Indians among highest visa rule breachers in Australia

From Business Standard:

Indian students have been placed in the high risk group for visa breaches in Australia along with Bangladeshis and Cambodians, a development that may result in tightening of immigration rules for them.

Based on a review of the student visa programme by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship across all applicant countries, Indians were bracketed with Bangladeshis and Cambodians as a ‘level-four’ risk, which is the second highest risk category.

The student visa programme assessment level was raised from three to four after last year’s review by the Immigration department. No nationalities have currently been placed at level-five, the highest risk category.

Experts say the upgrade may result in significant tightening of rules for Indian students and can affect the demand for their enrolments.

Under the new measure, Indians seeking education in Australia, will now have to prove they have enough funds to survive for the duration of their study and pass more stringent English language tests.

Immigration risk levels for Indian students were upgraded after a department audit that found that in 2006-07, 4.66 per cent of the 58,268 Indian nationals granted visas breached their conditions, compared with an average rate among foreign students of 1.32 per cent, an Immigration department said.

The number of Indian students studying in Australia has risen dramatically in recent years, from 11,313 in 2002 to 96,739 last year, Immigration department spokesperson added.

In 2007-08 the unlawful rate among Indian students was 1.48 per cent of a total 87,145 Indian visa-holders, compared with 0.99 per cent for the average foreign student.

While in May this year offshore applications for Indian students grew by 20 per cent as compared to last year, statistics for this month have till date remained the same as compared to June last year despite the attacks on Indian students being widely publicised.

The number of Indian students enrolled in Australia stood at 47,639 in the period between July 2007 to June 2008. The number was 38,162 in the period between July 2008 to February 2009.

Original article

"The number of Indian students studying in Australia has risen dramatically in recent years, from 11,313 in 2002 to 96,739 last year, Immigration department spokesperson added."

Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with the changes made by the former Howard Government which made it easier for foreign students to apply for permanent residency after they graduate?

As Monash academic Bob Birrell explained in a 2006 article:

In 1999, the Australian Government introduced a suite of reforms to its skilled migration selection system. Among the most important of these was the granting of incentives to former overseas studentsto encourage them to obtain permanent residence on completion of their courses. These incentives included additional points for Australian training and the waiving of the job experience requirement that skilled migrants applying offshore had to meet.

Policymakers thought that persons who had been trained in Australia, in English, would be more attractive to Australian employers than their counterparts trained overseas, especially if the overseas training had been conducted in a foreign language in a non-western educational setting. In mid-2001 new onshore visa categories for overseas students were introduced which permitted foreign students to apply for permanent residence without having to leave Australia, as long as they applied within six monthsof completing their training.

...

In a numerical sense these policy initiatives have been spectacularly successful. There were 5,480 onshore visasissued to principal applicants who were former overseas students under the three student visa subclasses in 2001–02. By 2005–06, this number had grown to 15,383.

These changes, quietly introduced without any public consultation, have effectively transformed Australia's higher education institutions into "visa factories" for foreigners seeking permanent residency. Australia's universities, starved of public funding, have welcomed and encouraged this influx of full fee-paying foreign students. As Dr. Peter Wilkinson noted in his book The Howard Legacy (2007), "the universities market themselves as providing education but they know, and certainly their prospective applicants know, that they are marketing permanent residency visas."

Educational standards have predictably dropped as the universities prostitute themselves for foreign cash. As several reports have pointed out, many of the foreign students granted permanent residency are largely unemployable in their particular fields due to poor English. This means that Australia loses out both ways by accepting sub-standard foreign workers while also degrading the quality of its domestic degrees. Worse still, the selling of permanent residency to foreigners also degrades the value and undermines the meaning of Australian citizenship, given that permanent residency provides an almost guaranteed path to naturalisation.

The cost of mass immigration

From Australia.To News:

Australia facing loss of its language, culture and environmental sustainability to mass immigration

By Frosty Wooldridge

While I write about degrading conditions in the United States, the Internet allows my work to travel all over the planet. As you know, relentless immigration endangers America, but also Australia.

Incomprehensible forces push for more population additions in both our countries. Those ‘growthists’ at the power positions operate in a mindless vacuum. They create a Faustian Bargain with the only outcome manifesting in Hobson’s Choice.

Yet, a glimmer of hope exposes average citizens to their dilemma. Mark O’Connor and William Lines wrote Overloading Australia to give everyone an idea of the calamity engulfing Oz.

In the USA, I wrote a piece, “America Losing its Language & Culture without a Whimper” for my fellow citizens. It appears that an Aussie picked it up from the Internet. You may appreciate his response:

“Frosty, you are absolutely spot on! Unfortunately I am seeing the same thing happening in Australia, most of my country men are either walking around in a "fog" or are too caught up in materialism or have been sucked in by the crap being pushed by the multi-cultural/multi-racial industry,” Robert said.

“Over the last two weeks in Melbourne & Sydney there have been large protests (several thousand strong) by foreign Indian students claiming lack of action from government and police to protect them from violent attacks. There have also been protests in India where effigies of P.M. Kevin Rudd were burnt. Indian newspapers have been running stories about Australian racism and saying that the attacks could threaten the income Australia gets from foreign students. The funny thing is: video surveillance tapes and recent arrests have identified the culprits as being of Middle Eastern identity.

“Large groups of India students have taken to the streets of Melbourne armed with clubs and attacked young men of Middle Eastern appearance. The Middle Eastern community is now asking for protection, meanwhile our politicians and self appointed ethnic spokesman are claiming the attacks aren't racially motivated. The average Aussie of European decent is sitting back scratching their head wondering what the bloody hell is going on?

“Regarding fee paying foreign students, I noticed that this is just another back door scam for residency in Australia for Third Worlders, once they complete their University or a basic Cooking, Hairdressing or Assistant in Nursing course at a ”shonk" so called Technical School they get bonus points towards residency status as they are considered skilled workers. At the same time local kids can't get placements at University, the management of Universities prefer the foreign students because they pay higher fees.

“On other matters Sydney's first Water Distillation Plant will be online soon to cope with our demand for more fresh water, the politicians are still blaming Global Warming as the reasons for building the plant, they refuse to acknowledge the demands that an increasing population is placing on our environment, health care system and life style.

“Since retiring, I have been doing a bit of casual work in a hospital, I can't believe the number of elderly people from Third World countries who are using our system and costing the taxpayer a bomb! Most of them have come here under the Family Reunion Program, the taxes their children pay could never cover the cost of providing health care and welfare for their parents.”

Australians must ask themselves if they wish to import the poor of the world to become the new entrenched poor of Oz. In the USA, we’re importing two million poor annually and they are breaking our medical, educational and prison systems. They cannot be educated as their numbers overwhelm our educational systems. Additionally, every poor teenage girl becomes pregnant faster than a hummingbird can flap its wings.

Additionally, those poor immigrants seeking a better life in the U.S. cost our taxpayers $346 billion annually in housing, food, medical, educational and resettlement costs. Immigrants must be costing Oz a bundle of cash too!

Australians may well look toward a total moratorium on all immigration before they find their country devolved into a multi-cultural and multi-lingual polyglot of incoherent mush.

One scholar, Seymour Martin Lipset, put it this way: “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon-all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with its Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans.”

Kant said, “Religion and language are the two great dividers.”

The fact grows more apparent daily: multiculturalism and multilingual societies cannot and do not maintain a cohesive or viable future. Australia will become a nation of strangers.

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com

You can also read Wooldridge's review of Overloading Australia here.

Watering down the citizenship test

The following article was first published in early 2008, prior to the Rudd Government's watering down of the citizenship test.

From The Independent Australian, Issue No. 14 (Summer 2007/08):

Ethnic Leaders Attack Citizenship Test

A new chorus of opposition to the citizenship test introduced by the former Howard Government late in 2007 has predictably arisen from ethnic leaders now that Labor is in power in Canberra, writes Alan Fitzgerald.

The push is on for the new government to dismantle the Citizenship Test. Much is made of the fact that 20 percent of those who sit the random choice test fail, which actually suggests that the test is working. Labor's Immigration Minister Chris Evans has said that in view of the failure rate he would review the test with the intention of making substantial changes to it.

Surely, if the Minister's aim is to ensure a 100 percent pass rate then it would not be a test at all.

Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria chairman Sam Afra said his organisation always believed the new test was discriminatory (what a surprise!) and would stop many lawful migrants from becoming Australian citizens.

"The news that 20 percent of applicants are failing the test confirms our fears", he said.

However, these critics often do not mention that a person who fails the test can continue to sit for it as many times as they want to, until they pass.

The questions, chosen at random from a resource book, are hardly difficult. If you aspire to be a citizen of this country, out ought to know the date Australia came into existence as a nation, the name of the city where the Commonwealth Parliament is located, or the colours of the Australian flag. To pass the test you are required to correctly answer 12 of the 20 questions that are drawn at random from a pool of 200 questions. As they say, "it's not rocket science" [But it was evidently still all too hard for some of the "skilled", "hard-working", "intelligent" immigrants arriving on our shores - R.E.]. Migrants under the age of 18 to 60 years of age and older do not have to sit for the test, and there exemptions for persons with physical or mental incapacities. Illiterate migrants may take the test in an alternative format.

The questions are selected at random to prevent those sitting the test from learning the answers by rote. One enterprising company is charging migrants $20 to sit 15 mock exams over 90 days online in preparation for the real test. A migrant is eligible to take the test after four years residence in Australia [In most other immigrant-receiving countries, it is at least five - R.E.]. Failing the test does not affect their residency rights but means they cannot take the oath of citizenship until they pass the test.

Further, Australia is not alone is asking potential citizens to demonstrate they know something about the nation that is offering them the benefits and privilege of citizenship. The USA, Canada and the UK all require persons to sit a test.

Critics of the test appear to be quite happy to misrepresent it. Joseph Wakim, a former multicultural affairs commissioner and founder of the Australian Arabic Council, claimed that if the test had been around when his family arrived in Australia, his mother being illiterate would have failed the test, and therefore "I would have not here to tell this story". This is rubbish [And thankfully so. Just think, where would Australia be without such perennially aggrieved ethnic minority activists? - R.E.]

Academic Dr Gwenda Tavan claims the test indicates a narrowly conceived cultural-nationalist model of citizenship that undermines the appeal and advantages of citizenship by defining social membership in overly exclusive, vague and sometimes facile ways.

NSW Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian said the test should rely less on culture and more on practical knowledge of Australia, "not about what happened 20 years ago in some cricket match."

Max Jeganathan, spokesman for Civil Liberties Australia, claimed the test was an attempt to promote Anglo-Celtic culture as being the dominant part of the overall Australian culture at the expense of multicultural identity.

Objection to the test seems more to do with objection to the idea that Australia has a culture of its own and that the nation's institutions, laws, politics, flag and history reflect that reality. The multicultural lobby would argue that mainstream Australian culture has nothing to offer them, but they have everything of value to offer Australia.

Which begs the question of why are they here in the first place?

There is no doubt that some minority cultures reject Australian values in favour of their own traditions which they are determined to maintain. For them, being in Australia - if not being an Australian citizen - is a matter of convenience. For them citizenship is just a ticket to social welfare benefits, job and educational opportunities and a guarantee against deportation should they or their kin embark on a career of crime.

Historian Ann-Mari Jordens (The Age, 10 January 2008) points out that citizenship for migrants involves a cost-benefit analysis. A sizeable proportion of migrants saw no tangible advantage in "making the leap". If migrants think so little of Australian citizenship - other than its economic aspects - who is to blame? Has Australia made it too easy for migrants to take up citizenship without demanding a real commitment to Australia? [The answer is, of course, yes. As Geoffrey Blainey once remarked, Australia hands out citizenship like fast food. - R.E.]

The absence of many persons of ethnic minority backgrounds in our armed forces and volunteer organisations suggests it is Australia which is being taken for a ride, not the migrants.

The Australian Government's embrace of dual citizenship only compounds the problem. Where do the newcomers' loyalties really lie? If they are only here for the money, where will they be in times of adversity? If they don't embrace Australian values - democracy, equality, freedom of religion, secularism - would they be prepared to embrace them let alone defend them if they came under attack?

To claim as the multiculturalists say, that there is nothing unique about Australian values is to deny reality. In most of countries of the world, from which we draw our migrants, these very values are either absent in the body politic or only honoured in the breach. How much democracy exists in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, or South America? The "all cultures are equal" mantra of the multiculturalists would leave a vacuum at the heart of the Australian story.

Objection to the citizenship test is a symptom of a larger problem - Australia's failure to promote its national story to its citizens - both native born and naturalised - through educational and cultural institutions. The idea that telling the national story - its achievements and failures - will cause newcomers to feel left out and alienated is a nonsense.

The 'progressive' left liberals who infest our universities and teaching professions are more at home in a global world than in a nation-state. To them national identity and culture are to be denigrated in favour of some woolly, basket-weaving world of cultural relativism.

The majority culture - the core culture of the nation - is entitled to its pre-eminent position for without it there wouldn't be a nation but a collection of tribes. To promote it is not to make newcomers unwelcome but hopefully remind them of why they chose to come in the first place.

Mass immigration and the intolerance of Western liberalism

British journalist Anthony Browne on mass immigration and the intolerance of Western liberalism:

The People Flow authors make a mistake common among pro-immigration advocates: seeing a nation as nothing more than a geographical entity with a functioning economy and a legal system. But a nation is first and foremost its people. It is the French people that define what France is, not lines on a map.

The pro-immigrationists are effectively trying to abolish nationhood, denying a country the right to sustain its own culture.

British-born white people, the progeny of the generation who survived the Nazi attempt to obliterate Britain as an independent nation state, now account for only 60% of the population of London. England has for more than 1500 years been a Christian country – its flag is a cross, its head of state is head of the national church – but in its second city Birmingham, Islam is now more worshipped than Christianity. In two boroughs of London, whites are already in the minority, and they are expected to become a minority in several cities in the coming decade.

If current trends continue, the historically indigenous population of Britain will become a minority by around 2100. Islam is the fastest growing religion, and much immigration to Britain comes from Muslims fleeing Muslim lands – around 75% of intercontinental asylum seekers are Muslim. But where are the limits? In an extreme example, would British Christians have a right not to live in an Islamic majority state?

For an answer to this, consider what that most liberal of American writers, Gore Vidal, said in a lecture in Dublin in 1999:

“A characteristic of our present chaos is the dramatic migration of tribes. They are on the move from east to west, from south to north. Liberal tradition requires that borders must always be open to those in search of safety or even the pursuit of happiness. But now with so many millions of people on the move, even the great-hearted are becoming edgy. Norway is large enough and empty enough to take in 40 to 50 million homeless Bengalis. If the Norwegians say that, all in all, they would rather not take them in, is this to be considered racism? I think not. It is simply self-preservation, the first law of species.”

But at what point are people of the west allowed to say that enough is enough, it is time for us to be allowed to preserve our culture? This is an issue of almost total, mind-numbing hypocrisy among western governments and political elites. They defend the inalienable right of other peoples – the Palestinians, Tibetans, native Americans – to defend their culture, but not the right of their own peoples.

It is vital to emphasise that mass immigration and the remarkably intolerant ideology of multiculturalism are exclusively western phenomena. Indeed, the striking thing about the global immigration debate in the west is its determined parochialism. If people in India, China, or Africa were asked whether they have a right to oppose mass immigration on such a scale that it would transform their culture, the answer would be clear. Yet uniquely among the 6 billion people on the planet, westerners – the approximately 800 million in western Europe, North America and Australasia – are expected by the proponents of mass immigration and multiculturalism to abandon any right to define or shape their own society.

Full article

Rolling out the red carpet for illegal immigrants

From The Daily Telegraph:

Rolling out the red carpet for illegal immigrants

Piers Akerman
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 06:09pm

THE stream of unlawful boat arrivals has shown the Rudd Government’s claim to a “deterrent” factor in its immigration policy is false.

Far from deterring arrivals, the Rudd Government, through Immigration Minister Chris Evans’ department, is encouraging people smugglers.

When the temporary protection visas (TPVs) and temporary humanitarian visas (THVs) were abolished by the Rudd Government last August, those affected were given protection visas called resolution of status.

They were told they had immediate access to the same benefits as a permanent protection visa holder, including Newstart and youth allowances, the adult migrant English program (AMEP), the age pension, disability support pension, family tax benefit and childcare benefit.

They were also given travel rights, eligibility for travel documents and the ability to sponsor their family through the Offshore Humanitarian Program.

The Howard government’s Pacific Solution was introduced in 2000-2001 following 54 boat arrivals. A further six boats arrived the following year but there were none in 2002-2003.

There were fewer than 100 the following year, zero in 2004-2005, 56 people in four boats in 2005-2006, 135 in five boats in 2006-2007, just 25 in three boats in 2007-2008, and in the current year 500-plus and climbing.

On the department website, the Rudd Government acknowledges TPVs were introduced by the previous government to discourage people smuggling and to discourage refugees leaving their country of first asylum.

That is correct. Moreover, Senator Chris Evans did not oppose TPVs when they first came before the Senate.

The department makes the further blatantly political comment that “the evidence clearly shows, however, that TPVs did not have any deterrent effect. Indeed, there was an increase in the number of women and children making dangerous journeys to Australia”.

That is sophistry. There was an initial blip, but as the numbers show, attempted arrivals dwindled until the new policy came into effect.

That policy was not crafted as a deterrent. It was formulated as a sop to shrill asylum-seeker activists.

It delighted them, the Fairfax Press and the ABC, as well as limp elements in the Liberal Party such as Petro Georgiou, Judy Moylan and Bruce Baird, along with scores of people smugglers and thousands of their potential clients.

That deterrence is gone is made clear on the department’s website: “Detention is only to be used as a last resort and for the shortest practicable time”.

Further, it is clear that the department will do everything possible to make the necessary stay for health, identity and security checks, as acceptable as possible.

Under the Rudd Government, the presumption is that a person who arrives unlawfully should be placed in the community as soon as practicable, the onus of proof is now on the department to justify why they should be detained.

When they must be held, there must be facilities available for recreational, educational and religious activities, specialist medical treatment must be made available as well as multi-language libraries and outdoor sporting facilities.

People in immigration detention can request excursions and departmental policy is to “ensure that evaluation of the request is progressed quickly”, with assurance that “given enough lead time, there are few restrictions”.

And, of course, detainees have access to internet facilities so they can let relatives know they are being cared for.

If they’re unhappy with their treatment, officials are to encourage them to complain. Promotional material in several languages (including Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin and Vietnamese) is displayed informing people in immigration detention that complaints may be made to departmental staff, DSP staff, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Red Cross about any aspects of a person’s detention and that relevant processes are in place to receive and respond to those complaints.

With all the evidence indicating that the Rudd Government has opened the door, it now needs to set up a complaints department for the residents of Christmas Island where those who arrived on unlawfully aboard the growing armada are housed.

The Christmas Island Shire human resources and policy officer Keith Ravenscroft says shipments of fresh food have been raided to feed the 266 asylum seekers currently in detention and to provide for the big number of security staff, immigration and quarantine officers managing the asylum seekers.

“The local people here are not being looked after and their basic fresh food needs are not being met because the asylum seekers get priority over us,” Mr Ravenscroft told The West Australian. “They are eating better than us and yet we (taxpayers) are paying for their food.”

Deterrence? You have to be kidding.

Original article