Where's a good place for a refugee to land?

If you were a refugee from an island which is a pretty rotten place to live -- say Haiti or maybe Sri Lanka -- where would you go? You want to find someplace where life is better than it is at home. And it would be nice if they'd let you in.

The latter consideration pretty much lets out the U.S.A., which gets tougher on illegals by the day...especially if you try to enter via Arizona! But there are other countries, adjacent to the U.S.A., which are more welcoming.

One of them is the Bahamas, one of Walt's favourite vacation destinations. You can just about swim to the Bahamas from Haiti, so when the earthquake stuck, that's pretty much what a lot of Haitians did. Drinking heavily of the milk of human kindness, the Bahamian government temporarily halted roundups of "undocumented aliens" -- mostly Haitians -- following the big shake.

Seven months later, the Bahamas Immigration Department is warning any illegal migrants in the islands to go home or be subject to arrest and immediate deportation. The free ride is over.

And unlike another neighbour of the U.S. which has also received thousands of dispossessed Haitians -- that would be Canada -- illegals have no right to appeal, no taxpayer-funded lawyers to stretch out the process for years while the illegals disappear.

The Bahamian government said today that they are compelled to resume immigration enforcement, because the number of Haitians trying to enter illegally has actually been increasing over the last six months, this in spite of the millions of dollars in foreign aid pumped into Haiti to make it a little more fit to live in. (See WWW passim, ad nauseam.)

Canada has ignored the many Haitians who have crossed its porous border with the U.S.A. Right now they have a more pressing problem -- the arrival of hundreds of Tamil boat people, including suspected Tamil Tiger terrorists.

Flash back to October 2009 when the MV Ocean Lady arrived in British Columbia, disgorging 76 men who looked rustier than the ship. These Sri Lankans were arrested, but released when they hollered "Refugee! refugee!" Their claims are still "pending" and many of them have melted into the huge Tamil diaspora in Toronto.

At the time, the government of "Call me Steve" Harper, feeling the outrage of public opinion, said that kind of queue-jumping wasn't the Canadian way, dontcha know, and they would act immediately to make sure it didn't happen again. LMAO.

Apparently the Ocean Lady was kind of a test, for about three months ago the Thai-registered MV Sun Sea left Sri Lanka with a human cargo nearly seven times larger, most of whom had paid around $40,000 for passage to a sucker country.

They tried Australia, which told them they could put ashore at Christmas Island. Christmas Island has become Australia's holding camp for boat people. Conditions there are said to be so bad that those housed there wish they'd never left home.

Next the Sun Sea eyed the U.S.A., but realized that America actually has a navy and a coast guard which might...err...blow the boat out of the water. So of course they changed course for Canada.

The Canadian government had roughly two months' notice that they were coming. Vic Toews, Harper's public safety sheepdog [Which is it? ed.], said on Thursday, “While our government believes in offering protection to genuine refugees, it is imperative that we prevent supporters and members of a criminal or terrorist organization from abusing Canada’s refugee system.”

So what action was taken to keep the ship from entering Canadian waters? None. Was any effort made to keep the ship from docking? No. Were the 490 Tamils still alive arrested? Well...err...not exactly. They have been housed in "holding facilities", or sent to hospital, given food and of course legal aid, all at Canadian taxpayers' expense.

Welcome to Canada! Make yourselves at home! And congratulations on your cleverness in choosing to come to Canada by boat without bothering to ask if it was OK.

Now the Canadian government says it has intelligence [Really??!! ed.] that there are two more boatloads of refugees about to leave Sri Lanka, to follow their countrymen to the land of milk and honey [and chumps, surely. ed.]

Mr. Toews says the federal government of which he is a part will act immediately to prevent the ships from setting sail, because once they're on the high seas we have to take them, because of an obligation in international law. What action, exactly, is Canada going to take? Answer comes there none.