France gets tough on illegal immigration, setting quotas for arrests, expulsions

PARIS - France set tough new quotas for the number of illegal immigrants authorities should arrest and expel each month, the new immigration minister said Monday.

Brice Hortefeux, who heads the newly created Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development, said a monthly quota also would be set for ferreting out those employed in France illegally.

In a meeting with security officials, Hortefeux reiterated President Nicolas Sarkozy’s goal of 25,000 expulsions by the end of 2007 - compared with 24,000 in 2006 - and set a year-end goal of 125,000 arrests for alleged illegal entry or illegal residence, a ministry statement said. The number of those already arrested was not immediately clear. [snip]

Hortefeux said the new measures were aimed at “dismantling networks that exploit the misery of illegal immigrants,” the statement said. [snip]

“Generosity is not opening wide the borders without thought for how people will integrate, how they will live, how they will subsist,” Fillon said. [snip]

I wonder what part of this position Bush doesn’t understand. One look at the current condition of the French economy should lave the eyes of false images and restore the damage done by the lobotomy, saving us from a similar demise.

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