European right-wing leaders meet in Prague, slam EU and immigration

December 17, 2017 By administrator

Meeting in Prague, right-wing leaders from across Europe have praised Austria’s anti-immigration party joining the new coalition government. The politicians are seeking to build cooperation among populists.

Meeting under the banner of the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedoms (MENL) the conference was hosted by Tomio Okamura, whose anti-Islam and anti-EU Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party won 10.6 percent of the Czech vote in October’s parliamentary elections.

“In Europe or in our country people should behave as European or he should leave,” said Okamura, who was born in Japan to a Czech mother and Japanese-Korean father. “We want a Europe which respects national individuality, national identity and freedom.”

The European Parliament grouping brings together right-wing parties, including Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France, the Freedom Party of Heinz-Christian Strache in Austria, Italy’s Northern League and the Dutch Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders.

Praise for Austrian right-wing populists

They met as Austria’s Freedom Party became the junior coalition partner alongside Sebastian Kurz’s center-right People’s Party in Vienna.

The Freedom Party picked up several cabinet posts including the interior, defense and foreign ministries.

Holland’s Wilders called the Freedom Party’s entry into the Austrian government a sign that a “sister party” in the European Parliament group was “being taken seriously.”

Le Pen said it was “very good news for Europe” that the Freedom Party became the first right-wing populist party to enter government in the EU.

Wilders: EU an ‘existential threat’

Le Pen insisted that none of the parties were xenophobic.

“We are in opposition to the European Union because we believe it is a catastrophically disastrous organization. Migration is close to being unbearable, our respected cultures are being destroyed. We like diversity. I like the Dutch to be Dutch, I like the Czech to be Czechs, I like the French to be French, I like the Italians to be Italian.”

Wilders called Brussels an “existential threat to nation states” while praising eastern EU member states for closing the door to migrants.

Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic’s refusal to accept EU migrant quotas have put them at odds with Brussels.

Okamura was able to tap into Czech fears by taking a hardline against immigration and Islam, even though the country has only taken in 12 refugees under the EU’s migrant sharing scheme.

Saturday’s meeting did not include the German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

However, former AfD member Marcus Pretzell did attend the meeting. He split from the AfD after the September election to join the Blue Party, founded by the former AfD co-chair who is also his wife, Frauke Petry.

cw/jm (AFP, AP, dpa)

Donald Trump sends list of hard-line immigration policy principles to Congress

October 9, 2017 By administrator

The Trump administration has issued a list of immigration priorities that threaten to derail a deal with Democrats on protecting young immigrants known as “Dreamers.” They include building Trump’s promised border wall.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday presented congressional leaders with a list of hard-line policy wishes that he says must be enacted in exchange for a deal with Democrats to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

The list includes the construction of Trump’s long-promised — and controversial — wall along the US-Mexico border and speeding up deportation of visa overstayers. Trump also calls in the list for an end to “extended-family chain migration,” limiting family-based green cards to spouses and minor children.

The demands include some policies that Democrats say are off the table, and thus could potentially derail ongoing negotiations over protecting young immigrants from deportation, many of whom were brought to the US illegally as children. The immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” had been given a reprieve from deportation and permission to work legally in the country under President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

Trump ended the program last month, but gave Congress six months to come up with alternative legislation to prevent recipients from losing their status.

Democrat outrage

Senior Democrats have sharply criticized Trump’s list, saying it went “far beyond what is reasonable” and contained no attempt at compromise.

“The Administration can’t be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement.

Media attention elsewhere

The list, which also includes proposals to dramatically increase the number of immigration enforcement officials was issued unexpectedly in the middle of a long weekend.

Its release was also overshadowed by the media attention given instead to Vice President Mike Pence’s exit from a football game on Sunday because some players knelt instead of stood during the national anthem before the game in a continuation of protests against racial injustice.

Pence’s action has been seen in some quarters as a PR stunt by the administration.

tj/kms (dpa, AP, AFP)

Iraqi Kurds resume immigration to Europe amid crises in Kurdistan

July 26, 2017 By administrator

SULAIMANI, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— Kurdish people have once again started to migrate to European countries as the crises in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region have become further complicated.

Part of the workers in Sulaimani second hand markets told NRT on Monday Kurdish people have resumed selling equipment in their homes to migrate to European countries.

“When we go to the houses, they say they sell everything except their clothes,” a worker at Sulaimani second hand markets said. “For example, I paid $9,000 [for the equipment of] three houses yesterday.”

“There are people who sell their equipment to go to abroad,” another worker said.

The head of the Kurdistan Branch of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR), Ari Jalal, told NRT Kurds’ migration has widely resumed as the political and economic situation in the Kurdistan Region remains unclear.

“Despite the difficulties with the routes to Europe, people have begun immigration to European countries just like the previous years due to the lack of payment, jobs, and unemployment with the hope of a better and deserved life,” Jalal said.

According to the federation’s statistics, 240,000 people from the Kurdistan Region and Iraq have traveled to Turkey as tourists in the first six months of this year. Most of them have gone to Greek and Italian coasts, the statistics indicated.

Up to 300 people have died en route to Europe in the last three years, and 48 bodies of Iraqi and Kurdish people have also gone missing.

Source: http://ekurd.net/iraqi-kurds-resume-immigration-2017-07-25

US authorities detain hundreds in immigration raids

February 12, 2017 By administrator

US authorities have arrested hundreds of people across five states. Officials have called the operations “routine” but immigration advocates say it signals a more aggressive policy under President Donald Trump.

Hundreds of people who were in the United States without authorization were arrested this week as President Donald Trump’s hard-line stand on immigration appears to be being put into action.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency conducted a series of immigration sweeps across Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. While the agency did not release the total number of detainees, a spokesman for the Atlanta office said it had arrested 200 people, while the director of enforcement and removal for the Los Angeles field office, David Marin, said his office counted 161 arrests.

This week’s raids sparked concerns among immigration advocates and families. The sweep comes on the heels of Trump’s executive order barring refugees and migrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US. The order is currently on hold after a District Court judge in Seattle ordered a temporary halt to the ban.

“The fear coursing through immigrant homes and the native-born Americans who love immigrants as friends and family is palpable,” the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, Ali Noorani, said in a statement. “Reports of raids in immigrant communities are a grave concern.”