Argentina toughens immigration law, speeds up deportations
Argentina toughened its immigration law on Monday, making it easier to deport foreigners who commit crimes or who are being investigated.
The toughening of the law is in stark contrast to Argentina's traditionally welcoming immigration policy. Around 6 million people, mainly from Europe, emigrated to Argentina between 1860 and 1960, and 1 million immigrants were granted permanent residency between 2004 and 2015 - mostly from Paraguay, Bolivia, or Peru.
The new changes fast track the expulsion of foreigners who commit crimes even if no conviction was issued. Citing a rise in organized crime committed by foreigners, President Mauricio Macri said authorities faced bureaucratic hurdles in deporting foreigners who committed such crimes.
While the existing 2003 law was passed by Congress, Macri enacted these changes by decree.
Advocates defend the decree as a way to curb a spike in crime that remains a top concern for Argentines ahead of this year's congressional elections. Human rights advocates said it risks stigmatizing foreigners, who make up 5% of the country's 43 million people.
"Amnesty International considers that it's a mistake to reduce the migration phenomenon to a debate on national security that associates migrants with criminals," the rights organization said in a statement Monday. "While states have the authority to establish rules in migratory issues, they can't violate constitutional rights and international human rights treaties."
Others, like legal affairs journalist Raúl Kollmann - whose mother survived the Holocaust - believe the decree violates due process rights and is not only discriminatory but unnecessary.
Kollmann notes that the 2003 law already prohibits entry to anyone with a criminal record and provides for the deportation of alien residents if convicted of a serious crime (i.e. one resulting in a 5-year prison sentence or more). Criminal intent, he added, "is impossible to determine if the country of origin does not keep or provide dossiers on each migrant - and most don't."
Some 12,000 resident aliens were deported from Argentina between 2004 and 2015; another 14,000 are denied entry annually.
"Just like Trump's government, Macri is criminalizing immigration through executive orders that modify national laws and international commitments," said Argentine activist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 for his defense of human rights during Argentina's military dictatorship.
"Circumventing Congress, they are committing a clear violation of human rights in the name of security when security problems can and should be solved respecting our constitution and increasing our rights, not reducing them," he said.
At: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/argentina-toughens-immigration-law-fast-tracks-deportations-45150813
= new reply since forum marked as read
Besides being unconstitutional (since it proposes to deprive those being deported of due process), this decree is basically a huge dog whistle against Indigenous/Mestizo immigrants.
It's also illegal, given that it rescinds laws passed by Congress; but very handy in a mid-term year like this one.
The simple fact is that the more Argentina's economy grows, the more immigrants it receives from its neighbors - and like the U.S., Argentina depends on immigrants from neighboring countries to do much of the work locals consider too dirty or dangerous. It's simple economics.
Macri's recession, therefore, does more to discourage immigrants than any of these decrees of his.
You know, I wonder what his father (an Italian immigrant who made his fortune partly by using immigrant construction labor) and his wife (whose Lebanese father has profited quite a bit from immigrant sweatshop labor as well) feel about all this.
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Argentine First lady Juliana Awada, Pope Francis, and President Macri. Not much in common except this: they're all children of immigrants.[/center]
