It happens all over the civilized world: A would-be immigrant falsely claims family ties with someone in a desirable country in order to get a visa. Now France is cracking down by ordering DNA tests for these claimants, the UK’s Daily Mail reports:
France’s hard-line new immigration minister is set to implement legislation that would allow DNA testing of new arrivals.
Eric Besson, who was appointed this month, has said the tests would establish which foreigners were claiming visas by making up fictious family ties with those already settled in the country.
Civil liberties groups have reacted furiously to the controversial scheme, which was approved by the French parliament 15 months ago.
It’s beyond me what this has to do with civil liberties. Following the law is a civil liberties violation? I guess it must be, since civil liberties groups go crazy in the U.S. when we require proof of citizenship for things like getting hired.
A recent report said there was often doubt over the authenticity of papers in family applications for visas.
It claimed that in African countries such as Senegal, Ivory Coast and Togo up to 80 per cent of birth and marriage certificates were forged.
France, and all European countries, have more of a problem with fictitious family ties than we do here, because so many of their immigrants come directly from Africa, where this fraud is most rampant. Many of the Africans who come to the U.S. are refugees, which is why we are concerned with this issue.
The State Department suspended a family-reunification program for Africans when DNA testing showed that the majority of claimants were not related, and that tens of thousands of Somalis and other east Africans are here illegally because of fraud. It then suspended the program worldwide. See our previous posts on DNA testing here, here, here, here, and here. We’ve been posting on it since July.
France has a reputation here of being a nation of softies. But they have often been very tough when it comes to defending themselves. They have much stronger anti-terrorist laws, for instance, in which there is a lot less concern for the “rights” of terrorists. (They can’t seem to figure out how to deal with their car-burning Muslim “youths,” though.)
Outgoing immigration minister Brice Hortefeux recently announced that France deported 30,000 illegal migrants in 2008 – a record number. It was a rise of more than 25 per cent on the number expelled the previous year.
I don’t know what our numbers are here, but I doubt we expelled that many.
Hat tip: Blulitespecial