The driving force behind our increasing diversity is a new, large wave of immigration - it is changing the face of our country.
And while most of the changes are good, they do present challenges which demand more both from new immigrants and from our citizens.
Citizens share a responsibility to welcome new immigrants, to ensure that they strengthen our nation, to give them their chance at the brass ring.
In turn, new immigrants have a responsibility to learn, to work, to contribute.
If both citizens and immigrants do their part, we will grow ever stronger in the new global information economy.

- President Bill Clinton
Commencement address at Portland State University
 

Most Flat Rock Forests Trust unitholders didn't invest their money in the Trust just to qualify themselves as business investment migrants.  For those of us who did, the subject of immigrants and overstayers can elicit great sympathy.  Immigrating can be difficult, wrenching, and be accompanied by ambivalent feelings even when everything goes exactly as planned.  When everything seems to go wrong, when rules are inflexible, assistance is nonexistent, laws don't protect, jobs don't materialise and even compassion seems forbidden, life can look very dark at times.

Immigration Rules - I'm not sure we'd be where we are today if my grandparents hadn't made the journey to the United States so long ago.  Can you blame them for wanting all that we have now?  Even though my relatives are all legal citizens of the US, I can't help but think about the turmoil and great stress other Mexican American families are facing with the proposed anti-immigration reforms...

Electing to Leave - Given how much the US as a nation professes to value freedom, your freedom to opt out of the nation itself is surprisingly limited.  The State Department does not record the annual number of Americans renouncing their citizenship - "renunciants," as they are officially termed - but the Internal Revenue Service publishes their names on a quarterly basis in the Federal Register...

The Hispanic Challenge - or perhaps the challenge is of a different sort?  The author acknowledges the US took land from Mexico - but he is deeply offended when Mexicans immigrate northward and live on it.  That's not, he says, what the founding WASPs fathers had in mind...

Native Americans - It's striking that Native Americans evolved no devastating epidemic diseases to give to Europeans in return for the many devastating epidemic diseases that Indians received from the Old World.  Why not?  No domesticated animals...

Cultural Directions for the Global Traveller - "...you may be greeted with a garland of flowers, which you should remove immediately as a sign of humility."

Australia or New Zealand?  How to Get in - For NZ, essentially speaking good English, having a degree, relevant work experience and a job offer should make a candidate a shoe-in.  For Australia, this may not be enough...

Welcome Mat May Get Bigger - the government is reviewing the policy for business immigrants.  It's about time.

Being Especially Thorough - ACT leader Richard Prebble, a Lizzie Rathbone scholar in English at Auckland University in the 1970s, backed himself to pass the test, and many to fail it.  "I think there is a need for an English language requirement, but this one's absurd," he said.  "I would think 40% of all school graduates and at least half of the adult population would fail..."

Immigration Policy Needs Clarity - NZ's population problems would improve if its immigration policy was easier to follow and immigrants received better support...

Immigration Minister Meets Trans-Tasman Counterpart - "irregular" migrants discussed.  (We only want the regular kind?)

Immigration Minister Lays Down Rules for Removal of Overstayers - Bad weather's no problem but daylight is a MUST!

Doctors Driving Taxis - a new kind of waiting room?

Global Rich - They are citizens of a new world, loyal to a supranational world network.  In a war, which country will they fight for?

NZ Diaspora - People born overseas made up 18% of residents in NZ at the 1996 census; the 800,000 New Zealanders and their children who are now overseas are 17.5% of the world's 4.7 million Kiwis.  These proportions are among the highest in the world, confirming a study of 16 countries by the US Census Bureau in the early '80s, which found that even then New Zealanders moved more often than people of any other nationality...

Undocumented Migrants - The US currently admits more immigrants than any other nation.  While exact numbers are unknown, it is estimated that well over 1 million people move to the US every year.  Hundreds of thousands of them arrive clandestinely or go underground after entering as tourists.  When asked about the pace of immigration, some of those surveyed said they would eliminate immigration entirely...

Economic Focus - After WWII the economics of migration reasserted itself.  The cost of travel fell steeply.  Emigration from developing countries expanded rapidly: incomes there rose enough to make emigration feasible, but not enough to make it pointless.  Many governments began trying to control immigration...

Treat All Immigrants Equally - Do you think this person has the right attitude?:  ... "I don't know any immigrants hiding from the law.  But if I did, I wouldn't waste even a moment before reporting them to authorities.  It's unfair to the legal immigrants who waited years and then went through seemingly endless red tape before being admitted..."

Immigration Debates - Opponents argue easing of immigration controls might lead to higher health care costs, with uninsured workers crowding hospitals, along with Americans losing their jobs, beaten out by the foreign workers.  But supporters say foreign workers are an economic necessity, and America must handle that reality...

Hidden Costs of Migrating - In 1995 alone, NZ business migrant investments totalled $400 million.  No audit tracks the money.  People today seek opportunities through migration - to escape war, persecution, poverty, unemployment, human rights violations, or for a fresh start.  Desirable countries have imposed stricter requirements - possibilities for legal migration diminish.  Demand pushing requirements provides entrepreneurs with potentially huge profits...

US Scam Dupes Kiwis - the sword cuts both ways...

Quality of Life - New Zealand has a dilemma.  It is an integral part of the globe and while we hold a goal of sustainability, this can't really be achieved if the social, economic and environmental fabric of the globe is in jeopardy - and it is.  We face serious global crisis in all three areas.  How can this small, isolated country have any influence on such monumental issues?

Immigrunts - The grass is always greener...as long as you're rich and they're not...

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