Iced Out: How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers’ Rights

[Excerpt] In recent years, however, our federal government’s approach to immigration enforcement has severely interfered with the protection of labor rights for immigrant workers. The single-minded focus on immigration enforcement without regard to violations of workplace laws has enabled employers with rampant labor and employment violations to profit by employing workers who are terrified to complain about substandard wages, unsafe conditions, and lack of benefits, or to demand their right to bargain collectively

DO HUMAN RIGHTS KNOW BORDERS? : A Human rights critique of contemporary approaches to irregular migration

This thesis is about how some people are ‘inside’ the protection of the law, while others are ‘outside’. More specifically it is about how some people are left vulnerable because of certain migration policies, criminalisation, economic exploitation and the exclusionary logic of borders and nations. An important question framing the issue is how the relationship between the sovereign nation-state, its legal residents and the ‘illegal’ migrants is or should be constituted and what fundamental principles that should guide these relationships of power or disempowerment. Irregular migration stands as a huge contemporary challenge and our responses so far seem inadequate because they do not appear to stop irregular migration, and because they seem to bring us at odds with moral and human rights principles. In this thesis I will argue that we need to dramatically rethink our responses to borders and irregular migration and that the promotion of a human rights sensitive agenda can show us new ways to approach this critical issue

Suicide by Democracy: An Obituary for America and the World 2nd Edition

Among the millions of pages of print and web pages and incessant chat and chatter on TV and blogs and speeches, there is a notable absence of a short clear honest, accurate, sane, intelligent summary of the catastrophe that is destroying America and the world. This is partly due to a lack of understanding and partly to the suppression of free speech by the leftist/liberal/progressive/democratic/socialist/multicultural/diverse/social democratic/communist/third world supremacist coalition. I attempt to fill that gap here. An integral part of modern democracy is The One Big Happy Family Delusion, i.e., that we are selected for cooperation with everyone, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). The No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces these delusions. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. I describe the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology, which, though eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 to 150,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is ultimately about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection, i.e., natural selection). One might take this to imply that a just, democratic and enduring society for any kind of entity on any planet in any universe is only a dream, and that no being or power could make it otherwise. It is not only ‘the laws’ of physics that are universal and inescapable, or perhaps we should say that inclusive fitness is a law of physics. The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the human mind. In recent times an even more evil notion arose, that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges. The idea of human rights, as now commonly promulgated, is an evil fantasy created by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. Thus, every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc. And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive, and their descendants. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways. Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. In a horrifically overcrowded world with vanishing resources, there cannot be human rights without destroying the earth and our descendant’s futures. It could not be more obvious, but it is rarely mentioned in a clear and direct way, and one will never see the streets full of protesters against motherhood. The most basic fact, almost never mentioned, is that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. The attempt to do this is bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources, and the addition of some 3 billion more ca. 2100, will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness and enables long term planning. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests (which I suggest may be regarded as an unrecognized -- but the commonest and most serious-- psychological problem -- Inclusive Fitness Disorder). This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. This is happening even without climate change or the evil designs of Seven Senile Sociopaths who rule China, but they make it happen much faster. The only major change from the first edition of this essay is the addition of a brief discussion of China, which represents by far the greatest threat to peace and freedom worldwide. The policy of appeasing them, which all countries and most businesses pursue, is the worst of the suicidal utopian delusions. Those wishing to read my other writings may see Talking Monkeys 2nd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle 2nd ed (2019), Suicide by Democracy 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Stucture of Human Behavior (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019

Israel's violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination with regard to asylum seekers and refugees in Israel

This report is in response to the 14th, 15th and 16th periodic reports of the State of Israel to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).This report demonstrates that Israel continues to ignore its international obligations towards asylum seekers and refugees which are predominately from sub-Sahara Africa. Various Israeli laws, policies and practices are racially discriminatory at their basis against this vulnerable population. For instance, Israel maintains a harsh policy of detention, tolerates segregation in the education system in Eilat and allocates temporary group protection to over 90 percent of the asylum seekers who arrive to Israel. As a result, asylum seekers live in constant fear of being returned to their countries of origin to face further persecution.The root of this discrimination stems from the tension created by Israel's sensitive political demographic status as a Jewish state. Several of Israel's high-ranking politicians have demonstrated an apparent lack of commitment in protecting the human rights of asylum seekers and eliminating racial discrimination. Their racially discriminatory and inciteful language, wholly adopted by the media, is at least partially responsible for generating the community-wide backlash against the asylum seekers that is documented in this report.This report is supplemented by a video report which provides visual documentation of the rising tide of hatred, fueled not only by certain Members of the Knesset but also by the Israeli community, and additional material not included in the written report. Whilst copies of the video have been provided to CERD, it can be viewed by members of the public at http://www.ardc-israel.org/en/articles/83. In closing ARDC offers recommendations where Israel could make advances in meeting its obligations under CERD.The report has been prepared with significant contribution by David Sheen, a journalist who has reported from Israel since 1999. In his work as a journalist, Sheen has extensively documented racial discrimination against many sectors in the Israeli community and particularly against the non-Jewish African asylum seekers. Together ARDC and Sheen are able to cite an extensive body of evidence to demonstrate that the Government of Israel has failed to meet its obligations under CERD with respect to this community. Additionally, our response to Articles 5(d) and 5(e)(v) regarding detention of unaccompanied minors and the segregation in the education system in Eilat were written with contributions from our partner organization Assaf -- Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel

"Keep Your Head Down": Unprotected Migrants in South Africa

Looks at the experiences of undocumented migrant farm workers in South Africa, many of whom lack adequate legal protections and are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses when they are arrested, detained, or deported

Ethics and exclusion: representations of sovereignty in Australia’s approach to asylum-seekers

From 2001, the Australian government has justified a hard-line approach to asylum-seekers on the basis of the need to preserve its sovereignty. This article critically evaluates this justification, arguing that the conception of sovereignty as the ‘right to exclude’ involves a denial of responsibility to the most vulnerable in global politics. We particularly focus here on the ways in which the Australian government has attempted to create support for this conception of sovereignty and ethical responsibility at the domestic level, through marginalising alternative voices and emphasising the ‘otherness’ of asylum-seekers and refugees. We conclude by suggesting what this might mean for the treatment of asylum-seekers in global politics and for statist approaches to global ethics

Xenophobia, International Migration and Human Development

In the continuing discussion on migration and development, the vulnerability of all migrant groups to exploitation and mistreatment in host countries has been highlighted along with an emphasis on protecting their rights. However, xenophobia has not yet received explicit attention although anti-migrant sentiments and practices are clearly on the rise even in receiving countries in developing regions. Despite gaps in existing empirical work, research and anecdotal evidence exposes pervasive forms of discrimination, hostility, and violence experienced by migrant communities, with the latter becoming easy scapegoats for various social problems in host countries. This study attempts to insert xenophobia in this debate on migration and development by examining the growth of this phenomenon in host countries in the South. It provides short accounts of xenophobia witnessed in recent times in five countries including South Africa, India, Malaysia, Libya, and Thailand. The ambiguity surrounding the concept is discussed and crucial features that define xenophobia are outlined. A variety of methods to study it are likewise identified. Using a wide range of examples from diverse contexts, the paper explores possible reasons for the intensification of xenophobia. The final sections of the paper briefly outline the developmental consequences of rampant xenophobia for migrant and host populations while examining policy options to tackle it