My issue with this is that Hispanics/Latinos have crafted the immigration issue as strictly THEIR issue. There are African, Eastern European and Asian immigrants that have faced the same challenges they have, but it doesn't seem like their stories are associated with the Immigration struggle. Why don't you see these groups campaigning against a country ENFORCING its immigration laws? Let me guess, its because they are docile and less vocal than their Latino counterparts...
If you see what they are doing in the U.K. to immigrants, legal and illegal, you'll laugh at our own immigration laws. At the end of the day if my African/Haitian brothers and sisters are deported and can't even get asylum from the war torn economically ravaged countries they are fleeing, then everyone else should be as well.
Things are heating up on the immigration issue in Europe ...
I'm beyond numbness with policy in the U.S. concerning this hemisphere.
January 19, 2014 8:15 pm
David Cameron faces EU isolation on anti-immigration stance
By Kiran Stacey in London and James Fontanella-Khan in Brussels
©Charlie Bibby
David Cameron has promised a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union
David Cameron risks “damaging Europe” with his
anti-immigration stance, according to some of Britain’s allies, leaving the prime minister looking isolated in his attempts to restrict free movement in the EU.
Ministers and officials from several EU powers told the Financial Times they would resist Mr
Cameron’s attempts to restrict the ability of citizens from new member states to travel freely across the union.
Germany looks poised to become the most powerful opponent of Mr Cameron’s plans. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the new German foreign minister, said that any leader who attempts to limit the free movement of labour posed a threat to Germany’s economy.
Mr Steinmeier said: “Germany has benefited tremendously from this and surely more than others. Now many young people from southern Europe are coming to us, to learn and study. That benefits us and also helps the states from which they come. Whoever questions that damages Europe and damages Germany.”
Free movement was an undeniable part of European integration that could not be changed or renegotiated, he said.
The German position will be a blow to Number 10, which has listed Berlin as a fellow advocate of migration reform, due to its support for a limited clampdown on the benefits regime for EU migrants. Mr Cameron is fighting for concessions on free movement to fend off rebellions in the Conservative party over Europe.
Dozens of Tory MPs have called for a national veto over EU laws, which the government has ruled out as unworkable. David Davis, the former Tory leadership challenger, this weekend urged the prime minister to be more explicit over which
powers he wants to repatriate from Brussels.
Mr Steinmeier’s opposition is echoed across Europe. In an interview with the FT, Paschal Donohoe, the Irish minister for Europe, said: “The ability of people to move freely around the union is an absolute cornerstone of the European Union. It represents an integral part of the deal overall that keeps the union together. [We have] freedom of people, freedom of services and freedom to move money around.”
He added: “Many of the issues I believe can be dealt with through the implementation of the domestic competencies that have already been enacted through the Lisbon treaty.”
Dutch officials say concerns about immigration can be solved by introducing tougher EU-wide penalties on those who abuse free movement rules. The French support this approach.
The resistance from some of Britain’s closest allies is a problem for Mr Cameron’s efforts to reform freedom of movement. In an article for the FT last year, the prime minister suggested that Europe should “require a new country to reach a certain income or economic output per head before full free movement was allowed”.
The proposals form part of his push to renegotiate the terms of
Britain’s membership of the EU before a promised referendum in 2017.
With
European elections due in May, polls suggest that his Conservative party could be beaten into third place by Labour and the UK Independence party, with immigration beginning to top the list of voters’ concerns.
Ukip emerged as the most popular of all UK parties in a ComRes poll published on Sunday, with 27 per cent of voters saying they “liked” it the best.
Separate research by Lord Ashcroft, former Conservative party treasurer and pollster, found that 37 per cent of 2010 Tory voters would not support the party in an election tomorrow. Half of those said they would shift their support to Ukip.
Without back-up from his European allies, Mr Cameron knows his attempts to gain the initiative on such a sensitive political issue are likely to come to little.
Germany and France have supported the UK’s attempts in Brussels to tackle benefit fraud committed by EU migrants, as all three have experienced a high influx of immigration from poorer member states, which put their welfare systems under stress.
But no European country has backed the UK’s stance on curbing free movement in the EU. Even the Netherlands, which has often been seen as the UK’s closest ally in Brussels, opposes Mr Cameron.
One diplomat from one of the bloc’s richest countries summed up the feeling among most in Brussels.
“Weakening of European freedoms is out of question” the diplomat said. “One can only warn against sacrificing the great European achievements on the altar of political populism. Where there is abuse, let us fight this effectively with existing means.”
Downing Street said: “Free movement is a central principle of the EU but it cannot be a completely unqualified one. The government is working with Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and others so that it is not the same as the freedom to claim benefits.”