With only six days remaining before the first round of voting in the French presidential elections, what at first seemed a staid and unpromising campaign season has once again veered into the rocambolesque.

Agence France Presse reports:

According to the UDF candidate’s campaign team, François Bayrou’s headquarters, located in Paris’ VIIth arrondissement, was occupied by illegal aliens [sans-papiers] late Friday afternoon.

Around 4:30 P.M., “around a hundred” illegal aliens, among them mothers and small children, entered the headquarters according to our source. They left shortly before 7 P.M.

In the aftermath of the much publicized Gare du Nord riot, today’s raid on the centrist candidate’s headquarters [for Bayrou's relatively wimpy stance on immigration, see here] only serves to confirm the central place accorded immigration and national identity in a campaign that has, so far, been largely defined around these issues.

Sarkozy and Le Pen, one must suppose, are rubbing their hands in glee.

There is a recent flap around the Australian PM’s proposal:

MELBOURNE, Australia - Prime Minister John Howard said Friday that people with HIV should not be allowed to migrate to Australia, and that the government was investigating whether it could tighten existing restrictions

…..

Don Baxter of the nongovernment group the Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations said HIV tests were already among health checks prospective immigrants were given, and most HIV-positive applicants were rejected on the grounds that they could pose an unfair burden on the public health system.

“It’s very tight already,” Baxter told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Chris Lemoh, an infectious disease specialist who is researching HIV-AIDS among African immigrants in Victoria, said excluding people with HIV should be condemned.

“It’s a hysterical overreaction, it mixes racism with a phobia about infectious disease,” he said. “To not allow people to come on the basis of any health condition is immoral, it’s unethical and it’s impractical to enforce.

What I want to see is exactly what Lemoh’s claim to public support and expertise is. Has he shown any ability to actually predict the flow of epidemics accurately?

My own sense is that international travel and immigration restrictions should in fact be increased for reasons of public safety and health. The hysteria here is on the part of Lemoh–which is implying that soon after the first quarantine we will have mass death camps soon thereafter.

It should be noted that the one country that experimented substantially with quarantine in the case of AIDS was Cuba, a leftist regime. In that case, Fidel Castro and their head of public health had an exceptionally good relationship–and the government was inclined to be cautious rather than roll the dice with their citizens’ health. Eventually, the policy of quarantine was abandoned on the grounds it wasn’t cost effective. However in the words of one Cuban public health official:

“The quarantine was very effective in stopping the first wave of the epidemic that came from Africa, given the amount of people we had over there,” said Cuba’s top AIDS expert Dr. Jorge Perez, a director at Havana’s Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute

Cuba actually has one of the lowest rates of AIDS anywhere in the world–despite a fairly high rate of early cases(imported by having a large population of soldiers and medical personnel working in Africa.)

General Motors Corp., American Express, Procter & Gamble and Sprint Nextel wasted no time in dropping their advertising support for radio shock jock Don Imus following his on-air description of the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-haired hos.” But, gee, look who has no problemo with having their names associated with the National Council of La Raza’s(The Race) “Corporate Relationship Opportunities” program? Check out the first three “corporate” links on the right side of The Race’s page. I know. Shocking and hypocritical.

I was going over some polling data and I came across a series of New York Times polls on legal immigration. We all know that pollsters are notorious for skewing the results in favor of amnesty, but when it comes to legal immigration they are usually straight forward. For over a decade, the Times has asked, “Should LEGAL immigration into the United States be kept at its present level?”

Since the illegal immigration debate began to boil when Bush made his first post 9-11 amnesty push, the percentage of people supporting increasing legal immigration has become significantly higher than it was beforehand. The highest percentage they have is 22% which was also the most recent one on this list, which was probably at the height of the anti-illegal immigration sentiment, following the massive pro-illegal demonstrations.[PDF ][Table below the (more…) tag]

Why is support for legal immigration increasing as illegal immigration increases and as opposition to illegal immigration is reaching unprecedented levels?

Virtually every single time I hear Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly or any of their AM Clones open their mouth to denounce illegal immigration, they say it is an affront to the hardworking people who wait in line for their turn. They make “the rule of law” the only reason to oppose illegal immigration, and occasionally they say they would happily increase legal immigration in exchange for border security. I have even heard prominent anti-illegal figures like Chris Simcox say this. One of the biggest grassroots groups opposed to illegal immigration is called “Americans for Legal Immigration PAC”

Most of these people (well maybe not Hannity or O’Reilly) are well meaning, but this may make any amnesty victory, a pyrrhic one.

There are no serious bills that are being introduced that will decrease legal immigration, including HR 4437. In contrast, every single piece of legislation proposed by the open borders crowd-Pence, McCain-Kennedy , STRIVE, “Z Visas” proposes massive increases in legal immigration. When it comes to attacking these proposals most on our side do not even mention the legal aspect.

Unless we change the terms of the debate, even if we defeat amnesty, we will be opened up for a bill that dramatically increases legal immigration, which could be just as disastrous, if not more.
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