Three totally unconnected bits of good news have emerged as the year ends for those of us who do not want totally unlimited migration. They came from aviation authorities in France, a federal judge in Florida, and USCIS.
The most surprising to me carries the dateline of Vatry, France, some 75 miles east of Paris near the WWI battlefields of the Marne. There is a minor international airport there and French authorities stopped and turned around a chartered plane with a suspicious flight plan: India to France to Nicaragua.
There were 303 passengers, all of whom the French decided were on their way to a legal entrance to Nicaragua, and then seeking a less legal trip to the U.S. Of that number 27 stayed in France, seeking asylum in some cases, and the rest were sent back to India.
This is a useful precedent and parallels an earlier move by the government of Haiti. Were other nations to take similar moves it would lower the pressures against our southern border.
The second bit of good news comes from Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has been pressing his state legislature to restrict illegal migration. One of the governor’s initiatives was challenged in the federal courts, and we learn from Law360.com that:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can't be sued over a state law criminalizing the transport of unauthorized immigrants, a federal court ruled, saying the bill's critics hadn't shown that the governor was personally responsible for enforcing the law.
The judge’s rationale may be odd, but a win is a win.
Our third tidbit comes from USCIS itself, which has decided to raise the fees on five different kinds of priority processing by about 12 percent. Raising the cost of this process, will, to some extent:
- reduce the use of these quicker visas for the well-connected; and
- make it more likely that the aliens using this system will pay the full cost of processing, rather than have it underwritten by tax dollars.
Given the complexity of the immigration system, you might expect a complex menu or price list, and you would be right. The base prices to be raised are: $1,500, $1,750, and $2,500 for each of the price groups (some immigrant, some nonimmigrant.) Within those groups are 42 different visas. See the full menu here.
Most of these fees being increased are for skilled workers, but the list also includes H-2B nonskilled, non-ag workers; R-1 religious workers; and P-visa-holding baseball players.
It will be nice to see MLB, a citadel of ultra-prosperity, paying Uncle Sam an extra 12 percent. It is also a reminder that in baseball, that most American of sports, baseball owners can – and do – bring in foreign players to displace American ones.