Immigration Walls

[Philip Ferguson <plf13@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tony Abdo wrote:
>Actually, the Europeans are not satisfied with their wall either.
>Still too porous all agree.       The WSWS has been doing some good
>commentary recently about Germany, and how the Social Democratic and
>Green Parties have attacked immigrants' right to move freely in the
>world.      See......Victims of the German SPD-Green coalition asylum
>policies.     And also the article below.


It is the same in this part of the world.

In Australia there has been a recent tightening up.  There is an article in
the current issue of 'revolution' about what's happening there, written by
a prominent Melbourne campaigner for migrant rights, Angela Mitropoulos.  I
will try to post it on the list in the next few days.

We ('revolution' magazine) have been rather tardy in catching up with the
tightening up that has been going on in New Zealand itself.  Late last year
there was a hunger strike in an Auckland prison by asylum-seekers.  The new
(Labour) government is, if anything, worse than the previous National
(Tory) party regime.  As of October 1, people can be served with
deportation orders and deported on the same day!!!  Labour's minister for
immigration, Lianne Dalziel, supposedly one of the most 'left' Labour MPs,
has come out with some appalling clamp-down rhetoric.

One of the problems here is that the anti-immigrant consensus incorporates
much of what is seen as the political opposition - eg the Greens (who have
7 MPs), Maori sovereignty activists, much of the remains of the labour
movement etc - are all in favour of pretty restrictive immigration
controls.  For instance, one of the main unions covering workplaces with
'illegals' has been encouraging the state/cops to carry out raids!  The
Greens use 'overpopulation' and 'environmentalist' arguments and Maori
sovereignty activists use 'indigenist' arguments.  So, support for asylum
seekers and migrant workers is confined to a very tiny and fragmented
section of the left.

Philip Ferguson