Migration/Immigration

Earlier today, Yoani Sanchez posted questions to U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro regarding U.S.-Cuban relations on her blog, Generación Y. Sanchez, who was recently denied a visa to visit New York City to attend an awards dinner after she was awarded a Marie Moors Cabot Prize from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, received a direct response from Obama himself.

Obama addresses each point with steadfast poise, sticking to his administration's usual positions on the topic. He categorizes Cuban affairs as a domestic and foreign policy issue for the U.S. and emphasizes democratic rule, freedom of speech, and human rights, familiar rhetoric from the president. He also does not rule out a visit to the island in the future, not to work on his tan, but rather as a "diplomatic tool":

 I look forward to visit a Cuba in which all citizens enjoy the same rights and opportunities as other citizens in the hemisphere.

In his three years in power, Raúl Castro has been just as brutal as his brother. Cubans who dare to criticize the government live in perpetual fear, knowing they could wind up in prison for merely expressing their views.

With more than 2,000 killings this year in Ciudad Juarez, pictures of gunshot victims strewn about the streets and bulletproof-vested shopkeepers attending terrified customers, potential paramilitiary group formation, calls for UN peacekeeping troops and dire predictions of the violence spreading north the United States-Mexico border is increasingly looking like an all out war zone.

Perhaps it is because of this that I was surprised this morning to attend a conference calling for recognition that the transborder region is increasingly more a region than a border. Speakers at "Rethinking the U.S.-Mexico Border," came from both sides of the border, but it's more accurate to see their flawless bilingualism as an expression that they truly do view the area as a region that must work as one in order to harness the potential of what is already a $300 billion economy.

Among the recommendations presented by one group, the "Binational Task Force on the United States-Mexico Border," was the need to target demand for illicit drugs on both sides of the border (20 percent of drugs produced in Mexico are consumed there, most of the rest goes to the US), as well as the creation of parallel border agencies (such as the synergy between Canada and the US) facilitating coordination between the two countries. Importantly, they called for a reinstating of the American ban on assault weapons, and more work on preventing arms and cash smuggling south. They also advocate immigration reform in the US and more focus on development in Mexico to stem flows north. On the flip side, Mexico also needs to start taking illegal immigration seriously.

Given that NAFTA is now 15 years old, none of this should sound very surprising. But remembering that a lot of the talk about the border in recent years has involved walls (electrified or otherwise), vigilantes, and how to make everybody just stay put on their own side, this all sounded pretty good. As most of the speakers emphasized, it's not about philosophically agreeing with unilateral solutions or not, they simply don't seem to work.

Jesus Alcazar/AFP/Getty Images

Russian analyst and ex-KGB operative Igor Panarin wants the U.S. to enjoy its last eight months. Because after that, the world's sole superpower will be embroiled in a civil war that will destroy it. This message has found an audience in the radical right wing Tea Party movement.

Mass immigration, economic decline, racial tensions and moral degradation will spark the war that leads to this civil war and subsequent splitting of the United States. These are same fears expressed at Tea Party rallies throughout the US.

In Panarin's dystopia the south will go to Mexico. The Northeast will go to the E.U. The Midwest will go to Canada. The West Coast will go to China and Alaska will go back to Russia.

This theory has become moderately popular in Russia; however the Tea Party movement in the United States is his newest fan.    

Fans of irony take note. The people who say the U.S. is headed toward Socialism, or Fascism, or both, or whatever, are paying an ex-KGB academic to speak at their conferences. At a speech in Houston, Panarin said Texas' talk of secession -- consisting largely of Chuck Norris' offer to run for president and the controversy surrounding immigration is a sign that the end is nigh for the U.S.A.

Image via Richard Conn Henry/Wikipedia

 

Somalia may generally be thought of as a source of refugees, but fierce conflict in Ethiopia is sending more and more refugees into the country with predictably negative effects. There's recently been a large increase in street children and a rise in gang conflict in the city of Hargeisa, which is often an initial stopping point for immigrants seeking to travel further into Somalia or Yemen.

Children flocking to Hargeisa join Somali kids in searching for the most basic necessities, using any means necessary to find their next meal off the streets.  Current estimates claim there to be about 3,000 children, most of them boys between five and 18, living on Hargeisa's streets. Lacking families and home environments many of these children cling to gangs as a source of fraternity and stability. In the past two years, approximately 5,000 knives and weapons, commonly used in robberies, have been recovered from street children. Mohamed Ismail Hirsi, Hargeisa's Central Police Station commander recently stated:

"In the last 72 hours, we have arrested more than 30 street children who have committed crimes such as stealing mobile phones in different parts of the town."  

Increased crime by these young boys is complicated further by the fact that a 2008 juvenile justice law has yet to be implemented, forcing these children to be charged and processed as adult perpetrators.

In the Financial Times on Wednesday, Chris Cook argues that British immigration laws are giving an unfair edge to soccer clubs with more money.

Clubs with deep pockets hire the small number of local and foreign gifted players available, while poorer clubs must make do with the remaining, potentially much weaker, local journeymen.

Not only that, he says, but the protectionist measures of allowing non-European workers only if the fit certain high-skill benchmarks also inflate wages for less-skilled Europeans, raising ticket prices.

Cook contends tougher competition would boost the English national team:

The impact of more foreign players on the elite band of players who might conceivably play for the national team is that they need to play better to keep their places in their club teams. So, they improve. The English team has markedly improved since foreign footballers started pouring into the country’s top league.

Would some British and European soccer players be pushed out of work if rules were liberalized? Probably, but a more competitive league would be worth it Cook says.

Consumers of an increasing range of products will soon feel the pain in their wallets already endured by so many fans on a Saturday afternoon, who routinely complain that they pay ever-greater sums to watch a football league dominated by just four clubs. What English football needs is fewer English footballers. 

Not knowing that much about the economics of the Premiere Leage, here's a question: If teams in the lower half of the standings became much more competitive, would it increase their revenues? Higher ticket sales? More advertising?  

Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images 

A new government scheme has recruited a group of Saudi women to work locally as housemaids for the first time in the country's history. The thirty women, aged 20 to 45, passed a stringent application process and underwent intensive training before they were given contracts in homes across Jeddah.

The Ministry of Labor only permitted Saudi women to find jobs in domestic services two years ago. Work in the sector has been long stigmatized, thought of as "demeaning," and thus almost exclusively undertaken by economic immigrants.

Migrant workers currently constitute at least 67 percent of the Saudi Arabian workforce, though less conservative estimates place that figure anywhere between 85 and 90 percent. Most economic immigrants come from South and Southeast Asia and fill positions in the services and health sectors as nurses, maids, nannies and drivers. Despite strict labor laws and visa requirements, the Kingdom has come under repeated criticism for allegations of abuse leveled against foreign nationals and as a hub for human trafficking for those in service industries.   

Jay Director/AFP/Getty images

The weirdly persistant belief held by many Americans that President Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States has been back in the news lately thanks to Major Stefan Cook, the "birther" soldier who was granted has requested conscientious objector status because he refused to fight for a president he believes is illegitimate. There's also a bill gathering some support in the House that would change election law to require candidates to prove their citizenship.

The birther phenomenon is predictable form of paranoia given the president's unusually exotic (for a president, anyway) background. But isn't the larger scandal that the anachronistic natural-born citizenship requirement in Article II of the constitution still even exists?

Let's imagine that Barack Obama had been born in Indonesia or Kenya or anywhere else for that matter, and hadn't become a citizen until moving to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. Is there one good reason why that would make him less fit to be president?

Put another way, is there one good reason why foreign-born governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Granholm can't legally run for president but Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin can?

Naturalized citizens like Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Madeline Albright have been allowed into the highest positions in the U.S. national security establishment without anyone questioning their loyalty. Why shouldn't voters be allowed to decide whether a foreign-born candidate is American enough to be president? New York voters didn't mind the fact that Hillary Clinton had never lived in the state before running for its senate seat.

The fact that children of immigrants like Barack Obama, Bobby Jindal, Colin Powell and Rahm Emanuel were born in the United States rather than their parents' home countries seems like a pretty arbitrary distinction. A person can't help where they were born any more than they can help the color of their skin or their gender.

The last election saw the first person of color elected president and a woman get closer than ever before. Pretty soon, more than 15 percent of the U.S. population will be foreign-born. It's time that they had same shot. 

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

In a widely publicized move, the Obama administration is due to finally and officially announce its easing of restrictions to Cuba. U.S. citizens will now be able to travel and send money to the country more easily. (See FP's photo essay on Cuba for more details; and this FP article by Nestor Carbonell for a convincing argument against rushing into engagement.)

The Miami Herald says the announcement, to be made this afternoon, is meant to coincide with the Summit of the Americas, which starts on Friday in Trinidad and is attended by heads-of-state from North and South American countries.

Thankfully -- apparently the pet-poisoning revelation hasn't hurt relations.