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Apr 6, 2010

CQ - Behind the Lines for Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Image by taiyofj via Flickr

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Stockholm syndrome: "Maybe she's forgotten who she is -- or was," Arizona columnist muses of ex-governor Napolitano's reluctance to reinforce border . . . What's in a name: "The irony of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's acronym has never been lost on anyone, including the agency itself" . . . Bad CEO, no doughnut: "Despite growing awareness of how devastating a cyber-attack could be, many businesses still haven't implemented security measures." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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“Drug traffickers fighting to control northern Mexico have turned their guns and grenades on the Mexican army, in an apparent escalation of warfare that played out across multiple cities,” The Los Angeles Times’ Tracy Wilkinson updates — and see The Washington Post’s William Booth on the rise of a prison-spawned, cross-border paramilitary killing machine. “Maybe she’s just taking orders from her boss, Barack Obama. Or maybe she’s forgotten who she is — or was,” Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts hazards as to why DHS’s Janet Napolitano hasn’t yet dispatched troops to the border. “How to account for this refusal to appreciate a primary security problem escalating along our 1,500-mile southern border?” Sol Sanders muses in The Washington Times.

Feds: Since the Southwest Border Security Initiative began a year ago, DHS has increased tactical support to border area law enforcers, The Brownsville (Texas) Herald’s Laura Tillman relatedly surveys. The Pakistani Taliban takes credit for yesterday’s multipronged suicide attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, in which two non-U.S. defenders were killed, Al Jazeera reports — as the Post’s Joshua Partlow finds U.S. officials troubled by Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s threat to join the Taliban before bowing to foreign interference. A year on, the FBI’s eGuardian system “has proven a robust tool for aggregating terrorist threat information,” reaping 3,400 suspicious activity reports generating 56 investigations, a bureau official tells Security Management’s Joseph Straw.

Thin ICE: A federal program that partners local police agencies with ICE has grown rapidly without ensuring that police follow federal priorities or respect civil rights, The Arizona Republic’s Daniel Gonzalez has a DHS IG report finding. “The irony of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acronym has never been lost on anyone, including the agency itself,” Mary Giovagnoli spotlights on AlterNet. “Setting quotas to deport more illegal immigrants would mean diverting resources from getting rid of some of the nation’s worst criminals,” a Post reader writes. From 1997 to 2007, ICE and its predecessor deported the lawful immigrant parents of nearly 88,000 citizen children, Homeland Security Newswire learns from a report — and see Tanya Golash-Boza in CounterPunch: “ICE on the Border: The Politics of Deportation.”

State and Local: At an April 17 event in Albany, military and federal experts will brief responders and the public on coping with natural disasters and terrorist attacks, the Times Union tells — while The Pueblo Chieftain has Gov. Bill Ritter naming four area law enforcers to the homeland-security-bolstering Colorado Interoperability Executive Council, and The Sioux Falls Argus Leader sees a Highway Patrol vet appointed director of South Dakota’s Office of Homeland Security. New CDC numbers show tiny Rhode Island boasting the highest rate of swine flu vaccinations, about 39 percent, three times higher than Mississippi, which has the weakest participation, The Jackson Clarion-Ledger relays — as The Austin American-Statesman sees Texas officials monitoring a rise in swine flu cases in the Southeast United States and encouraging inoculation.

Bid-ness: The reason DHS and other agencies struggle to hire expert cyberwarriors “is simple: The pool of truly skilled security professionals is a small one, and the government is only the latest suitor vying for their talents,” The San Francisco Chronicle spotlights. “Despite growing awareness of how devastating a cyber-attack could be, many businesses still haven’t implemented security measures,” The New New Internet has a recent report highlighting. A former Chicago Police superintendent and a retired Secret Service chief helm a fast-growing security consulting firm, the Sun-Times profiles. The deadliest terrorist attacks on Moscow since 2004 didn’t stop Russian stocks from climbing more than every market worldwide last week, Bloomberg relates.

Bugs ‘n Bombs: A “certified cleaning expert” briefs The Lansdale (Pa.) Reporter on sanitizing measures for situations ranging up to “weapons-grade pathogens and bioterrorism.” Speaking of the Keystone State, the Biosecurity and Vaccine Development Improvement Act would keep money moving to one of recently deceased Rep. Jack Murtha’s pet recipients of taxpayer dollars, BioPrepWatch relates. Years after a six-month deadline passed, dozens of nations, including uranium producers, ignore a U.N. mandate on controls to foil nuclear terrorism, The Associated Press reports — while the Post reports that in the nuclear posture statement due today, Obama appears to be backing off promises to take the nation’s nuclear weapons off “hair-trigger alert.”

Close Air Support: Four newspaper companies are progressing with a suit to force Raleigh-Durham International to allow post-security newspaper racks, which airport authorities describe as a terror risk, USA Today updates. The newly announced screening regime for incoming non-citizens “will treat all passengers flying into the United States in the same way, regardless of their faith or nationality,” Arab News applauds — while a North Star National op-ed claims the measures “will weaken our ability to screen out terrorists.” The suspected terrorist who drove a car onto a Nigerian airport’s tarmac and into a parked aircraft “may have targeted the five Americans and top politicians on board the aircraft,” The Sunday Punch reports — as The Toronto Star terms a cadre of Mounties serving as in-flight security officers “one of Canada’s secret weapons in the war on terror.”

Coming and Going: “The key to unbinding the Gordian knot of mass transit rail security is to accept risk,” an Antiwar.com op-ed asserts. “Like much of TSA’s efforts on aviation security, its mass transit and passenger rail efforts remain a work in progress,” Homeland Security Watch adds. “Perhaps the most overlooked mode of transportation is our nation’s system of pipelines. With few resources, the TSA must protect this mode, in addition to more obvious ones like aviation and rail,” The Boston Herald leads. “There’s also the possibility of Seaport Canaveral being an enticing target for terrorists,” Florida Today observes, referencing the port’s new 118 million gallon tank farm. “A security expert warns the technology is far from perfect as Canada prepares to join 60 other countries next year and begin issuing electronic passports,” Calgary’s 660 News notes.

Home Front: Senate homelander Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., warned Sunday that extreme partisan anger is increasing the risk of domestic terrorism in the United States, Voice of America’s Paula Wolfson relates. If the Hutaree militia “are scapegoats of the Obama Homeland Security machine, well, we may never know it. One thing I do know for certain is these people are the perfect target for Napolitano and her gang,” Gina Miller conspiracizes for Dakota Voice. The Michigan militia arrests “should serve as a wake-up call to those in political leadership roles who are inciting rage against the government,” James Zogby exhorts in The Huffington Post. “Violence with the stated goal of changing the internal workings of our democracy is terrorism, not patriotism,” The Marion (Ohio) Star adjures. “Words can be weapons, too. So after nearly every new report of political violence . . . there is a vocabulary debate: Should it be labeled ‘terrorism’?” The New York Times’ Scott Shane explores.

Talking Terror: Some leaders “call for an offshore strategy of counterterrorism to retaliate after an attack rather than an in-country strategy of counterinsurgency to prevent such attacks,” Henry R. Nau notes in Policy Review. “Terrorism is like jazz; it’s all about improvisation and variation. That’s why conventional forces are dead in the water against it; they’re all ‘by the book,’ with top-down command and control,” Doug Casey tells HoweStreet.com. “We are safer because, despite his rhetoric, Obama became Bush in matters of anti-terrorism,” Victor Davis Hanson asserts in The National Review. Female suicide bombers are more driven by abusive histories than nationalist yearnings, Haaretz has a new book published in Israel positing — and check IPT News on “The Growing Threat from Female Suicide Bombers.”

Courts and rights: A pregnant American charged in a global terror plot will plead not guilty at a hearing tomorrow in Pennsylvania, AP learns — as The Chicago Sun-Times relays word of a Chicago cabbie also pleading innocent yesterday to attempting to aid al Qaeda. Unlawful immigration status is insufficient cause to permit lawsuit plaintiffs to hide behind anonymity, The Arkansas News Bureau has that state’s Supreme Court ruling — while The St. Louis Post-Dispatch covers the conclusion of a case that at one time promised to involve international terror finance. “It’s not that we aren’t going to have the rule of law. It’s which rule of law,” The Huffington Post quotes Lieberman, again, promoting military trials for accused terrorists.

Over There: A stepped-up campaign of American drone strikes in the Af-Pak border region this year has cast a pall of fear over an area that was once a free zone for al Qaeda and the Taliban, the Times leads. The leader of an Islamist terror group widely considered to be a nationalist insurgent organization has invited Osama bin Laden to Somalia, The Long War Journal relates. Salafi-Jihadi activities in Mauritania have increased significantly in the last couple of years, indicating that al-Qaeda-affiliated groups are becoming more effective in that country, Terrorism Monitor mentions.

Do You Solemnly Swear: “Things are slowly returning to normal today at the White House in the wake of the recent F-Bomb scare,” Unconfirmed Sources confirms. “All offices of the White House are back in operation after a tense afternoon following the evacuation of the entire facility during the signing ceremony for the bill to reform the American health care system. The evacuation was ordered when a Secret Service agent who was monitoring the bill signing determined that an F-Bomb had been dropped near the president. He was spirited away to a secure facility and the White House staff was also evacuated. The White House F-Bomb squad was called in and secured the building. The team of F-Bomb experts searched the building and recovered the remains of the F-Bomb, nobody was injured during the operation . . . Lawmakers, fresh from their success in passing Health Care Reform, have already vowed to address the F-Bomb crisis.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

Apr 1, 2010

CQ - Behind the Lines for Thursday, April 1, 2010

Image by Bill on Capitol Hill via Flickr

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Snap!: "Many security people are now billing themselves as counterterrorism specialists [b]ut they have no idea how terrorists think or operate," ex-CIAer slams . . . Gilding the lily: "The U.S. already has an effective means of stopping terrorism without the need to child proof the transit system," maven maintains . . . And that's that: "Anyone who says America's federal courts can't bring terrorists to justice is overlooking the facts," Sen. Feinstein says. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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“Many security people are now billing themselves as counterterrorism specialists, whatever that means. But they have no idea how terrorists think or operate,” ex-CIA operative Charles Faddis tells U.S. News’ Alex Kingsbury. “It is currently very difficult to prevent a suicide bomber from attacking a public transport system,” BBC News’ Chris Yates surveys — as Reuters’ William Maclean reports that “pressure on national budgets and growing problems identifying would-be bombers will make a tough task even harder,” and Jena McNeill chides in The Foundry, “The United States already has an effective means of stopping terrorism without the need to child proof the transit system.”

Homies: A TSA without a confirmed leader hurts in two ways: it’s bad for front-line morale, and it means there will be no bold policy proposals coming from the agency, counterterrorist Brian Jenkins warns Time magazine’s Mark Thompson — while Government Executive’s Alex M. Parker finds federal employee unions claiming, indeed, that the TSA leadership void is a buzz harshener. In light of anti-IRS terrorist Joe Stack and recent militia arrests, “perhaps conservative critics of DHS will reconsider” the scorn they heaped on its right-wing extremism report last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker suggests — but see Monica Crowley’s op-ed in The Washington Times.

Feds: An undercover agent gathered evidence for the FBI’s probe of the Christian militia group rounded up last weekend for allegedly planning to spark an anti-government uprising by killing cops, The Detroit Free Press’ David Ashenfelter and Ben Schmitt relate — while a USA Today editorial says the charges “should come as a surprise to no one,” and The Associated Press’ Corey Williams and Jeff Karoub report eight suspects pleading innocent yesterday. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., “is not the only prominent Republican who has advocated closing Guantanamo,” argues a Charleston Post and Courier editorial defending him against The Wall Street Journal’s charge that he is soft on terrorism. “Anyone who says America’s federal courts can’t bring terrorists to justice is overlooking the facts,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., opines in, again, the Journal.

State and local: Arizona state senators have approved a bill forcing schools to ask parents whether their children are in this country legally, The Arizona Daily Star relates. Georgia is seeing a spike in swine flu hospitalizations, having registered the most in the country for three weeks running, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has federal health officials saying. Police radio communications were down across D.C. for several hours earlier this week, FOX 5 News notes — while The Jackson Clarion-Ledger hears Mississippi officials hoping a $100 million DHS grant will heal first-responder communication woes exposed by Hurricane Katrina.

Ivory (Watch) Towers: The 528 students enrolled in homeland security studies at U-Mass can select from 21 courses in areas such as domestic terrorism, WMDs and forensic psychology, The Boston Globe profiles — while The Huffington Post polls readers: “Would you major in counterterrorism?” A Purdue University innovation using Bluetooth signals from wireless devices to track checkpoint wait times could help make more accurate airport staffing decisions, Homeland Security Newswire updates. John Yoo, who gave legal cover to Bush-era enhanced interrogation methods, tells the Los Angeles Times he’s happy teaching at Berkeley, “despite calls for his ouster and protests by liberal groups.” A Muslim scholar previously denied a visa and barred from speaking engagements in the United States is scheduled to speak at Harvard Law School, The Boston Herald briefs (and see below).

Bugs ‘n bombs: A dangerous ammonia gas leak in Indiana prompted evacuation of hundreds from their homes and sent at least three people to hospitals Tuesday, The Indianapolis Star relays. “Bizarre incidents among drug abusers in Europe force us to question whether experiments with biological weapons might be under way already,” a Washington Times op-ed leads. A recent CIA report warns that Iran has maintained its pursuit of nuclear capabilities that could help the Middle Eastern state build a nuclear bomb, Global Security Newswire notes. Iran’s nuclear ambitions, meanwhile, took center stage Tuesday at a Group of Eight foreign ministers summit on global security and terrorism, Agence France-Presse reports. A naval assessment group “is the latest government agency to tackle the threat from an EMP, a devastating electromagnetic burst that fries computers, sensors, weapons and all other electronics in its path,” Navy Times notes.

Close air support: Among the masses patiently queued up at an Orlando checkpoint early Monday a.m. was ex-DHS chief Tom Ridge, who quipped, “Some say it’s justifiable punishment,” The Washington Post reports — while WALB 10 News has suspicious luggage being “detonated, causing tension and flight delays at the Southwest Georgia Regional airport.” Colorado Springs Airport, meanwhile, is moving checked luggage screening back into the lobby while its baggage area is refitted for new automated explosives detection equipment, the Gazette relates — as The Baltimore Sun sees AirTran unveiling a $39 million baggage security system at BWI. A U.K. parliamentary report recommends that “passengers, and terrorists, should not know what [security] regime they will face when they arrive at airports,” The Times of London tells.

Ports in a storm: A new public-private security agreement covering the Port of Houston can serve as a model for other ports around the country, The Houston Chronicle hears the House homeland honcho praising. By requiring those doing business at Florida’s ports to pay for two background checks, the state has put Florida’s maritime industry at an economic disadvantage to the other 49 states, a Tampa Tribune op-ed objects. One of the biggest concerns for U.S. port authorities is that a mandate for 100 percent screening of incoming maritime cargo “would result in reciprocity — requiring U.S. ports to screen all outgoing cargo as well,” Security Director News notes. “Don’t make deals with pirates,” ABC News hears Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama advising in a just-published book about last year’s hostage ordeal in Somali waters.

Courts and rights: A federal judge ruled yesterday that warrantless eavesdropping on a now-defunct Islamic charity was illegal, Bloomberg reports. The Army officer accused in the Fort Hood shooting rampage is apparently being moved from a hospital to jail, AP relates. U.S. prison units specially designed to muzzle communications by inmates considered extremist are unconstitutional and discriminate against Muslims, Reuters has a lawsuit filed Tuesday charging. Digital Due Process, whose members also include Intel, eBay, AOL, AT&T and the ACLU, wants to require law enforcers to get a court order or search warrant before accessing any personal e-mail or other Internet data, The San Jose Mercury News notes.

Over there: A Pakistani court yesterday formally opened the trial of five Americans charged with terrorism and plotting attacks, which could see them jailed for life, AFP reports. The Russian-backed leader of Chechnya vows that terrorists who target innocent civilians must be “poisoned like rats,” CNN notes — while NPR has a Chechen rebel chief yesterday claiming the Moscow metro bombings. Russia’s decade-long fight against an Islamic insurgency has not worked, USA Today, relatedly, has analysts asserting. “In Iraq, we’ve seen the number of female suicide bombers swell due in part to a resistance to having men search women at checkpoints,” Salon suggests.

Mapping the thin ice: San Francisco’s police chief has had to apologize for quipping that the Hall of Justice “is susceptible not just to an earthquake, but also to members of the city’s Middle Eastern community parking a van in front of it and blowing it up,” The SFist relates. When six young Southern California Muslim men paused for prayer during a trip through Nevada earlier this month, police were suspicious enough to check their names against a national terrorism watch list, The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reveals. “Because they live together, guard their privacy and practice an unfamiliar faith, residents of Islamville have been viewed with suspicion,” The Tennessean profiles. A parliamentary committee has concluded that the U.K. government’s anti-terrorism scheme, Prevent, has backfired by stigmatizing and alienating Muslims, The Daily Telegraph discusses. FOX News “baselessly suggested that Muslim scholars Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib . . . are ‘terrorists,’” Media Matters chides.

Holy Wars: Terrorism experts say recent conservative political unrest has fueled a resurgence of radical militias, even though their popularity had declined after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, The Detroit News surveys. “There is a good reason to worry about right-wing anti-government extremism,” a Post columnist, relatedly, contends — as New York Magazine wrestles with whether a just-busted Michigan Christian militia cell is a terrorist organization. “Pakistani terror camps are teaching children the three R’s: reading, ’riting and rage . . . Graduates don’t go to college — they blow themselves to bits in Afghanistan to find paradise,” The New York Daily News spotlights. “The metro bombings in Moscow make clear that terrorism is far from exorcized from Russia. So where has it been hiding these last few, quiet years? The Web,” Foreign Policy leads. Two women dressed in Muslim clothing were attacked and beaten in Moscow after Monday’s deadly subway suicide bombing, Pravda reports.

My people will call your people: “It was one of the biggest winners at the Sundance Film Festival, and [it] wasn’t even supposed to be shown at Sundance,” CAP News leads. “Instead of an overlong moralistic art piece about a mute cripple and his magical beagle, the audience was subjected to the latest video from al Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. As al-Zawahiri railed against the [Obama administration’s Afghan] surge, many of the gathered Hollywood elite cheered, a few left, and one, Warner Independent Pictures head of development Michelle Olivant, saw greatness. ‘I was just spellbound,’ Olivant recalled. "I mean, here’s this old Muslim guy, hummus in his beard, soiled towel on his head, going off in a way that would rival, say, a Jack Nicholson or a George C. Scott. So powerful ... it still gives me goose bumps,’ she said. Warner immediately got in touch with al-Zawahiri’s people, and a three-picture deal rumored to be in the high seven-digit per picture range was hammered out.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

Mar 11, 2010

Births to Minorities Are Approaching Majority in U.S.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By SAM ROBERTS

In the latest sign of the nation’s shifting racial and ethnic composition, births to Asian, black and Hispanic women in the United States are on the verge of surpassing births to non-Hispanic whites.

Minorities accounted for 48 percent of all births in the nation in the 12 months ending July 2008. While it will most likely take years for health statisticians to confirm precisely when the 50 percent benchmark will have been reached, demographers said it could occur this year. Depending on variables like the recession, which has depressed birth rates, it will almost certainly happen within a year or two, they said.

“It looks like ‘majority’ births would drop below 50 percent around 2012,” said Carl Haub, senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau.

As recently as 1990, non-Hispanic whites accounted for almost two-thirds of births.

The Census Bureau has estimated that minorities will constitute a majority of the nation’s overall population in about three decades and a majority of Americans under age 18 in about one decade.

Since 2000 alone, the proportion of people under age 20 who are non-Hispanic whites dipped to 57 percent, from 61 percent. In 2008, Asian, black and Hispanic children already made up 47 percent of the population under 5 years old.

A study released this week by Professors Kenneth M. Johnson of the University of New Hampshire and Daniel Lichter of Cornell University explored why younger Americans are at the forefront of racial and ethnic changes and what those changes augur, compared with a generation ago.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

“The social and economic realities of children had deteriorated, while the circumstances of the elderly had improved,” they write in the journal Population and Development Review. “Will America’s older, largely white population — through the ballot box and collective self-interest — support young people who are now much different culturally from themselves and their own children? Will they vote, for example, to raise taxes for schools that serve young people of ethnic backgrounds different from theirs?”

Even though immigration has declined from earlier projections, other variables are contributing to the racial and ethnic shift.

Among them are a decline in the number of non-Hispanic white and even black children; white and Asian birthrates below the replacement level, which magnifies the impact of higher Hispanic birthrates and immigration; and declining numbers of non-Hispanic white women of child-bearing age (down 6 percent since 2000), while the number of Hispanic women in that category climbed 21 percent. There were about 10 Hispanic births in a recent year for each Hispanic death.

“The big drop in white child-bearing age is probably only beginning to be fully felt in the number of white births, so they may drop more,” said Professor Johnson, who is the senior demographer at New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute. “In contrast, the rapid rise in the number of minority women — especially Hispanics — is likely to push minority births up.”

The vast majority of children in the three major minority groups are not immigrants, and the share of Hispanic children who were born abroad may have peaked. Still, only 39 percent of Hispanic children under 4 years old have two native-born parents.

Feb 23, 2010

Singapore moves to curtail immigration

Image via Wikipedia

By PATRICK BARTA And P.R. VENKAT

Singapore announced new steps to curb immigration as it tries to defuse one of its most contentious emerging political issues.

The rich Southeast Asian city-state has for years admitted large numbers of foreign workers to boost its population and to stay competitive with China and other countries with deeper pools of cheap labor. But Singaporean citizens are increasingly dissatisfied with the policy, which they say causes overcrowding and depresses local wages. Economists believe an over-reliance on foreign workers also is keeping productivity levels down, jeopardizing Singapore's future growth.

Responding to those concerns, the government said in its annual budget Monday that it will raise levies on foreign workers in phases, starting in July. By 2012, employers will be expected to pay an increase of about S$100 (US$71) in per-worker levies in the manufacturing and services sectors, while charges for construction workers could be higher. The government also will introduce some additional changes resulting in higher levies.

Although relatively small in absolute terms, analysts say such costs are high enough to discourage some employers from hiring low-skilled workers from overseas, especially companies with big work forces in manufacturing and other industries, where profit margins are razor thin.

Image via Wikipedia

It's unclear, though, whether the steps will placate citizens who feel the government hasn't done enough to keep Singapore's foreign-born population from growing too rapidly. Between 2005 and 2009, Singapore's population surged by roughly 150,000 people a year to five million—among their fastest rates ever—with 75% or more of the increase due to foreigners.

Opposition leaders, including those in a new Reform Party created in 2008, have increasingly used the immigration issue to criticize the government, and may be getting some traction, analysts say. Historically, Singapore's opposition parties have had limited growth, in large part because of the government's ability to deliver solid economic growth and rising standards of living.

Given popular dissatisfaction over the issue, the government needs "to look like they're doing something" on immigration, says Tim Condon, an economist at ING in Singapore.

The government has signaled for some time that it is willing to limit immigration, but it is unclear how far it would be willing to go. Singapore already has an exceptionally low unemployment rate of 2.1%, so any move to restrict labor flows is likely to be unpopular among companies that need more workers. Singaporean officials have argued that the higher costs will ultimately force companies to become more efficient instead of counting on cheap employees.

Monday's announcement came on the heels of a government move Friday to curb rising property prices, another source of unease among Singaporean citizens. Aside from tightening rules for home-loan borrowers, the government introduced a seller's stamp duty on all residential properties and residential land bought and sold within a year.

The Singaporean budget otherwise was notable for avoiding big hand-outs and stimulus such as loan guarantees or credit support to companies, focusing instead on long-term targets, including improving productivity by 2% to 3% a year over the next decade, compared with the 1% rate of the past decade.

In January 2009, Singapore announced a S$20.5 billion stimulus package to keep the export-dependent economy from falling deep into recession. The economy contracted 2% last year, much less than the 9% contraction the government initially estimated when it presented the stimulus.

"Budget 2010, therefore, looks beyond the immediate rebound in the economy," Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said. "It focuses on building up the capabilities we need for a phase shift in our economy over the next decade, with growth being based on the quality of our efforts rather than the ever-expanding use of manpower and other resources."

He said the government will give tax benefits to companies that invest in skills and innovation.

—Sam Holmes
contributed to this article.

Europe's Stark Choice on Immigration

Europe is on track to lose 52 million workers between now and 2050—unless it begins embracing immigrants fast.

PHOTOS

Exposing Europe's Invisible Army

The 'new Europeans'—illegal immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers on the continent.

By Stefan Theil | NEWSWEEK

Published Feb 19, 2010

From the magazine issue dated Mar 1, 2010

You'd never guess it from the rants of America's talk-radio Jeremiahs, but U.S. immigration policy isn't really a disaster. In fact, Europe has recently begun studying it enviously—or was studying it anyway. Then the recession struck. Now it's open season on foreigners across much of the continent. Italy's interior minister, a member of the xenophobic Northern League, has sent armed carabinieri to clear out camps of jobless migrants in Naples and other parts of the south. In Britain, Tory leader David Cameron recently promised that if his party wins upcoming elections he'll slash immigration by 75 percent—and that's on top of the visa quotas imposed last year by the current Labour government. Ahead of key regional elections in France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a noisy debate about "French identity." Switzerland has outlawed minarets, and France, not to be outdone, is considering a ban on burqas.

The trouble isn't a shortage of immigrants. The European Union has attracted 26 million migrants in the past two decades—a full 30 percent more than America's 20 million over the same span. But most European countries tried to protect homegrown labor by shutting out foreign workers. The efforts mostly backfired, encouraging a massive influx of illegal aliens, who tend to accept rock-bottom wages and benefits because they have no legal recourse. At the same time, Europe's generous social benefits encouraged a massive surge of "welfare tourism." As a result, Europe has ended up with 85 percent of all unskilled migrants to the developed countries but only 5 percent of the highly skilled. Compare that with the United States, which has honed its innovative edge by attracting 55 percent of the world's educated migrants. And because immigration happens largely via networks, with established immigrants paving the way for their peers, such trends tend to endure. "It therefore takes decades to turn immigration policy around," says Thomas Liebig, a migration specialist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

For decades most European countries have consigned immigrants to the margins: in Germany, some professions were restricted to German citizens well into the 1990s, while eligibility for citizenship itself was based on bloodlines until a landmark reform in 2001. Millions of refugees were legally barred from working, which forced them into squalid welfare dependency. Muslims especially remain unintegrated and ghettoized in many European countries, including France, Britain, and the Netherlands. Now many European countries have tabled important policy reforms such as the drafting of a continentwide asylum policy and the formulation of smarter immigration criteria based on education and skills. Others, like Spain and the Czech Re-public, are actually paying migrants to go away. The danger is that Europe's worsening hostility toward foreigners will halt or even reverse efforts to assimilate those who are already there, spawning a fast--growing, permanent underclass. According to the OECD, immigrants have been losing jobs at almost twice the rate of native-born citizens during the current crisis, and in many countries the socioeconomic gap between immigrants and natives has begun to grow again.

All this comes at a critical moment for the global economy. Economists predict that global GDP will double in the next 20 years, and as many as 1 billion new, skilled jobs will be created. To avoid being left behind, Europe will need to upgrade its workforce to compete in knowledge-intensive sectors. It can't afford to neglect the education of its immigrant populations or to give up competing for its share of the global talent pool. If it makes the wrong choice, Europe will become smaller, poorer, and angrier. Instead of attracting newcomers, the continent will watch its own best and brightest decamp for better opportunities in the growing economies of China, India, and Brazil. (The economic booms in Poland and Romania have already been slowed by a severe dearth of skilled workers.)

As Europe fiddles, some countries aren't standing still. At the onset of the global crisis, the Canadian government briefly considered slashing immigration quotas to protect its labor market. It then decided to keep its borders open and even to speed up acceptance procedures for some highly skilled arrivals. While migrants have lost some ground recently, they're still twice as likely as native Canadians to hold doctorates or master's degrees. Even within Europe, there are a few countries doing it right. Sweden wasn't satisfied with merely implementing a new, skills-based immigration policy; it actually upgraded its integration efforts, including language and vocational training for existing immigrants, right in the middle of the crisis. But much more can be done to attract skilled migrants—raising the number of visas available in professions where shortages already exist, for example, or cutting the red tape that can make it all but impossible to get non--European diplomas recognized. Nations and companies could also do a much better job of recruiting more of the -estimated 1.4 million foreign students currently enrolled at European universities.

Europeans' concerns aren't totally misplaced. The rapid pace of immigration over the past decade has strained Britain's infrastructure and social institutions. Germans and the French are particularly worried about the underclass immigrants who have isolated themselves from society at large. But now the continent is facing a pivotal decision. Closing its borders will only divert more migration into illegal and uncontrollable channels. Europe is no defendable, homogenous island; it's surrounded by the wildly growing populations of Africa and the Middle East. Europe's choice is not whether to stop migration, but whether to channel it to its own advantage.

Jan 10, 2010

Immigrants invest in U.S. businesses in exchange for visas

Image by yewenyi via Flickr

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 10, 2010; A06

The number of foreigners willing to invest $500,000 to $1 million in a U.S. business in exchange for a visa roughly tripled in the past fiscal year, as dozens of cash-strapped enterprises and local governments scrambled to attract wealthy foreign backers through a previously obscure provision of immigration law.

Under the EB-5 visa program, immigrants who can demonstrate that their investment created or preserved at least 10 U.S. jobs after two years are granted legal permanent residency along with their spouses and children.

Although immigrants are allowed to establish businesses under the program, most prefer to invest in "regional centers" -- public or private enterprises that are certified by the government to receive funds from EB-5 investors and that can count jobs indirectly created by the investment toward the 10 required.

The minimum outlay mandated is $1 million, but immigrants can reduce that to $500,000 by investing in a regional center or establishing businesses in areas designated as economically disadvantaged.

The program was established in 1990, but potential investors and businesses were often dissuaded by the U.S. government's slow and inconsistent administration of the complex rules. In the past year, however, a gradual streamlining of procedures coincided with the recession and credit crunch to dramatically boost interest in the program.

In a matter of months, more than 50 private and public enterprises were certified as regional centers, increasing the total from 23 to 74. Three are in the Washington area.

With so many more investment opportunities to choose from, the number of immigrants (including investors and their immediate family members) who obtained EB-5 visas jumped from 1,443 in fiscal 2008 to 4,218 in the 2009 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the State Department.

Most were granted to people from Asia, particularly China and South Korea. Several scholars said they expect the number to double again this year.

"What happens with programs like this is that sometimes, all of a sudden they get discovered, and then intermediaries begin to really promote them both here and internationally," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that recently released a report about the trend.

Statistics on the total invested through the EB-5 program are not available, but the capital infusion has been a boon to Washington area businesses. The Capitol Area Regional Center, a real estate investment fund based in the District, has been working to raise a projected $250 million from immigrant investors for use in Washington area construction projects.

Perhaps the greatest potential beneficiaries are nonprofit agencies such as the District's Anacostia Economic Development Corp., which was approved as a regional center in June. Over the next three years, the group hopes to raise $50 million from immigrant investors to develop real estate projects and small businesses in wards 7 and 8 -- a princely sum compared with the $2 million in private capital it raised for its last major building project in Anacostia.

"Normally, to get equity capital to these areas is almost impossible," said Michael Wallach, chief operating officer of the corporation. "These two wards have the highest unemployment rate in the city and the lowest incomes."

But because the primary motivation of the immigrant investors whom Wallach is wooing is to create enough jobs to meet the visa requirement rather than to maximize the return on their investment, they might prove less skittish.

'It was worth it to me'

Program participant Eric Canal-Forgues, a law professor and businessman from France, is a case in point. In 2007, he invested $500,000 in a regional center that funded construction of Comcast's headquarters in Philadelphia.

He said it is unlikely that he will get more than a 1 percent return by the five-year point at which he will be allowed to withdraw his money. That will barely cover the roughly $50,000 in administrative costs of his investment, let alone the loss of value because of inflation.

But Canal-Forgues, 47, who has moved with his wife and two children to Miami, said he has no regrets. "I knew the conditions going in, and it was worth it to me," he said. He said that Miami was attractive because of its financial opportunities and that he plans to open a franchise of children's clothing stores.

But more than anything else, he said, "we really wanted our children to be raised in a dual culture, French and American, especially because I think the educational system at the university level is much stronger here than in France."

Statistics suggest that many EB-5 applicants might also find the program appealing because it is considerably speedier than other options: Nearly 70 percent of immigrants granted investor visas in fiscal 2009 were from China or South Korea, countries whose nationals face decade-long waits for family-reunification visas because of quotas on the annual number allowed in from any one country.

Concerns about fraud

That immigrant investors are more focused on obtaining visas than maximizing profits -- combined with the government's limited capacity for oversight -- has caused even some avid proponents of the EB-5 program to worry that a profusion of fraudulent or ill-advised ventures might soon flourish alongside legitimate ones.

"The thing that concerns me most is that some fly-by-night [operation] will lose a large group of investors' money, and it will poison the well for the rest of us," said David Morris, founder of EB-5 America, a Washington regional center that invested $20 million to refurbish the Sugarbush ski resort in Vermont in past years and is now raising money for construction projects in the District.

Yet Morris also notes that some of the stricter rules of the EB-5 program -- including the rigid timeline by which the job creation requirement must be met -- do not always mesh with the realities of the business world, with consequences for both immigrant investors and potential business ventures.

For instance one of Morris's clients, Rodrigo Martinez, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Arlington County, was initially keen to invest in a project to renovate the historic O Street Market at Seventh and O streets NW. "The fact that you are helping to have a positive effect on the community that you're joining, I really liked that idea," said Martinez, 27.

But fearing that construction delays would prevent that project from creating sufficient jobs in time, Martinez, who attended law school in the United States and now works as a business consultant, switched his money last year to the Sugarbush resort instead.

Supporters of the EB-5 program also complain that the government's review process for approving potential regional centers is still too slow, especially at a time when a similar Canadian visa program is attracting three times as many immigrant investors.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell University's law school and executive director of a trade association of regional centers, said the number of EB-5 visas being granted falls well short of the maximum 10,000 allowed each year.

"There's a lot more that we could be doing to promote the EB-5 program so that it can achieve its true potential in this economic recession," he said.

Bipartisan support

Powerful members of Congress on both sides of the aisle agree. In a rare bipartisan convergence on an immigration issue, Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking member, recently joined forces in an effort to make the regional centers permanent. (The centers were established under a pilot program that has been extended several times since the 1990s).

Leahy said he was impressed by the millions of dollars that EB-5 visa holders have invested in ski resorts such as Jay Peak and other projects in the distressed northeastern region of Vermont.

Because of legislative wrangling unrelated to the EB-5 program, Leahy had to settle for a three-year extension in the fiscal 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations bill adopted in the fall.

Still, Leahy predicted that not only will all aspects of the program soon be made permanent but also that the annual number of visas might be increased.

"Once it's permanent, I think we're really going to see the true value of this," he said. "At a time when we're seeing so many of our jobs exported out of the country, this creates jobs in the United States."