Interestingly, in the developed world it seems to be the Anglophone countries that have the shittiest attitude towards border control these days. The US is notoriously user-hostile at the borders. The UK is doing its best to catch up in a Mini-Me way with the USA's Dr Evil, and is actually on course to become even more hostile than the USA -- the only mitigating factor is that the third degree is reserved for non-citizens, so far. Australia under Tony Abbot runs concentration camps for victims of famine, civil war on Nauru:
And in the UK, Home Secretary Theresa May considers immigration control to be more important than the lives of mentally ill people who have been tortured by Boko Haram:
> Australia under Tony Abbot runs concentration camps for victims of famine, civil war on Nauru
They are called "refugee camps". And Australia has a reasonably high refugee intake. Unlike most countries, though, Australia resettles most of their refugees, so they aren't classified as "refugees" anymore. It's a pain finding the numbers, since everyone wants to talk about "refugees per head of population". There's hundreds of thousands of former refugees with PR or citizenship who aren't counting in Australia's "refugee population", because they've actually been resettled.
Though you'd be perfectly justified in pointing out that Abbott cut the refugee intake, quite dramatically. Or that beating up on "boat people" was just making them a scapegoat, trying to placate the wider concern about overpopulation and immigration in general (which politicians won't touch, because the Treasury Intergenerational Report says Australia needs lots of young immigrants to keep the economy going as the baby boomers start going gaga).
That doesn't make any sense. Refugee applications/admittals are normally counted per year. A refugee who was awarded citizenship/residency would be counted in that year. But there are very few of them (certainly not hundreds of thousands) since Howard introduced the TPV in '99, and anyway who cares? Do you also need to know how many Australians are descended from 1 pound Poms to see how many refugees we should allow in this year? Does the refugee policy in the '80s being reasonable somehow excuse how awful it is today?
You should know that 'resettlement' actually means 'sending to a third country', and yes we do resettle more refugees than anyone but the USA and Canada. That doesn't get counted in our refugee population because we sent them to another country.
> Refugee applications/admittals are normally counted per year.
Yes, but whenever someone says "Australia has less refugees than Germany", they are talking about total displaced persons. Germany rarely grants PR or citizenship to refugees, because they are mostly on TPVs (thus still refugees).
> You should know that 'resettlement' actually means 'sending to a third country', and yes we do resettle more refugees than anyone but the USA and Canada. That doesn't get counted in our refugee population because we sent them to another country.
Bullshit. Australia is the third country which they are resettled to. Australia (and the US, and Canada, and a couple of EU countries) accept the vast bulk of resettlements.
Hm, perhaps. I'm not sure I agree that this changes the discussion much, because Germany does end up with many of them staying in the country for years on those temporary visas with government support, and also has a much much larger population of actually 'illegal' immigrants (people who were denied status or never applied) who remain there long term. It depends on the point being argued, I guess.
On the second point - you're right. I was thinking of the use of the term to cover the resettlement of refugees to Papua New Guinea under our new programs, but it goes both ways and the 'one of the top countries' is referring to the refugees we accept.
I would appreciate if you wouldn't cite the 'world socialist website - Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International' as a reputable source. Some of their articles are surprisingly good, but it's still the publication of an obscure trotzkyist sect.
I assume most folks here are smart enough to evaluate any given news site on the basis of its accuracy and to differentiate between editorial bias and factual incorrectness.
If you really can't bear to see news and opinions from sources you personally disagree with, how are you ever going to test your opinions?
That's not really how it works, you can't cite a source and then have people evaluate it on its accuracy. We don't know enough to know the accuracy, that's why you used a citation. A publication's reputation is what people use as a benchmark for its accuracy.
There are scientific studies saying smoking isn't harmful, and it's totally a coincidence they're funded by tobacco companies. That's why a source's reputation is important.
Well, one problem is that publications like the wsws are not news in the strict sense. They do not have the staff and the founding that's necessary to engage in traditional reporting. What those publications are doing is to interpret secondary sources. The article in question does little else than showing us the authors reactions after watching [0]. Some people might find this reaction of the "International Committee of the Fourth International" interesting, but I guess it's safe to say that most are not. About most people here being able to evaluate the accuracy of those sites: That's the problem with posting links like that. People read it, look at the header and dismiss the whole thing as completely blown out of proportions, which sadly isn't true this time.
That doesn't address the point - many mainstream 'news' outlets work by rewriting stories syndicated from Reuters and AP - not by having their own reporters.
The comment I was responding to was attacking the wsws for not being 'news' because it doesn't have it's own reporters.
It's perfectly reasonable to criticize it for having a political stance that you don't credit, but I don't see a case for somehow categorizing it as 'not news' when its practices are the same as many traditional news outlets, just with a less mainstream perspective.
Note: I'm not supporting whatever wsws's stance might be - I'm just pointing out that much of mainstream news is similar in how it operates.
I actually have no problem with people citing the World Socialist Website. That being said, the WSWS offers "Marxist analysis" of the news whereas Reuters and AP, although they may offer analysis, focus on objective reporting of the facts as opposed to analysis. Take a look at Reuters "trust principles" on their website. One principle is: "That Thomson Reuters shall supply unbiased and reliable news services to newspapers, news agencies, broadcasters and other media subscribers and to businesses governments, institutions, individuals and others with whom Thomson Reuters has or may have contracts." Now, consider the mission of the WSWS: "The standpoint of this web site is one of revolutionary opposition to the capitalist market system. Its aim is the establishment of world socialism."
I think it is clear why AP and Reuters citations will be more widely accepted than sources that are inclined to political bias and activism.
You're still missing the point. I'm not comparing wsws to Reuters or the AP. I'm comparing it to the news outlets that take reuters and AP reports as sources which they then use to write their own articles.
There is "news" and there is "analysis" -- if you want to cite facts don't cite analysis from a publication that has a clear and stated bias. Usually the way AP and Reuters works is clients run what they write or "analyze" what they write. Why cite analysis if you want facts? Not trying to be adversarial here, just trying to understand what you are saying
All publications have a strong bias. Isn't it better to cite from those that state their bias clearly so that the reader is better able to interpret what they are reading, than from those who mislead by pretending to be 'unbiased'?
Maybe publications with enough funding are not 'strict' either.
They are some always interest at play. Well funded publications are either government-backed (in some communist/socialist countries), which might mean unfair treatment of some news, or corporation (or corporation-backed), which means a stance on some subjects (let's say:liberalism) that isn't exactly fair either.
The best (or, some might say, only) way to get news is to get it from different sources, which preferably does not share the same point of view.
Anglophone countries that have the shittiest attitude towards border control these days
Meh, any Western hand-wringing about the evils of Anglophones has to be counter-balanced with the fact that net migration to those "evil" countries continues at a brisk pace, often illegally.
large difference between the immigration process, which usually begins months ahead of time in the foreign country first, and border security for a visitor.
the U.S. has more open immigration policy than many other countries but it also has a really shitty and thuggish border security policy that is a direct consequence of the ongoing security theatre that we play at because of terrorism.
Although, if you're an Australian like I am, you must know that this is all going to get worse.
I'm sick of our Government (no matter who seems to be in power at the time) taking every single page out of the American playbook. I like our country, why do we have to try and be them? :(
America didn't invent fascism. It's recycling a playbook that various parts of Europe mastered nearly a century ago. Interestingly, the most dangerous and powerful aspect of American fascism in fact was born from what it took to fight Europe's WW2 mess (and the NSA is a direct descendant of that as well). History is often rich with irony.
The playbook Australia is taking a page out of is a very old one indeed.
Fucking seriously? I know it's popular to hate "America" lately -- since it makes a nice big clean target and it gives you a nice fuzzy "edgy" feeling to do so -- but it seems more like Australia's leading the pack when it comes to overreaching soft-authoritarian policy.
British colonial hangover and the general Australian penchant for self-flaggelation has a lot more to do with authoritarianism in Australia than any philosophy the USA extrinsically promotes. Isn't the island borrowing its culture from Asia now, anyway?
You most probably hold a British passport which is a very valuable document. Let me tell you as a holder of a not as valuable passport, who needed a visa to get anywhere, how I have seen the world.
I now live in the US. Before coming to US I visited many European countries. At the border of all those European countries I was treated as a criminal. I waited very long hours while people in front of me holding same kind of passports as me and then myself were interrogated like in a police interrogation. I missed connections because of those interrogations. In one case when I did make the connection, I heard the pilot of the plane speaking to passengers about how the delay was caused because of waiting for people of my nationality. Even people associated with people of my nationality were considered suspicious. A friend of mine was married to a Canadian man who had the same name as a famous American actor. When they tried to go together to one European country, that man was also interrogated for 2 hours by the border police because they thought his passport was fake. I was once traveling via train from European country A to European country B. I happened to be in a cabin with a man from country B. The border police of country B (this was before Schengen) took him outside the train and interrogated him for 30 minutes because they thought his passport was fake. He had a pocketful of documents, bank cards, credit cards, phone numbers of his family members etc. and the border police still were suspicious. I was so used to the long lines and humiliation that I thought they were normal for any border crossing.
Then I traveled to US. Imagine my surprise when I got off the plane, walked a long corridor, passed by a drug detection dog, got into a huge room with many passport control booths, in 5 minutes found myself in one of them, the immigration officer asked me where I was going and what was the goal of my trip then stamped my passport and I-94 and I was done. Even if I didn't go anywhere from there, the trip was already a success. It made me feel like a human. In the time since then I have seen the checks in many European countries improve and in the meantime US has added the annoying process of fingerprinting, but in my view US border control still offers better human experience compared to European countries. I was once crossing the border from Canada to US and there was this old woman trying to get into US with an expired (like 30 years old) British passport. The border agents still found a way to let her in. Since Schengen she probably would be let into other European countries but I am sure before Schengen she wouldn't be able to go anywhere.
I know that there are people who have negative experiences while trying to get into US as there are negative experiences for people trying to go anywhere, but I think most of the noise associated with them is unjustified and if US border control need improvements other countries need them even more.
Belgian here, I've registered just to reply to your comment.
> Let me tell you as a holder of a not as valuable passport [...]
> Even people associated with people of my nationality [...]
What's so secret about your nationality ?
Your comment doesn't make any sens, you're are comparing a pre-Schengen era (which means prior 1985 - more than 25 years ago!) to a post-9/11 era.
As a Belgian, I've been traveling for 20 years around many countries in Europe and North Africa without ever being bothered by the customs.
On the other hand, while - as a kid - visiting the USA was a dream, it is now something that wouldn't even come to my mind when I see how much freedom and privacy (more broadly human rights) you've got to give up to come to the USA (the situation being even worst for foreigners [non-American]).
pre-Schengen really means prior to 1995 because that's when the border controls between Schengen members were relaxed. The train trip I mentioned above happened in May 1995 but even though country A and country B were Schengen members border controls still existed between them. I don't know why that was still the case.
I believe you 100% that as a Belgian you have never been bothered by border controls. I also know that to travel to most countries you don't even need a visa. I don't know if you know what a visa is, but believe me, if you need one, it is very hard to get.
I didn't even mention how many troubles I had to get the visas for my trips since the subject of the thread is border controls. I was giving my and my friends experience as non-Belgian, non-British, non-Schengen member while traveling through Europe and then US. All I said is true and I could add plenty more. I have traveled many times and almost every time I traveled to Europe or within European countries I had humiliating experiences. Things have improved a lot now, but still there can be issues. I was transiting through Rome 5 years ago and there were so many people in line that I had to wait 1 hour to reach the border controls. Half of that waiting was outside! Yes the line extended outside the building. It was 9AM but it was already very hot. If you were there you probably wouldn't have noticed since there was a separate entrance for EU-member citizens where there was no line at all.
You should follow your childhood dreams and visit US. Do not believe everything you read. The american people are usually very nice and that includes most of the border control agents. Yes, some border control agents can be very cranky but I would be too after a long day talking to a lot of people who already believe I am their adversary and give me wisecrack answers. I am willing to bet that you wouldn't have any problem with any of them though.
Thank you for sharing your story. It's easy to find negative stories of crossing the US border; it's generally easier to find negative stories about anything. Positive stories like yours can help give perspective that can otherwise be lacking.
I admit I don't like Abbott but using terms like concentration camps isn't fair to Australia. We have a very multicultural country with large migrant intake and we take in a reasonable number of asylum seekers.
We are a very desirable destination because of our standard of living and political and economic freedom. We can't just open our doors or we would be flooded and we barely have enough water for our current population in many of our southern cities.
Australian's as a whole do not want to reward people smugglers or see kids drowning when their parents try and queue jump their way into the country on overcrowded leaky boats. Detention centres aren't a very humane way to deal with the problem and criticism is warranted but perhaps we should direct a bit more attention to the countries these people are escaping and the countries they transit.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/25/manu-j25.html
And denying asylum to Hazara victims of taliban terrorism:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/22/asylum-australi...
And in the UK, Home Secretary Theresa May considers immigration control to be more important than the lives of mentally ill people who have been tortured by Boko Haram:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/16/end-of-life-p...