Category Archives: Law

Australia Enforces Immigration Laws Against … Local Pacific Islanders …

IMMIGRATION, Law, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, The West

The Economist: “Australia is kicking Kiwis out, and New Zealand is unhappy about it.”

In 2014 a conservative prime minister, Tony Abbott, tightened deportation rules. Any foreigner sentenced to a year in jail now fails a “character test” and has to leave the country. Kiwis may live and work freely in Australia. Since about 650,000 do so, the rule hits them the hardest. Since the law was changed, at least 1,200 New Zealanders have been cast back across the Tasman Sea. Oz Kiwi, an advocacy group, estimates that around 170 New Zealanders are currently in detention centres awaiting deportation, more than any other nationality.
… Australia makes no concessions for those who came as children but never changed their passports. Neither does it for juvenile offenders, or petty criminals with short sentences that cumulatively add up to 12 months, even if those were suspended. Historic crimes were once ignored, but the law now works retroactively, counting ancient infringements committed overseas as well as recent ones in Australia.

Some prior offenders are stopped at airports.
… New Zealanders of Maori or Pacific Islander descent are disproportionately affected by the changes, because they are more likely than average to have convictions. About 60% of New Zealanders who have been deported from Australia since 2014 are “brown”, as Joanne Cox of Oz Kiwi puts it. Citizenship is reserved mostly for the skilled and relatively wealthy: only about 8.4% of New Zealanders who arrived in Australia in the decade after 2001 got passports. The rate for Maoris was below 3%.

Paul Hamer, a researcher at Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand’s capital, suggests that Australia’s souring mood has been fed by “dissatisfaction” at New Zealand’s openness to Pacific migration. It threw open its doors to the region at a time when Australia still banned all but white immigrants (today it sets annual quotas for newcomers from the Pacific). People of Pacific Islander descent are 8% of New Zealand’s population. Politicians in Canberra, the Australian capital, have complained for decades that such migrants exploit a “backdoor” to Australia.

… conservative coalition government under Malcolm Turnbull is so concerned about border control that last year it rebuffed New Zealand’s offer to resettle asylum-seekers from detention centres run for Australia’s benefit in Nauru, a tiny Pacific island state, and Manus island, part of Papua New Guinea. Almost 1,600 “boat people” remain in the controversial camps, with no idea of when they might be released. (“Australia is kicking Kiwis out, and New Zealand is unhappy about it”)

Does Australia do anything about non-indigenous immigration, say from China, India, the Philippines and Vietnam? Or, is enforcement just against the Pacific Islander Maori, who are, face it, indigenous to the region, to New Zealand? What about Muslim, South-Asian migrants?

 

Rudy Giuliani Is Doing Political PR; He’s NOT Protecting The President Legally

Donald Trump, Justice, Law, Politics, Republicans, Russia

“The White House is trying to downplay signs of trouble after the New York Times reported that White House counsel Don McGahn has cooperated extensively with the Russia investigation.”

CNN has learned that McGahn’s attorney did not give President Trump’s lawyers a full debrief after McGahn sat down for almost 30 hours of interviews with Robert Mueller’s team. CNN’s sources are saying that the president’s attorneys, well, did not ask for a debrief. (SEE Transcript)

More worrying is that, in Rudy Giuliani, the president has hired a political noise-maker.

Giuliani’s legal acumen is manifestly poor. When commentators wonder whether he even reads up briefs on the Mueller witch-hunt—one cannot disagree. It always sounds like Giuliani is flying by the seat of his pants.

America’s favorite former mayor is doing political PR; he’s not protecting the president legally.

So, where are all the president’s good men? And yes, Don McGahn is a big, dangerous deal.

 

UPDATED (8/22): Paul Manafort’s Lawyers Decide To … Gamble. What’s There To Lose Except The Rest Of Client’s Life

Justice, Law, Taxation

His life is on the line—the rest of it—yet Paul Manafort’s lawyers have opted for a risky defense strategy. Risky when so much is at stake.

Instead of mounting a defense against the oddly timed prosecution out of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, Manafort’s lead attorney Kevin Downing decides to wing it. His defense relied on cross examination of the prosecution’s witnesses.

Apparently the belief is that juries are sophisticated enough to discern that “the government has not met its burden of proof.”

“This is very common after prosecution rests to file a motion saying they didn’t meet the burden beyond a reasonable doubt,” said John Cohen, a former homeland security official and ABC New contributor. “Typically, this doesn’t work.”

Manafort’s lawyers clearly felt that gambling was the way to go, here. After all, what’s there to lose? The rest of their client’s life?

UPDATE (8/22):

Dumb lawyer gambled with his client’s life and the client lost.

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Now, Can America Have A Nation-State Bill Like Israel’s? Neocons Will Be 1st To Say ‘No’

Conservatism, Israel, Law, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism

Among the planks of [Israel’s controversial Nation-State] legislation:

‘Hatikva’ is Israel’s national anthem. Hebrew is its official language. Jerusalem, ‘complete and united,’ is its capital. The flag and menorah its official symbols. The Sabbath its day of rest (with non-Jews having their own days of rest). Israel is open to Jewish immigration. Above all, ‘The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.’

The likes of Ben Shapiro and Dinesh D’Souza will be first to object to the US having a Nation-State Bill Like Israel’s, likely on the ground that America is somehow not like Israel.

They’ll come up with some creative cuckservative excuses, in flowery prose, for why the US has to embrace a  move toward a majority-minority “nation” united by NOTHING.

That’s how you tell—how you differentiate—an Israel Firster neocon from an authentic conservative, aka a paleoconservative or paleoliberarian.

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