexican and American thought leaders whose purpose is to advance a shared vision of North America, and to contribute to improved relations among the three countries.”  It goes on to say that, “They come together annually to explore linkages among the mutually reinforcing goals of security, prosperity and enhanced quality of life.”  Meetings are co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State, George Schultz, former Premier of Alberta, Peter Lougheed, as well as former Mexican Finance Minister Pedro Aspe.  The North American Forum has no business office and no business address.  It consists of the three co-chairs, along with their extensive network of contacts in government, business and the military, meeting privately to champion North American integration.  The news release also stated that, “This year’s meeting of the North American Forum focused on the need for Canada, Mexico and the United States to work together in responding to the global economic crisis and promoting a quick return to strong and sustainable growth.  In addition, the Forum included special sessions on two critical issues: one on energy and the environment, and the other on transnational crime, arms smuggling and drug trafficking.”  The North American Forum has been described as a parallel structure to the SPP.

The Standing Commission on North American Prosperity is an initiative of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce and directly relates to the ongoing efforts to further merge North America.  The group characterizes itself as “an united effort of distinguished individuals from Mexico, Canada and the USA to provide sound economic and social policy guidance to the political leaders of the three countries for the future prosperity of all peoples of North America.”  It notes that, “In the aftermath of NAFTA and the SPP initiatives, a vacuum presently exists in developing a vision for North American prosperity.  The lack of such a vision jeopardizes previous achievements in building strong economic ties across North America made during the past 15 years.”  It also states that, “The Commission will meet 3 times a year and will provide ‘A North American Prosperity’ White paper to the leaders of the three countries upon conclusion of each session.”  The group’s inaugural Summit was held at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University on May 12-13, 2009.

The Future of North America Summit presented by the Standing Commission on North American Prosperity was scheduled to take place on November 2-3 of this year in Toronto, Canada.  It was reported that the Summit was cancelled, but there is no indication if it will take place at a later date.  The meetings would have included the participation of past political heavyweights such as former Mexican President Vicente Fox, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, as well as former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar.  The agenda would have dealt with economic, environmental and climate change, energy, trade, transportation, along with other issues and how they relate to North America.  In a recent article Manuel Pérez-Rocha, director of the NAFTA Plus and the SPP Advocacy Project, raised some valid questions concerning the meetings.  He stated, “Are we going back to the future?  Why are these former leaders ‘representing’ countries they don’t run any more?  Is their purpose to dictate to our actual presidents what to do to build North America?  Why was ex president Lagos from Chile invited at all?”  What is clear is that with the SPP no longer the vehicle being used to create a North American Union, other groups and initiatives are further advancing deep continental integration.

The 2009 meeting of the NAFTA Free Trade Commission was held in Dallas, Texas on October 19 of this year and brought together top trade officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.  The meeting was used as an opportunity to celebrate NAFTA’s achievements and to plot a course for the future.  Manuel Pérez-Rocha stated, “What the three governments are really doing is incorporating the already-buried, George W. Bush-led Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) agenda into NAFTA.  While current presidents are stripping the SPP label, which has garnered much negative publicity, they’re keeping its principles to armor NAFTA as an instrument for further deregulation.”  He also said that, “the merging of the SPP prosperity agenda into NAFTA is evident, especially after the recent Dallas meeting.  In their declaration, the trade officials stated that since 2007, the three countries have worked together to protect and enforce intellectual property rights.  This was one of the SPP’s plans, together with a ‘framework for regulatory cooperation,’ a ‘North American plan for avian and pandemic influenza,’ and an ‘agreement for cooperation on energy science and technology,’ which are also well under way.”  Mexico is scheduled to host the next NAFTA Commission meeting in 2010.  Despite the demise of the SPP, many of its key objectives have already been implemented or continue to move forward through other initiatives.

Speaking at the annual policy forum of the Canadian American Business Council held in Montreal on October 21, U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson said that there are no immediate plans to reopen NAFTA.  He also echoed Washington’s sentiments that the trade agreement is working well for all sides.  This could not be further from the truth as NAFTA is badly flawed.  Minus a few cosmetic changes that the Obama administration might make regarding side deals related to labor and the environment, the reality is that NAFTA will remain intact.  The NAFTA structure is also being used to advance SPP objectives.  All the talk of renegotiating the agreement appears to have revived the 15 year old trade accord and renewed the push for North American integration.  This could lead to NAFTA’s expansion into a North American Union and might serve to further spread its failed model to other parts of the Western Hemisphere.

Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com

Visit his blog site at beyourownleader.blogspot.com

Crowded Britain heading for 70m as migration causes population to rise faster than ever before

More than two thirds of the increase, seven million, will be either migrants or the children of migrants, its report said.

Daily Mail | Oct 22, 2009

By Steve Doughty

Britain’s population is rising at a speed unprecedented in history, official figures revealed yesterday.

It will pass the milestone of 70million  -  the point Immigration Minister Phil Woolas promised would never happen  -  in 20 years.

The Office for National Statistics said that by 2033 there will be ten million more people in the country than now. More than two thirds of the increase, seven million, will be either migrants or the children of migrants, its report said.

This will put pressure on housing, transport, water and key public services.

According to the projections, the bulk of the population increase  -  9.2million by 2033  -  will be in England. Growth in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is likely to be less than a million.

England is already the third-most-crowded major country in the world and the most crowded country in Europe except for the island of Malta, according to British and UN figures.

Most immigrants gravitate to London and the South East, which is by far the most populous part of the country.

Chris Huhne, home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, yesterday warned that these areas are now at ‘the limit of environmental sustainability’.

Over the next ten years, the ONS expects the population to rise by four million from its present 61.4million.

Despite claims by Labour ministers that population growth is slowing because immigration is on a downward trend, the ONS said that for the foreseeable future the population will grow by 180,000 a year because of higher numbers of immigrants over emigrants. Two years ago the state statisticians put the immigration gain at 190,000 a year.

The ONS forecast contradicts claims by Mr Woolas, who a year ago said: ‘At some point we will be able to set a limit on migration. This Government isn’t going to allow the population of this country to go up to 70million.

‘There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving.’

Full Story

Government E-Verify biometric system may not detect ID fraud

Houston Chronicle | Jul 21, 2009

By STEWART M. POWELL and SUSAN CARROLL

WASHINGTON — Some illegal immigrants with stolen Social Security numbers are able to gain clearance for employment in the United States even after being checked through the federal government’s pioneering online E-Verify system, senators and the Migration Policy Institute warned Tuesday.

The senators, led by Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, and the well-known think tank said the loophole must be closed before Congress undertakes comprehensive immigration reform and before the Department of Homeland Security requires federal contractors and recipients of economic stimulus funds to use the federal employment verification system.

“The American public will not put faith in us again if we pass immigration reform without an effective, accurate and enforced employer verification program,” declared Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee panel with jurisdiction over immigration, border security and citizenship.

Schumer called for 10 improvements to existing employee verification, led by requiring biometric proof of identity such as fingerprints or enhanced face-reading biometric photographs.

‘Gaping hole’ in E-Verify

The current E-Verify system is “an example of a half hearted and flawed system,” Schumer said at the subcommittee hearing, noting that it does not prevent an illegal immigrant from using the name, Social Security number and address of a U.S. citizen.

Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, based in Washington, D.C., said a “gaping hole” in E-Verify fails to detect identity fraud.

The voluntary E-Verify system enables employers to submit the names and Social Security numbers of prospective hires to the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to verify immigration and employment status.

A total of 137,463 employers are using E-Verify from 517,000 employment sites, including 7,043 employers in Texas.

The program is about to expand to require mandatory E-Verify employment checks by private companies awarded government contracts and firms receiving money from the $787 billion economic stimulus package.

Mike Aytes, acting deputy director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency that handles E-Verify, told the committee federal authorities are working to provide prospective employers identification photographs beyond just the photographs generated by immigration agencies to help employers verify applicants’ identities.

“This would represent a significant enhancement to the system, since new hires most often present a driver’s license for (employment eligibility verification) purposes,” Aytes said.

Council on Foreign Relations backs amnesty for illegals, opposes Arpaio-style raids

The uber-establishment Council on Foreign Relations said Wednesday it favors granting legal status to many of the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., creating a guest worker program for low-skilled foreign workers to come and work in the U.S and opposes local police getting to conduct immigration raids.

Phoenix Business Journal | Jul 8, 2009

by Mike Sunnucks

The CFR issued an immigration policy report Wednesday that looks to lift caps on foreign university students in the U.S. and allow skilled foreign graduates to get more work visas. The international policy group also wants to create legal paths to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.

The CFR also said local police should not take lead roles in immigration enforcements and workplace raids. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas have been conducting immigration raids and prosecutions against businesses hiring illegal immigrants, as well as drop-houses used by smugglers trafficking illegal immigrants into Arizona from Mexico.

The CFR report does not specifically mention Arpaio but the Valley’s sheriff is the most notable local enforcer of immigration laws in the U.S.

The CFR’s recommendations on guest workers and amnesty mirror plans to be pushed in Congress this year by President Barack Obama. Arizona State university professor Raul H. Yzaguirre and former Florida governor Jeb Bush served on the CFR task force that wrote the recommendations.

The group also wants the U.S. to tweek or ease some post 9/11 security measures that have discouraged immigration and foreign tourism into the U.S. and want the U.S. government to develop new technologies to secure border areas, verify workers’ employment status and enforce immigration laws.

The New York-based CFR is a heavyweight international policy group whose members includes powerful politicians, CEOs and university presidents as well as multinational corporations, media firms and private equity firms.

The Council’s corporate members include Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, American Express, Chevron, ExxonMobil Corp., Rothschild North America Inc., News Corp., General Electric, KBR Inc., Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Co., Soros Fund Management and Google Inc.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, former Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Arizona State University President Michael Crow and Thunderbird School of Global Management president Angel Cabrera are Arizonans that are CFR members.

Other notable CFR members include:

• Former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, James Baker and Madeline Albright.

• Former U.S. Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin.

• Financier George Soros and JP Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon.

• Former Federal Reserve Bank chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.

• Former presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and former vice president Dick Cheney.

• Media notables such as NBC’s Tom Brokaw, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, Newsweek International editor and CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria and New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger.

Roman police discover Afghan children living in sewers beneath train stations

Roman police discover 24 Afghan children living in sewers beneath train stations

BBC | Apr 5, 2009

Police in Rome have discovered more than 100 illegal immigrants, including 24 children, living in the sewers beneath railway stations in the city.

The children, who are all of Afghan origin, are aged between 10 and 15, and are now being looked after by social services.

Police, who have revealed that the children do not speak Italian, say that they broke into the sewers via manhole covers.

They are believed to have arrived in the city as stowaways aboard trucks from Greece and Turkey, and started sleeping in the sewers in order to shelter from the cold.

Railway police had been following up on reports that groups of homeless immigrants had been living near the city’s three main railway stations.

Groups of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and China were also discovered in the city recently, living in cramped conditions of over 20 to a room.

Save the Children Italy reported that up to 1,000 unaccompanied children arrived in Rome last year.

The charity said that the figure has risen substantially since 2004, with foreign minors coming from countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Obama Refuses Perry’s Request for 1,000 Troops on Border

MSNBC | Mar 14, 2009

By Holly LaFon

A displeased Gov. Rick Perry spoke out Thursday against Barack Obama’s rejection of his request last month for 1,000 more “boots on the ground” (meaning 1,000 troops, since 1,000 boots only equals 500 people) to be sent to the Texas-Mexico border.

He requested the aid to help keep the growing drug cartel violence in Mexico from spilling into the United States.

Obama told a group of reporters that he did not feel troops were necessary, but would consider in what cases National Guard deployments would be effective.

Perry, on the same day that he rejected stimulus unemployment funds from the federal government, saying that “[Texas] can take care of itself,” told Fox News that, “Washington has been an abject failure at defending our border.”

At a House panel meeting on Thursday to decide what measures Homeland Security Department should take to secure the border, Homeland Security official Roger Rufe agreed with President Obama’s assertion that deploying troops should only come as a last resort, in the off chance that other resources such as DoD and the National Guard were expended.

Many officials in border cities have applauded Obama’s decision not to use extreme measures such as sending troops. Patricio Ahumeda, mayor of Brownsville, Texas, openly criticized Perry’s plan, calling him out of touch with what is really going on.

“I appreciate and support Obama’s decision not to militarize the border because troops aren’t trained for this sort of thing. There was an incident where a national guard killed a shepherd in the El Paso area. It doesn’t work. The training is not the same. We’re not at war, and the violence and incidents that are occurring over there are not daily and are not spilling over here yet.”

He also pointed out that the crime rates in Brownsville and El Paso are significantly less than many other large cities. While El Paso had 418 violent crimes in 2007, Austin, Texas, had 540, and Washington D. C. had 1,347.

Meanwhile, just across the border, bodies are piling up in Mexico as the violent situation in places such as Ciudad Juarez has grown dire. The drug-related death toll reached 6,290 people last year, and has already hit 1,000 in the first two months of 2009.

The morgue and crime lab in Juarez has seven doctors, and two were hired in the last two weeks, to help with the onslaught of cases. Other morgues have been attacked at gunpoint, drug traffickers knowing investigators use the cadavers to help track the perpetrators.

Mayor Ahumeda believes the best thing Texas can do is work with Mexico and President Calderon to stop the violence.

“Texas needs to work with Mexico to prevent guns and ammunition from crossing the border and reduce the demand for drugs,” he said. “They’re not doing enough in that respect. I don’t mean pick them up and throw away the key. I mean going after those people in the United States, the criminals who are preying on young people who are hooked, and get them treatment, and teach our kids to stay off of drugs.”

Maybe he secretly wants the troops so Texas can secede from the union.

Mexican soldiers arrested for alleged drug ties

Reuter | Mar 6, 2009

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A dozen Mexican soldiers were arrested on suspicion of working with the violent Gulf Cartel, the Mexican army said on Thursday, a blow to President Felipe Calderon’s military-backed campaign against drug gangs.

The troops are accused of collaborating with four municipal policemen in the central state of Aguascalientes who provided protection for Gulf cartel capos, the army said in a statement.

The arrests come as Calderon sent thousands more troops to the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez in an attempt to curb spiraling drug violence that killed more than 6,000 people last year.

Calderon deployed the army to fight organized crime since taking office in 2006 partly because soldiers have traditionally been seen as less corrupt than police.

But several recent high-profile arrests — including a presidential guardsmen who allegedly received $100,000 a month to track Calderon for drug traffickers — reveal infiltration in the highest levels of Mexico’s security forces.

The Gulf cartel is fighting a turf war for control of smuggling routes with its main rival the Sinaloa federation, led by Mexico’s most wanted man Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman.

The Gulf cartel’s feared hitmen known as the Zetas, infamous for torturing and beheading their enemies, were founded by a group of military deserters.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. to open military to temporary immigrants

Reuters | Feb 14, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military will begin recruiting immigrants with special skills who are in the United States on temporary visas, offering a chance to become citizens in as little as six months, The New York Times reported.

A report on the newspaper’s website on Saturday said it would be the first time since the Vietnam War that the armed forces would be open to temporary immigrants, provided they have lived in the United States for at least two years.

Immigrants with permanent resident status, or “green cards,” are eligible to enlist in the U.S. military.

A Pentagon spokesman said he knew of the program but had no details.

The Times said the program could help the military fill shortages in medical care, language interpretation and field intelligence analysis. It will be limited to 1,000 enlistees in its first year, most for the Army and some for other services.

Temporary immigrants who want to enlist would have to prove they had lived in the United States for two years and had not been out of the country for more than 90 days during that time. They would also have to pass an English test.