>No, I went through the process myself, playing the refugee game, you know
>-- telling the bullshit Westerners want to hear, staying in a camp for a
>while, mingling with other refugees, dealing with the INS nazis (who told
>me, and I quote, we like white people like you to immigrate to this
>country), etc.
1. it is a generalization; 2. if it is at all an accurate generalization (which I doubt), then it so because the structures of immigration make it so; 3. by having suggested that this is so because of immigrants rather than the immigration programmes, you simply repeat the conceptions of 'devious', 'not to be trusted' claims for immigration which now pervades anti-immigrant politics;
all of which raises the need to think a bit more about what is actually happening in immigration law and how people are being forced to respond to this:
as in 4. I doubt that it is an accurate generalization now, esp given that truckloads of documentation are required to prove persecution and to get through the maze of conditions, and there are sufficient cases in which (I'm speaking about Aust) people have tendered documentation of arrests only to be told by the single-member, secret tribunal on refugee claims that the documents are falsified. the courts have overturned such decisions, and is able to verify in ways the tribunal is not claims for immigration: the tribunal will not allow witnesses to be called for the claimant who can verify the nature of the arrests, will not allow legal representation, will not allow the applicant to question the state's evidence, etc. now, because the courts have been overturning the whims of the tribunal, the power of the courts to intervene in these matters has been all but wiped out (they cannot decide on matters of merit, if claimants appeal to the courts they are penalised, etc).
in short, talk of immigrants lying to 'get in' are merely an ideological preface to keeping them out, and have very little to do with what is or is not happening.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au