IMMIGRATION REFORM: TRY CASH FOR CLUNKERS

Written by Paul Fromm

Thursday, 27 August 2009 07:10

*Immigration Reform: Try Cash for Clunkers* You are on to something here, Paul. There is a veritable torrent of "wonderful ideas" for stimulating our economy from our esteemed political and economic leaders. But finally here is a good one. Trust the Japanese to figure out a really effective way of dumping at least some of their political woes: I call this plan the Japanese version of "Cash for Clunkers"! "The Japanese government has come up with a novel plan to ease the burden of unemployment. It is paying jobless immigrants to go back home. Japan is offering $3,000.00 for each foreigner and $2,000.00 for each family member, to return to their country of origin. Takers must sign an agreement not to return until the economy recovers." (*Maclean's, *May 11, 2009) Ostensibly they will have to wait to be invited back ~ and who knows how soon that time will come? Now, talk about clever. Canada should adopt this great idea ~ especially since they have royally screwed up our immigration policies in the last decade. But, count on our "more gentle and considerate" Canadian politicians and immigration bureaucrats to mess up a good thing. ~ If we adopted this idea, we'd probably give them the money, give them unemployment insurance and health care benefits while they were away, send a ship, with better sandwiches this time, to bring them home, pay their way there, pay their way back, invite them to bring along their entire extended family and give them all a huge re-landing bonus. But who cares ~ just think of all the spin-off benefits of this exceptionally smart idea in the meantime! Sharon

 

A FOLK HERO/VILLAIN OF THE PEOPLE TRADE SISTER PING WAS A 'SNAKEHEAD' WHO MADE MILLI

Written by Paul Fromm

Thursday, 27 August 2009 07:08

*A folk hero/villain of the people trade Sister Ping was a 'Snakehead' who made millions smuggling Chinese into United States* ** *Dear Immigration Reformer:* ** *Infamous Snakehead or people smuggler for profit Big Sister Ping made over $40-mllion dollars illegally smuggling Chinese into Canada and often on to the U.S. Luckily, she was finally apprehended and sentenced for her heartless greed in the U.S. and drew a 35-year sentence. * ** *When six boatloads of Chinese illegals hit the B.C. coast in 1999, then Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan announced that she did not see her role as a gatekeeper and invoked the ethtnic cry of "Remember the St. Louis" to do very little. She did inveigh against people smugglers and promised stiff sentences of up to 10 years. No snakehead in Canada has ever served more than a few months. However, immigration critics like Brad Love have drawn 18-month sentences for merely criticizing the invasion.* *Paul Fromm* *Director* *CANADA FIRST IMMIGRATION REFORM COMMITTEE* *Aug 09, 2009 04:30 AM Mitch Potter Toronto STAR - Washington Bureau* *WASHINGTON– Six-year-old Haw Wang nearly made it, all the way from China's Fujian Province to the Hotel Ibis in Toronto and finally to the banks of the Niagara River, one moonless night in the dead of winter. America was within sight. * ** *Minutes later, she was swallowed by the river's icy waters as the flimsy vinyl raft she was in capsized, spilling its human cargo. The smuggler scrambled back to the Ontario shore, leaving four fellow travellers to drown. The Niagara eventually yielded three of the bodies; the little girl's was never found. * *Though she perished a generation ago, Haw Wang's story is revived in the pages of The Snakehead, American writer Patrick Radden Keefe's fresh and comprehensive telling of the often ruthless criminal underworld that carries untold thousands of destitute migrants from rural China into the land of opportunity. * ** *Haw was to have been reunited with her mother, who had gone first to seek her under-the-table fortune in New York City's Chinatown. And as Radden Keefe tugs on the facts behind the child's demise, they all lead to the door of Sister Ping, by far the most renowned of the "Snakeheads" who populate this epic account of the global human smuggling networks. * *And here is where the tale gets complicated, as the author discovered during his own journeys from New York to Canada to Hong Kong and Bangkok and finally to Fujian itself, the epicentre of the complex Snakehead enterprise, where he found villages nearly empty now because everyone has left for America. * ** *Back in Fujian – and, indeed, in the Fujianese sections of Chinatowns from Toronto to New York – Radden Keefe discovered that Sister Ping is almost universally revered as a folk hero. A Robin Hood, even. She changed thousands of lives for the better. * *After a 10-year manhunt, Sister Ping was captured, tried and, in 2006, sentenced to 35 years in jail. Now 62, the woman who amassed an estimated $40 million in delivery fees from undocumented migrants will likely die behind bars. An arch-villain, full stop. * ** *"She is not the unalloyed heroine and benefactress that you hear about in Chinatown. Robin Hood didn't make $40 million. She may have incidentally helped create better lives, but she wasn't motivated by anything so altruistic," Radden Keefe told the Toronto Star in an interview in Washington. * *"But I also don't see her as the uncomplicated arch-villain. She took enormous risks. People died. But, if you go and talk to people in Chinatown, they will say, `We knew the risks. You were lucky enough to be born in the U.S.A., so you don't appreciate the notion of assuming risk.' They are willing to risk death. And man, that's kind of tough to wrap your mind around." * ** *This is hardly just a Chinese trait, the will to get there whatever the cost, or die trying, Radden Keefe says. Even in recession, an estimated 300 million migrants work abroad today, including an undocumented population larger than Canada's. And, if the global economic crisis slowed the flow, the price has gone up. Today's Snakehead rate per head is $75,000 (U.S.), more than double what it was in the early '90s, when Haw drowned in the Niagara. * *The book takes us through Sister Ping's life and times, including her role in the saga of the Golden Venture, the tramp steamer that shocked America in the summer of 1993 when it ran aground off New York, spilling 286 illegal Chinese immigrants into the surf. * ** *The one piece Radden Keefe says never quite figured in the Snakehead web, which spanned China, Southeast Asia, Africa, Central America and Mexico, was Canada itself. Though Vancouver and Toronto were useful cities for Sister Ping in her early years of operation, given the ease with which she was able to smuggle illegals by air from Hong Kong, "I still wonder why they wanted to then risk their lives by going that extra step to the U.S.," he said. * *"By making it as far as Toronto – a big, cosmopolitan, free metropolis with a relatively large Chinese population and, indeed, a pretty good size Fujianese population – you would think they would say, `Okay, we made it.' So why would so many continue, some to the extreme of getting on a pathetic vinyl raft in the middle of the night in January? It's a slightly insane undertaking. * ** *"One reason is that the United States holds a kind of mystique for the Fujianese. And it was exaggerated by weird feedback loops, where people would call home and play up their new life. Even though New York wasn't really the promised land for many, they never wanted to tell people, `Actually, I work all the time. And my boss withheld my wages. And I got hurt on the job, but because I'm illegal there's no recourse for me.'" * *While The Snakehead avoids any pat moral assessment of Sister Ping, it frames her as "a creature of her moment in history – an exponent of free-market capitalism run amok in an ever more borderless world." Bribery was her primary stock in trade, and from Guatemala to Belize to Bangkok there were always willing takers on the margins of officialdom, hands outstretched. Corruption in just a single jurisdiction along the pipeline is all that is required for an easy flow throughout. * ** *"There's always a way across, especially in the age of global trade and constant movement of people and goods. The irony is that even when border enforcement tightens, the price for the Snakehead goes up. People who might have tried to cross on their own suddenly are forced to go to the professionals," said Radden Keefe. * *But there are fewer Chinese takers at such daunting prices, not least because after two decades of outward flow, the destination for future prosperity now is in flux, he says. First, it was China's own explosive economic boom that sparked a change of direction, creating the largest internal migration in modern history, from inland China to the coastal cities. But even that flow is reversing today, as factories slow down or stop altogether and their workers ponder the next change of scenery. * ** *"Do they go back to their villages or do they pay Snakeheads to take them abroad?" asked Radden Keefe. * *"One thing is for certain: The migrant labour market in China is extremely sensitive to the differential in job opportunities. It responds quickly, and if the difference is stark enough, people will move. To the U.S., to Canada, to Australia, to Japan – you name it. Any place that looks like opportunity is better."*

 

EXPLAINING THOSE "ECONOMIC STIMULUS PAYMENTS"

Written by Paul Fromm

Wednesday, 26 August 2009 06:12

*Explaining those "Economic Stimulus Payments"* *Stimulus Payment Info. * *"This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new programme that I will explain using the Q and A format: * *Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment? A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers. * *Q. Where will the government get this money? A. From taxpayers. * *Q. So the government is giving me back my own money? A. Only a smidgen. * *Q. What is the purpose of this payment? A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy. * *Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China ? A. Shut up. * *Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the Canadian economy by spending your stimulus cheque* ** *wisely: * *If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China . If you spend it on gasoline, it will go to the Arabs. If you purchase a computer, it will go to China or Malaysia . If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico , Honduras , and Guatemala (unless you buy organic). If you buy a car, it will go to Japan . If you purchase useless crap it will go to China or Thailand . * *And none of it will help the Canadian economy. * *We need to keep that money here in Canada . You can keep the money in Canada by spending it at yard sales, going to a hockey game, or spend it on prostitutes, domestic beer and wine or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in Canada. *