Migration/Migrants

The Politics of Indefinite Detention in Australia

The High Court of Australia is not known for its zealotry in protecting human rights, and certainly not when considering the persuasive pull of international law and conventions.  The Australian Parliament is usually given a generous hand in making policies that tend to outrage such conventions, a freedom made that much easier by an absence […]

Taking the Refugee Hysteria off Ice

There are many reasons why Australian foreign policy can be viewed from the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe. For one, it is largely dictated, in terms of security, by the competitive, acquisitive urgings of the United States.  Fictional reassurances are offered to supposedly calm nerves in Canberra against phantom threats: extended nuclear deterrence, the […]

Democratic Socialism Will Prevent the Catastrophes

Capitalism gathered resources — land, labor, and capital to start an industrial revolution that brought prosperity and elevated standards of living to much of the earth’s inhabitants. Once in motion, it generated additional capital that gathered more labor and more resources in a perpetual cycle of increased production that constantly benefitted populations. The achievements did […]

Why There is No Illegal Immigration in China

What is illegal immigration? Every healthy scientific contradictory debate starts with a clear definition. Illegal immigration is defined as the migration of people across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. The most common but informal term for “foreigner” in China is 老外 (lǎowài)  It usually is respectful […]

Border Massacres: The Saudi Ethiopian Migrant Killings

We know what the regime is like.  Starving a country, bombing its hospitals and strafing its schools has been minor fare for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  The population of Yemen has found this out to their colossal cost.  Add to this the killing of dissident journalists, the enthusiastic employment of capital punishment, and an […]

Why Are There No Slums in China?

With over 20 million inhabitants each, Shanghai and Beijing are among the “hypercities” of the Global South, including Delhi, São Paulo, Dhaka, Cairo, and Mexico City, far surpassing the “megacities” of the Global North like London, Paris, or New York. Walking the streets in China’s cities, you will however, quickly notice one marked difference – […]

Nauru’s Refugee Stain: Australia’s Continued Offshore Processing Regime

The last refugee, for now, has left the small, guano-producing state of Nauru.  For a decade, the Pacific Island state served as one of Australia’s offshore prisons for refugees and asylum seekers, a cruel deterrent to those daring to exercise their right to seek asylum via the sea. Since July 2013, 3,127 people making the […]

New US Immigration Policies’ Effect on Nicaragua

On Jan. 5, the Biden administration announced new legal pathways to the US which include expanding the “Parole Process” for Venezuelans to Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans, a policy that will favor richer migrants. Migration from these countries has dropped since then. The Sandinista party won the presidency of Nicaragua in January 2007 and from that […]