Dropping Anchor

“Birth tourism” is the practice of coming to the United States for the express purpose of having a baby on American soil. According to the current interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the baby becomes an automatic US citizen.

Thousands of poor, illegal immigrants give birth to “Americans” every year, but many of them are living here and hope to stay. “Birth tourists” tend to be middle-class or wealthy foreigners who don’t plan to live here as illegals. They come legally on tourist visas when they are pregnant and give birth here because they want their children to have the option of US citizenship. It doesn’t hurt that when the children turn 21 they can petition to bring their non-citizen parents to live in the United States. It is citizenship insurance for the whole family.

There is nothing strictly illegal about any of this, and there are businesses in China, Korea, Mexico, and even Turkey that advertise package tours for women who want to have their children in the US. No one knows how common the practice is, but there are signs it is becoming institutionalized.

This spring, police and building inspectors in San Gabriel, California, responded to complaints about noise, and large numbers of pregnant women going in and out of a small row of townhouses. They found that dividing walls had been knocked down to convert the row houses into a kind of specialized hotel for pregnant women and mothers with newborns. There were about 10 women living there — all from China.

The mothers had paid tens of thousands of dollars each for a birth tourism package, and were living in clean, pleasant rooms staffed by women who acted as nurses. The building inspectors found baby food, rows of bassinets, supplies of prenatal vitamins, and piles of photos of happy mothers holding their babies. The inspectors told the mothers they had to move out — it was a housing code violation to have so many people there — and sent them to hotels. The owner of the row houses, David Chang, did not make himself available for press interviews but was reportedly fined $800 for housing code infractions.

No one has any idea how many facilities like this one are quietly in business around the country. [Jennifer Medina, Arriving as Pregnant Tourists, Leaving With American Babies, New York Times, March 28, 2011.]

The Great Re-Migration

From 1790 to until 1910, 90 percent of American blacks lived in the South. That started to change during World War I as blacks began moving to northern industrial cities such as New York, Detroit, and Chicago to work in factories. That trickle became the 60-year Great Migration, and by the time it ended in the 1970s, the percentage of blacks in the South had fallen to a low of 53 percent. Now the flow is in the other direction, and the 2010 census finds that today’s figure is 57 percent.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of blacks in the US as a whole increased by 1.7 million, and 75 percent of that increase was in the South, especially in such cities as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Charlotte. Some northern cities such as New York and Chicago are seeing their first declines. Illinois saw the first ever drop in its black population, losing 1.3 percent between 2000 and 2010.

Atlanta has long been a desirable destination for blacks, and with 1.7 million, it is now the American city with the second-largest black population, moving ahead of Chicago but still behind New York. Georgia is now home to more blacks than any other state, just ahead of New York. Next are Texas, Florida, and California. Georgia will soon have a non-white majority.

Shelton Haynes, a recent transplant from Harlem, explains the appeal of Atlanta: “We have a great support network of family and friends here, and there is good community involvement, with our kids involved in swimming, tennis, and basketball. In Atlanta, I also see a lot of African-Americans do very well in a variety of professions.” [Hope Yen, In a Reversal, More Blacks Moving Back to South, AP, Feb. 16, 2011.]

Racial Profiling in Missouri

Ever since 2000, the state of Missouri has had a racial profiling law that requires police officers to record the race (and sex) of any driver they pull over. Officers also list the reasons for the stop, and whether (a) there was a search, (b) contraband was found, (c) a warning was issued or an arrest was made. These data are compared to the racial proportions of the population. Every other year officers get “sensitivity training” on the evils of racial profiling, and if any officer is found to be stopping a disproportionate number of minorities, he gets “appropriate counseling and training.” In other words Missouri has policing by quota. [Missouri Revised Statutes — Section 590.650.]

This isn’t crazy enough for a group called Citizens Against Racial Profiling. It recently got the necessary 90,000 signatures to put an initiative on the 2012 ballot that would require officers to fill out the same kind of race data and details for pedestrian stops as for vehicle stops. Departments would also have to set up grievance procedures for complaints about alleged racial profiling and to respond to every complaint within 90 days. Departments would be required to publicize these rules so that every drug seller and gangbanger will know exactly how to smother a police force with paperwork. Any department that doesn’t do these things could have state funds withheld until it knuckles under.

The initiative would also require race data on every driver stopped during sobriety checks. Current law makes an exception for sobriety checks because police routinely stop all drivers. [Drew Koch, Racial Profiling Initiative Making Way to 2012 Ballot, The Maneater (University of Missouri student newspaper), June 1, 2011.]

If the initiative passes, the result will be fewer arrests and more crime. Blacks and Hispanics commit proportionately more crime than whites, and Asians commit less. Requiring the police to stop suspects by quota means they will have to spend time pointlessly stopping whites and Asians just to get the numbers up. Blacks and Hispanics they would otherwise have stopped — and perhaps arrested — will be free to go about their business.

‘Granny Made Me Do It’

On May 13, 2009 Lorraine Mbulawa Braunston Firth, Leicester, stabbed her mother five times — once in the face — as she slept. Her mother managed to grab the knife and survived the attack. When the police arrived, Miss Mbulawa was sitting on the stairs in a trance-like state, crying and shaking, while her badly bleeding mother tried to comfort her. Miss Mbulawa told police that she intended to kill herself after killing her mother.

During her trial in January, Miss Mbulawa’s defense was that she was possessed by the spirit of her dead grandmother, who told her her mother had killed her father in Zimbabwe before she moved to Britain in 2002. The spirit reportedly ordered Miss Mbulawa to avenge the death by killing her mother.

When her mother took the stand, she said she did not blame her daughter because the poor girl was in the thrall of the spirits and therefore not responsible for what she did. The mother argued that if this had happened in Zimbabwe, there would have been no arrest; Miss Mbulawa would have been exorcised by a medicine man.

One psychiatrist testified that Miss Mbulawa was still a threat because she believed the spirits could possess her again and she had no control over them. Another psychiatrist concluded that the stuff about spirits was just an excuse, that Miss Mbulawa was of sound mind, and was entirely aware of what she was doing. In February, a British jury acquitted Miss Mbulawa of attempted murder but convicted her of unlawful wounding.

At a sentencing hearing at Leeds Crown Court on May 15th, Judge Brian Keith said he believed the defendant’s claim that she believed in witchcraft, and agreed that she should not be held responsible. He dressed down the jury for treating Miss Mbulawa “as if she knew what she was doing at the time of the attack.”

Judge Keith then sentenced Miss Mbulawa to one year of detention in a young offenders’ institute — suspended for 18 months — and 120 hours of community service. He also ordered 18 months of supervision that is supposed to help her resist any spirits that tell her to commit crimes in the future. Miss Mbulawa’s lawyer intends to appeal the conviction. [Chris Brooke, Freed, Girl who Knifed her Mother “After Being Possessed by Evil Spirits,” Daily Mail (London), May 25, 2011. ‘Possessed’ Teen Who Stabbed Mum 5 Times Walks Free, New Zimbabwe, May 24, 2011]

First Black Lord is Jailed

In 1996 at age 42, John David Beckett Taylor, son of Jamaican immigrants, lawyer, father of two, and ex-husband of a white woman, was made Baron Taylor of Warwick. He thus became one of the youngest life peers and the only black member of the 1,205-member House of Lords. There was much joy at the diversity he brought to a dangerously homogeneous institution. Lords do not get a salary but are reimbursed for travel expenses for official business.

Although Baron Taylor lives in London, in 2006 and 2007 he pretended he was living in Oxford, and claimed transportation and hotel expenses in connection with his service in Parliament. He was interviewed by the police in March 2010 and charged with false accounting in July 2010.

At trial he said he was told by fellow lords that he would be “crazy” not to claim to be living outside of London and to charge for travel and accommodation. He also said this was a widespread practice in the House of Lords. His defense counsel insisted that the expenses system was “unclear, ill-defined and, most crucially, treated by many as a remuneration in lieu of salary.”

Baron Taylor was found guilty in January 2011 of dishonestly claiming £11,277 in allowances, and sentenced to one year in prison. The sentencing judge told him he had ruined his life “not by one stupid action but by a protracted course of dishonesty” [Caroline Gammell, Lord Taylor Jailed for 12 Months Over Expenses Fraud, Telegraph (London), May 31, 2011. Caroline Gammell, and Martin Beckford, Lord Taylor of Warwick: Profile of the First Black Tory Peer, Telegraph, Jan. 25, 2011.]

Jury was Racist

Johnson Aziga, an Ugandan immigrant to Canada, was arrested in 2003 after repeatedly ignoring public health orders to tell sex partners he was HIV positive. He admitted to having unprotected sex with 11 women without telling them. Seven of them were infected with HIV, and two died of AIDS-related cancers.

After his arrest, Mr. Aziga wrote his last girlfriend to explain to her why he never told her he was HIV positive and denied it when she got sick. He said his ex-wife had turned him into the “mean, arrogant, insensitive, carefree, morally dead and socially dead monster of a machine that I am today.”

At trial, Mr. Aziga testified that after he contracted HIV in 1996 he began drinking heavily and picking up vulnerable women in bars. He said he was afraid to tell them he was infected for fear he would lose companionship at a time when he was at his “loneliest.”

Canadian courts have ruled that sex is not truly consensual if one partner conceals the fact of HIV infection. Intercourse under these circumstances is therefore held to be sexual assault, and if someone dies as a result — as was the case with two of Mr. Aziga’s partners — the offense automatically carries a charge of first-degree murder.

Mr. Aziga was prepared to plead guilty to 11 sexual assault charges; he admitted that he did not tell the women he was infected. However, he claimed he might not have been the source of their HIV infections. “That’s science — chance and probability,” he said. “I might have exposed her to HIV [but] I can’t say I infected her.”

In April 2009, Mr. Aziga was convicted of 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of first-degree murder, making him the first person in Canada to be convicted of murder through HIV transmission. His defense lawyer claims Mr. Aziga would pose no risk to society if he were released from jail, but the prosecution wants him designated a dangerous offender, which would mean he could be jailed indefinitely.

During his sentence hearing, Mr. Aziga admitted that he had received a fair trial but claimed that the jury convicted him of first-degree murder — and not just sexual assault — because there were no blacks on the jury, and that the jurors were racist. He will be sentenced after final arguments scheduled for late June. [Allison Jones, HIV Killer Says he was Convicted of Murder Because the Jury was Racist, Canadian Press, May 28, 2011.]

Denmark Saves Billions

Over the last nine years, sensible laws have cut non-Western immigration to Denmark by more than two thirds. A report by Denmark’s Integration Ministry has found that the third that got in cost the country €2.3 billion, or the equivalent of $3.4 billion, in handouts and housing benefits. During the same period, immigrants from Western countries contributed a positive €295 million to the treasury. The report, commissioned by the nationalist Danish People’s Party (DPP), notes that without the restrictionist laws, non-Western immigrants would have cost the country another €6.7 billion, or the equivalent of $10 billion.

Denmark already has the most sensible immigration laws in Europe, and many Danes want them to be better still. As Integration Minister Søren Pind explains, “Now that we can see that it does matter who comes into the country, I have no scruples in further restricting those who one can suspect will be a burden on Denmark.”

The report has prompted the usual wailing. Marianne Jelved, a spokesman for the Social Liberal Party, says: “We cannot classify people depending on their value to the economy. That is degrading in a democracy that has a basic value of equality.”

The DPP, on the other hand, wants no non-Western immigration at all. “A Somali who is no good for anything, that is simply not acceptable,” says party leader Pia Kjærsgaard. Somalis are getting the message. Many are upping stakes and moving, but not back to Somalia, of course. Soft-touch Britain is their favorite destination. [Anna Reimann, Strict Immigration Laws ‘Save Denmark Billions,’ Spiegel (Germany), April 29, 2011.]

Going — For a Price

Illegal immigrants are pouring into Britain, and many of them apply for asylum. Most asylum claims are phony and are rejected, whereupon her majesty’s government politely asks foreigners to leave. What if they refuse? There are so many appeals and scams and dodges available to illegals that the National Audit Office figures it costs about £11,000 ($17,600) to deport someone who really digs in his heels.

Britain has therefore invented Assisted Voluntary Return as a cost-saving measure. It is a bribe to any illegal who agrees to go quietly, and amounts to about £2,000 in “in kind” support back in the home country. One Iranian got help setting up an ostrich farm, and an Albanian used the swag to start a vineyard. Since 2006, the British government has splashed out about £1.2 million a month on Assisted Voluntary Returns, for a total of about £74 million.

Illegals who are turfed out often have to be put on charter flights. This is because they are likely to make a stink when they are put on a scheduled flight, and this bothers the paying customers. Last year, Britain deported 1,200 failed asylum seekers and some 480 foreign criminals on charter flights for an average cost of £4,880 head. With that much money — about $7,800 — you can buy a first-class ticket to just about anywhere in the world. [Tom Whitehead, Public Fund More Than £1 Million to ‘Bribe’ Illegal Immigrants to go Home, Telegraph, May 29, 2011.]