Deporting our neighbours - Government plays race card to divide and rule

On Wednesday the 11th of February, Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) officers began a covert operation, arresting 65 failed asylum-seekers.

The 53 Romanians and 12 Moldovans were arrested in their homes in Dublin, Meath, Westmeath and Wicklow, before being brought to Mountjoy and Cloverhill prisons to await their deportations. At 7.30 the following morning they were flown on a chartered flight, which went first to Romania and then on to Moldova. 12 of the deportees were children; some of whom may have been Irish citizens, the GNIB refuses to release that information. We do know however that 34 of the Romanian deportees were men, 12 women and 7 children.

One of the Romanian deportees, Mr. Josif Fagoras (27), left behind his wife and three young children, all under seven. One of Mr. Fagoras' children is an Irish citizen whose family is supposed to be protected under article 41 of the Irish Constitution. It seems that the Irish State is under no compulsion to obey its own laws. Instead the State has decided that 'Irish Born Citizens' are a different kind of citizen, these young Irish Citizens, who can't stand up for themselves, are having their constitutional rights trampled on by the State, and by the Minister for Justice, Michael Mc-Dowell.

It is extremely difficult to understand why the State wants to deport so many immigrants. Even if we look at the immigrants as the State does, not as human beings but as economic units, the State's immigration policy doesn't make sense. Last year alone, Minister McDowell signed 2,428 deportation orders; for all of these deportation orders to be carried out it would have cost the Irish taxpayer in the region of 6.5 million euro. Clearly it is not the immigrants that are costing the economy but the State's racist immigration policy.

Considering that the ruling class is terrified of a shrinking work force, the State's immigration policy makes even less sense. The week after last month's operation, Blair, Schroder and Chirac (Germany and France's respective heads of State) called on Europeans to have more children. Kofi Annan, General Secretary of the UN, recently warned that 'Without immigration, the population of the soon-to-be 25 Member States of the EU - 452 million in 2000 - would drop to under 400 million people by 2050...Were this to happen, jobs would go unfilled and services undelivered. Your economies would shrink and your societies could stagnate.'

There's no reason for the State's current draconian immigration policy except the age-old tactic off 'Divide and Rule'. It suits the Irish elite to scapegoat refugees for all the problems that their mismanagement of society causes. The ruling class wants to set Irish workers against immigrant workers so as to prevent the workers from seeing that their interests are the same regardless of nationality. But libertarian socialists know; Immigrant and Irish workers: same bosses - same struggle.

McDowell jackboots in some new laws

Michael McDowell, continued his racist term in office as the current minister for justice, injustice might be a more apt title, by announcing his plans for a referendum in June designed to deny automatic citizenship to children born here to non-national parents. The state is taking a racist stance in the run up to the local elections, in an effort to win support for government party candidates. McDowell is doing his part to ensure that Ireland shuts it's door on people who are desperately seeking a new life. All we can do is be thankful that other countries didn't adopt that attitude when hundreds of thousands of Irish people left here.