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Previously unseen documents reveal how Germany proposes to relax EU human rights laws to make it easier to boot out rejected asylum seekers at times of mass influx as it attempts to crack down not the escalating migrant crisis engulfing the continent.

A Brussels source said: This is another element in efforts to energise readmission of people to wherever they came from.

The move marks a major backtrack from German Chancellor Angela Merkel who welcomed 1.1 million migrants into her nation following her ill-fated open door refugee policy.

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This is another element in efforts to energise readmission of people to wherever they came from

Brussels source

The major U-turn comes as Mrs Merkel battles to hold on to her premiership as Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Martin Schulz Social Democrat Party (SPD) make strides before the German elections.

Her grip on power is growing weaker as SPD celebrates a surge in support since nominating European Parliament president Mr Schulz to take on the current leader.

Germany passed a bill on Tuesday which will see convicted criminals, who are classified as dangerous to authorities, forced to wear an ankle tag.

It will be applied for a maximum of three months and then reconsidered.

AFP/Getty Images

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chat prior to the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission

Those considered will have committed serious crimes such as murder and manslaughter or a terrorist attack.

Meanwhile German officials have urged Brussels to relax human rights safeguards so more asylum seekers can be deported while awaiting the outcome of their cases.

The EU signed a controversial deal with Turkey last year, allowing the return of migrants only with Ankara.

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But if approved, this proposal would see immigrants transferred to other places, including south of the Mediterranean.

While the EU says it has the right to send away all economic migrants if it chooses, its existing laws on human rights say asylum seekers awaiting a ruling on their cases can only be deported to countries that meet certain conditions.

The working paper lists them as including, safety from threat and persecution, humane reception conditions, and at least partial access to medical care, education and the labour market.

Some parts of this "clearly exceed" the basic safeguards stipulated by the Geneva convention on refugees and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, it says.

But EU officials will consider a safe zone concept, which could mean sending people back to certain areas of countries otherwise deemed too dangerous.

However the plans have not been welcomed by everyone.

Ska Keller, a Green member of the European Parliament, said: These plans are overturning the international law on refugees. This is an utter betrayal, inhumane.

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But the document says the proposal would be instrumental in discouraging people-smugglers.

It read: This is not about building a Fortress Europe. It is about combating illegal immigration, which has already cost the lives of thousands, and about replacing it by a regulated system of legal admissions, combined with humane living conditions, assured by the EU in third countries.

More than 1.1 million migrants entered Germany during the migrant crisis 2015, with most coming from Middle Eastern and North African countries.

And it appears Mrs Merkel's grip on power is growing ever weaker, with rebellion across the country against her controversial immigration policies.

It is not the first time the German leader has hinted at regret over opening her country's doors to a stream of refugees.

Following a devastating defeat in the Berlin state elections last year, she said: If I could, I would turn back the time by many, many years.

However it is feared it is little too late for the Chancellor, whose party even called for a burka ban in the wake of the a string of terror attacks and the sickening sex assaults in Cologne.

Read the original here:
Germany paves way for terror-linked migrants to wear TAGS as it creates deportation rules - Express.co.uk

When it comes to the treatment of immigrants and refugees, its easy for Canadians to look south and feel smug. Immigration, always a hot-button issue for Americans, is now driving them completely around the bend.

Canadas immigration system really is better than the American system, morally and practically. But thats not because Canadians are better people than Americans, morally and practically. Its because our immigration policies have been smarter than those of our neighbours. And our policies have been able to be smarter because our geography has been luckier.

That may be changing. Consider the sudden surge in the number of people walking north across the Canada-United States border to make asylum claims, fleeing Donald Trump and America. If the U.S., historys most powerful people magnet, suddenly turns into an exporter of human beings, Canada is their logical destination. If the trickle of a few hundred grows into the tens of thousands a real possibility our smugness may be tested.

Asylum seekers' cold crossings to Canada: A guide to the saga so far

Globe editorial: Is Canada ready for Donald Trump's refugee crisis?

Campbell Clark: A solution to Canada's refugee surge is no easy feat

Until now, Canada has never worried much about large numbers of people just showing up and claiming asylum, or becoming illegal immigrants. Why not? Because of geography. For most of the planet, Canada is just about the hardest place on earth to get to.

But for someone already in the U.S., Canada is an absurdly easy destination. Spend a few minutes on Google Maps. (Its what anyone thinking of running from Trumpland is doing). At a thousand points along the worlds longest undefended border, an unauthorized journey to Canada is as simple as taking a taxi to the line, and then walking across a field or stepping across a road.

Unlike our American and European peers, our country has not, until now, had to deal with waves of unauthorized arrivals. As a result, our immigration flows unlike those of the United States are exceptionally orderly and law-abiding. Thats probably why Canadas legal immigration rate has for decades been two to three times higher than the United States, while sustaining an all-party, pro-immigration consensus. Canadas immigration system is more generous than the U.S., but in many ways, its also tougher.

Canadas immigrants and refugees are almost all chosen by Canada. They didnt set foot on Canadian soil until we invited them to. Most were chosen because of their education, work experience or professional qualifications; they are more educated than the average Canadian. And before they were allowed to enter Canada, they were investigated for criminal records, ties to terrorism and the like. Oh, and everyone had to queue up, sometimes for years. (Talk about screening for Canadian values.)

In other words, the Canadian immigration system basically treats this country like an exclusive club, but one that welcomes a lot of new members. The former helps to make the latter possible.

In the United States, in contrast, legal immigration levels are much lower, but over the last few decades, illegal immigration levels have often been high. There are more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., up from 3.5 million in 1990. Canada chooses almost every immigrant and refugee who comes here, but the U.S. has millions of people who simply walked across the Mexican border and stayed. This drives American law-and-order types absolutely bonkers. We may be about to discover how Canadians react.

Mr. Trump is talking about building walls against immigrants, but geography bounded Canada on three sides by oceans, and theyre far more effective than any wall. And where there are no physical walls, Canada has erected invisible, bureaucratic ones.

Canada plans to invite in 300,000 newcomers this year. But for an uninvited guest coming from anywhere other than the U.S., Canada is a very difficult place to get to. You can see the European Union from the coast of Turkey and make the crossing in an inflatable boat. Florida is just over the horizon from Cuba, and Cubans have escaped using all kinds of homemade rafts. But unless youve got an ocean liner, you arent sailing to Canada.

And you can fly here from anywhere on earth, but Canada has erected a legal wall designed to prevent the uninvited from boarding a flight. Travellers from most of the world, including nearly all of Latin America, Africa and Asia, need a visa to come to Canada. Its an extremely effective measure for limiting the number of refugee claims. And any time a Canadian government, Liberal or Conservative, has seen an upsurge in refugee claims from one country the Czech Republic and Chile in the 1990s, Mexico a few years ago Ottawa has stemmed the flow by introducing a visa requirement.

And on those rare occasions when asylum seekers have managed to cross the ocean and circumvent the wall, as nearly 500 Sri Lankan Tamils aboard the MV Sun Sea did in 2010, Canadians have completely lost their cool. That year, Canada accepted more than 250,000 immigrants and refugees. It was smooth, humdrum and entirely unnewsworthy. But fewer than 500 asylum seekers on an unauthorized boat had Ottawa completely freaking out.

Which brings us to 2017. As we consider whats happening at the border and what might happen we shouldnt lose our perspective. Canada is already planning on accepting 40,000 refugees this year, most of them chosen overseas from countries such as Syria. If the spring brings a surge in refugee applicants from the U.S., Canada can compensate by reducing the number of refugees its seeking overseas. Or Ottawa could play with the mix of economic immigrants, family reunifications and refugees in this years planned total of 300,000 new Canadians by bumping up the number of refugees and lowering the others. It could also accommodate a spike in arrivals from the U.S. by temporarily raising the total immigration target.

Canada might be able to modify its safe third party rules. If someone from the U.S. comes to a Canadian border post and wants to claim asylum, well return them to America, because it has (or had, pre-Trump) a fair and legal refugee system. The loophole, which the new group of arrivals figured out, is that if someone crosses the Canadian border without authorization, they can make a refugee claim inside Canada. Thats partly a matter of international law and Canadian Supreme Court decisons, but Ottawa may have some wiggle room.

Ottawa can also hire more cops, bureaucrats and refugee adjudicators, speeding up the process for determining who is a genuine, legal refugee, and removing those who arent.

Canadas immigration system has retained a high level of popular acceptance because most of the people who come here, come here by choice our choice. Thats why an incident like the MV Sun Sea created so much angst, all out of proportion to the tiny handful of desperate people involved.

But unless the number of asylum seekers coming from the U.S. massively increases, to thousands of crossers each week, it will not break our peace, order and good government immigration system. It shouldnt break our politics either, unless we let it. Dont start freaking out just yet.

Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeDebate

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Canada has never had a real migrant crisis. Trump may have just changed that - The Globe and Mail

Victors excellent column on illegal immigration raises the tough questions presented by removable aliens who have committed serious but non-violent identity-fraud crimes. They are tough because they implicate the gray area between two extremes.

On one end, everyone knows that it is neither possible nor desirable to deport the entire illegal-immigrant population (estimated at 11 million-plus); on the other, there is strong consensus that serious criminals and those in defiance of deportation orders should be deported forthwith, though we know this is just a minority subset of that population. It is not an insignificant subset: As Victor notes, even before President Trump entered office, close to a million people were facing government removal orders.

This brings to the fore a subject on which I fear Im becoming a broken record, but Ill hit it again anyway. Since 9/11, weve lost the distinction between national-security challenges and crime problems. Illegal immigration is a crime problem. Yes, it has some important national-security aspects (as do other crime problems), but the percentage of illegal aliens who threaten national security (as opposed to who are recidivist criminals) is negligible.

The distinction is important. We must always have as a goal eradicating national-security challenges even if the goal is unrealistic, a single terrorist attack can be so catastrophic, we must take extra measures to prevent it. To the contrary, it is not our goal to eradicate crime problems it would neither be possible nor desirable (in terms of the costs to liberty) to do that.

Crime problems do not lend themselves to comprehensive solutions. Instead, they are managed by reasonable and hopefully efficient law enforcement.

Since enforcement resources are finite, priority will be given to removing serious criminals in the illegal-immigrant population. But what is a serious crime? The answer to this question, Victor points out, will depend on our view of identity-fraud crimes (and related varieties of document fraud). These are felonies. Because illegal aliens commit them massively, their apologists want us to think of such offenses as unserious. But they are even conceivable that way only when compared to heinous violent crimes; and we know they are not unserious because they are treated quite seriously by the government when committed by American citizens.

I dont think it is useful to make a rule about how we should regard identity-fraud offenders in the immigration population, because the offense behavior varies so widely. One person may have gotten a single fraudulent ID years ago in order to get a job, in connection with which he pays taxes, living an otherwise law-abiding life and being an asset to his community. Another may use fraudulent IDs to purloin benefits from social-welfare programs. Another may be in the fraudulent-ID business.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. Better simply to let law enforcement do its job.

A sensible allocation of resources in immigration enforcement would focus on border security, apprehension and removal of known criminal aliens, and the magnets of illegal immigration employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and the abuse of welfare programs. If you address those things, you eliminate or drastically reduce the incentive for immigrants to come to or stay in the U.S. illegally. The illegal-immigrant population would decrease, probably dramatically.

Beyond that, illegal immigrants who choose to stay here take their chances. The thing I have never understood about proposals for comprehensive immigration reform is the presumption that it is our obligation as Americans not only to address but to cure the illegal status of people who choose to violate our laws by entering our country illegally or overstaying their legal permission to remain here. If you are an illegal alien in this country, that is your choice and therefore your problem, not mine. (Caveat: I am not talking about DREAMers; they are a comparatively small category of people who were brought here as children, whose illegal status is not their fault, and who have never known any home other than the United States.)

I dont believe we need to or should hassle people, including illegal aliens, who are generally law-abiding. But if you are not here legally, and you encounter police when they are carrying out their normal duties, you run the risk of being arrested and deported. Maybe in an individual case, the equities will call for exercising discretion against triggering removal proceedings. But in most cases, illegal aliens who are encountered in the course of ordinary law enforcement operations should be detained and deported.

See original here:
Treat Illegal Immigration Like What It Is: A Law Enforcement Problem - National Review

Prompted by concern's over President Trump's immigration crackdown, Chicago public schools Tuesday its principals Tuesday to refuse entry to any immigration officer without a warrant at their school, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Nearly half of Chicagos 381,000 students are Hispanic and concerns have risen about the possibility of authorities detaining parents outside schools and their children inside.

"To be very clear, CPS does not provide assistance to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the enforcement of federal civil immigration law," the message to principals said.

Homeland Security announced plans to hire thousands of immigration officials and border patrol officers and focus on illegal immigrants who have committed a crime or have criminal charges pending.

A district spokesman told the Chicago Tribune that the third-largest school system in the U.S. is not aware of any efforts from ICE officials to enter school buildings.

It remains unknown how much interest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will show in schools under Trump. There is little schools can do to thwart agents who show up with warrants, but they are acting at least in part to ease concerns of skittish immigrant communities.

The latest Trump administration guidance leaves in place Obama-era policies limiting enforcement actions at "sensitive locations," including schools. While those policies say agents should generally avoid apprehending anyone inside those designated areas, they do not stop agents from obtaining records or serving subpoenas.

Principals around the country have been stepping up efforts to make students feel supported, said JoAnn Bartoletti, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

In Syracuse, New York, the school board approved a policy this month requiring schools to deny access to ICE officials until they consult with the superintendent. In Salt Lake City, Utah, on Tuesday the school district discussed a resolution. Connecticut's governor on Wednesday advised school districts in that state to refer any ICE agents to the superintendent. And in New York City, principals there have been told that immigration officers many not be granted access without legal authority.

Some experts say it's unlikely administrators will be tested.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., which supports tighter immigration policies, said schools do not seem to have reason for alarm and Chicago Public Schools and others implementing similar policies mostly appear to be "showing off."

Among those prioritized for arrest under the new guidelines are immigrants who abuse public benefits, which Krikorian said could include free and reduced school lunches.

"It could well affect them, but again that has nothing to do with the school grounds," he said. "It's not like ICE goes in there and says, 'Drop that tater tot, kid.'"

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more here:
Chicago Public Schools take measures against illegal immigration crackdown - Fox News

Ive been reporting on, and criticizing, illegal immigration for more than a decade, and things are worse now -- for everyone -- than when I started.

Why it is worse can be expressed in two phrases:

Donald Trump and illegal entitlement.

The president is a blunderbuss, but he represents Americans who are up toherewith undocumented people claiming rights that dont exist.

The enforce the damn law guidelines from Homeland Security this week shocked those here illegally and their enablers. This might be a good time for them to sue for peace.

Its also a good time for the media to stop muddying the water by pretending immigration and illegal immigration are interchangeable. They are no more synonymous than pharmacist and drug dealer. Ones legal, ones not.

When its reported that President Trumps crackdown threatens immigrant communities, thats fear-mongering. Legal immigrants have nothing to fear.

As the Pew Research Center reported this week, 75 percent of Phillys immigrants did the right thing and came here legally.

If those here illegally are fearful, thats self-inflicted. When you choose to break the law, you dont get to play the victim.

Over the years, I have interviewed some of the undocumented, and I sympathize with them on a human level, but I dont condone their law-breaking. Not one of them has ever expressed remorse.

I asked them three questions.

1. Did you come here voluntarily?The answer is yes, except in the cases of minors brought here by a parent. They shouldnt be punished, and thats why I supportDACA--Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protectsthem from deportation. That remains in effect under the new guidelines.

2. Did you know you were coming here illegally?Yes, thats why they sneaked in or overstayed a visa.

3. Did you know there might be consequences if you were caught?Yes, thats why they live in the shadows. Illegal immigrants and their supporters have to stop pretending they did nothing wrong and stop demanding immunity from laws they knowingly violated. No one has a right to be here without permission.

Then where do we go?

We donotoffer amnesty, because we did that in 1986 when we had three million of the undocumented. Now we have 12 million. If we do the same thing again, we will get the same result.

In 2015, Pew Research reported that 70 percent of Americans want the good people to remain here, but they oppose a free pass. They want mercyandjustice.

I have a five-point plan that offers both, gives each side a win:

1. Seal our southern border with a barrier that can be a physical wall where necessary, but can include fencing, Border Patrol agents, cameras, motion detectors, drones,Komododragons if necessary.

2. Since jobs are a magnet, lock up employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers. SendCEOsto jail for a year and those jobs will dry up like peas in a rotisserie.

3. Implement a statute of limitations for those here at least five years who have a clean record. Thats almost 90 percent of those here illegally. In many states, after a certain number of years you cant be prosecuted for crimes such as arson, counterfeiting, fraud, even some sexual offenses. Id add illegal entry to the list.

4. Allow people protected by statute to come forward, be documented, and become legal residents. They pay whatever fines, taxes, and penalties owed. They submit to fingerprinting andbiometricsto establish their identity.

5. Bar those who become legal residents from applying for citizenship, as punishment for breaking our laws. Minor children they brought to this country with them would be eligible for citizenship, and children born here, of course, are citizens.

This is not amnesty. It has penalties, but keeps families together while disrupting the avenues for illegal immigration.

Just and merciful.

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Byko: A five-point plan to solve illegal immigration - Philly.com