The issue of immigration is a global political hot potato. In America, President Donald Trump is building a wall to keep Mexicans and Central Americans out.

Europe is troubled by the influx of African migrants. Britain has wrapped up its exit from the European Union. Even there, the free movement of people was perhaps the biggest sticking point.

And here in India, we are in the middle of a national debate on illegal immigrants triggered by a new Citizenship Law.&nbsp;

Talking about the United States, a 30-foot high portion of Trump's wall along the US-Mexico border blew over in high winds yesterday.

In more ways than one, this incident personifies what's wrong with Trump's agreements on immigration, high on rhetoric and low on substance. 
 
WATCH:&nbsp;Detention camps: Inhumane, but inevitable 
&nbsp;

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While America might have tightened its border checks, Trump has failed to keep the numbers in check. American borders still remain porous in some areas.

In fact, the tougher rules are leading to more deaths at the borders. Last year in August, more than 500 deaths were reported from America and almost half of them were recorded at the US-Mexico border.

Poor execution aside, the argument has merit - illegal immigration is a legitimate concern. Trump rose to power by giving his voice to an issue that most politicians were silent about.

Native Americans were concerned about illegal immigrants, but nobody except Trump was willing to say it.

It's a pitch that India's Prime minister Narendra Modi has been able to successfully replicate. The BJP's pitch to battle illegal migration has found a connect.

But, has the government exaggerated the crisis? The numbers from the census throw up some trends. In America and other major countries of Western Europe, the immigration rate, the share of the immigrant population is around 10-15 per cent.

Reportedly, in India, the immigration rate is less than one per cent. Irrespective of what the numbers suggest, India is expected to escalate its crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Reports say that last year, the Centre asked the states to build at least one detention centre to house illegals. But, as the recent anti-CAA protests have shown, such moves have triggered anxieties.

About a year,&nbsp;the idea of detention centres and pictures from the US- Mexico border triggered major outrage. Prison like facilities, where children were separated from their families.

Detention centres around the world are not much different - Canada, Germany and Australia too have been criticised for keeping detainees in inhumane conditions. Reportedly, the Indian government already has 10 detention centres.

India must tread cautiously on this issue because any step that we&nbsp;take,&nbsp;will face the scrutiny of the world. 
 
(Disclaimer: WION Edit is the channel's take on the big events of the world) 
&nbsp;

The issue of immigration is a global political hot potato. In America, President Donald Trump is building a wall to keep Mexicans and Central Americans out. Europe is troubled by the influx of African migrants.

The issue of immigration is a global political hot potato. In America, President Donald Trump is building a wall to keep Mexicans and Central Americans out. Europe is troubled by the influx of African migrants. Britain has wrapped up its exit from the European Union. Even there, the free movement of people was perhaps the biggest sticking point. And here in India, we are in the middle of a national debate on illegal immigrants triggered by a new Citizenship Law. Talking about the United States, a 30-foot high portion of Trump's wall along the US-Mexico border blew over in high winds yesterday. In more ways than one, this incident personifies what's wrong with Trump's agreements on immigration, high on rhetoric and low on substance. WATCH: Detention camps: Inhumane, but inevitable × While America might have tightened its border checks, Trump has failed to keep the numbers in check. American borders still remain porous in some areas. In fact, the tougher rules are leading to more deaths at the borders. Last year in August, more than 500 deaths were reported from America and almost half of them were recorded at the US-Mexico border. Poor execution aside, the argument has merit - illegal immigration is a legitimate concern. Trump rose to power by giving his voice to an issue that most politicians were silent about. Native Americans were concerned about illegal immigrants, but nobody except Trump was willing to say it. It's a pitch that India's Prime minister Narendra Modi has been able to successfully replicate. The BJP's pitch to battle illegal migration has found a connect. But, has the government exaggerated the crisis? The numbers from the census throw up some trends. In America and other major countries of Western Europe, the immigration rate, the share of the immigrant population is around 10-15 per cent. Reportedly, in India, the immigration rate is less than one per cent. Irrespective of what the numbers suggest, India is expected to escalate its crackdown on illegal immigrants. Reports say that last year, the Centre asked the states to build at least one detention centre to house illegals. But, as the recent anti-CAA protests have shown, such moves have triggered anxieties. About a year, the idea of detention centres and pictures from the US- Mexico border triggered major outrage. Prison like facilities, where children were separated from their families. Detention centres around the world are not much different - Canada, Germany and Australia too have been criticised for keeping detainees in inhumane conditions. Reportedly, the Indian government already has 10 detention centres. India must tread cautiously on this issue because any step that we take, will face the scrutiny of the world. (Disclaimer: WION Edit is the channel's take on the big events of the world)

WION Edit: Detention of illegal immigrants a political hot potato

By: Saurabh Bose

A popular mobile application has been used by Chinese authorities to carry out surveillance against minority Uighur population. A leak of highly classified documents, China Cables exposes the horrors of AI-usage by China to put a million people In detention without judicial recourse.&nbsp;

The documents reveal that the minority Muslim population have been held in detention camp even if they have not committed a crime, but have downloaded&nbsp;apps to download religious material.&nbsp;

WION caught up with Fergus Shiel, the Project manager of 'China Cables', an ICIJ investigation report to discuss the horrors of Xinjiang.

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WION: How is China Cables different from other exposes, including the latest NYT expose?

Fergus Shiel: Two things differentiate China Cables from previous investigations, that an operation manual has revealed the camps in which more than a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are understood to be detained. The NYT had policy settings of these camps, anecdotal reports, satellite images, but this is the very first time that a document outlining the camps have been leaked we understand that it is the first document of it's kind to come out of China for the last thirty years because of it's classification level.

The second thing that we can say about it is, that the first time the surveillance platform and it's a vast sweep has been revealed in such details. We have one document which is the operational manual for the camps where more than a million Uighurs are believed to be detained We also have four(bulletins) directives from the Chief security person in Xinjiang outlining the kind of data which is used as the basis for detaining the person without charge, without judicial process. And the smallest thing can get you detained, in 2017 one week alone 15,000 people were detained according to the bulletins and many of those people were detained because of an app on the phone, visa to travel outside the country or returned to the country or mere suspicion of the behaviour which the govt considers unacceptable.

WION: What do the classified intelligence briefings reveal about the scope and ambition of Chines govt's AI-based policing platform?

Fergus Shiel: Do you think the AI platform is trying arrests as pre-crime prevention efforts and does the Xinjiang police take these orders directly from IJOP or cybernetic?

The cybernetic tools pull out the most intimate details of the people's lives into a huge database and that becomes the basis for local authorities to believe that they can predict who may commit a crime in the future.&nbsp;

The final document illustrates a court case of a Uighur man who is incredibly jailed for 10 years, for telling his work colleagues that they should be good Muslims, they should not swear, they should not watch pornography for that he was jailed for 10 years. And this gives you an idea of the repressive nature of the data collection.

WION: Is there evidence that can link him to Xi?

Fergus Shiel: What we know is that Xi Jinping authorised in speeches and directions after some horrific terror attacks in Xinjiang and the response from Chinese authorities have been extraordinarily sweeping.&nbsp;

Xinjiang authorities with the approval and encouragement of Beijing have detained more than a million people. There are 11 million Uighurs in Xinjian. Every family has someone who has disappeared into camps. Documents that we have shown that once they are in the camps they have to learn Mandarin, forced to learn Chinese law we are not sure what that means. Essentially it is targetting of ethnic minorities to socially re-engineer them. China says the reason to do this is to prevent terrorism and to re-educate impoverished community, but what our documents show is that people who are never suspected of terrorism, people who have never committed a crime, more than a million people who have never committed a crime have been detained nevertheless.

Once they are in the camps the regiment that they suffer under is rigorous, they are guarded by police stations, cameras.&nbsp;

The detainees must use the same seat every day and must line up in the same way.

WION: What are the differences between the 3 categories of security zones?

Fergus Shiel: According to the Chinese govt, the camps are entirely designed to re-train, re-skill impoverished people to improve themselves but in reality, the documents show they are prisons, where you are put right off the street without going through a judicial process.

We also know that there are three levels of security inside the camps. The detainees/trainees find themselves either in minimum, medium or maximum-security jails.

And in order to be freed from the camps, you have to be in minimum security, so if you are in maximum security you will spend longer time in the camp and we also know from the documents that they should stay for a year in the camps and after that, they should be retrained but in effect we have spoken to 40 Uighurs who had stayed in the camps we know that is not accurate and some have spent less time and some more time there. The manual states they have to stay for one year but in reality, it could be more or less than one year.

WION: What do you infer from the creepy section on manners, change of clothes?

Fergus Shiel: We understand from experts that many of Han Chinese view Uighurs as less cosmopolitan, less modern than they are.&nbsp;

Consequently, we see in the documents is this bizarre, chilling, horrific effort to retrain, reengineer a huge community of more than a million people in basic hygiene.

We learned from former detainees that conditions are so awful that some of the dormitories are crowded, there are one or two commodes so that people who want to go to the toilet in the night are forced to use very few facilities. One of the oddest and most chilling aspects is that people have two to three minutes in the toilet, so even the toilet time is regulated. The way you sleep is regulated, they are told that they can sleep only on one side, so camp guards tell them where to sit, where to line up, where to sleep, how long can they can go to the toilet. They monitor them with facial recognition, they take away their phones. They are not allowed to contact friends or families. And this is called by Chines govt as free and voluntary camps but everything in the manual and what we have learned from talking to former inmates that this is not the case.

WION: How local authorities are targeting Uighurs?

Fergus Shiel: IJOR has 4 bulletins (directives) essentially to collect data. It is mass surveillance Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, what they say amongst other things that people who have a certain app on their phones can be targetted, detained, people who leave the country , the people who come back into the country , people who apply for visa , connections with people overseas or if you try to bypass the firewall to contact people overseas so essentially anyone who has connection to the outside world from Xinjiang is immediately suspect and can be targetted for detention. and we know the huge number of people detained something like more than 15,000 people in one week of June 2017 were detained, that is not fanciful not exaggerated but real, they are targeting everyone and viewing everyone with suspicion. &nbsp;

WION: What is the evidence against the role of Chinese embassies in tracking Uighurs?

Fergus Shiel: All we can tell the Uighurs that we have spoken with abroad in Ireland, Turkey, Netherland, Germany, and Canada.&nbsp;

What they all say is that only their friends and family being monitored in Xinjiang but also have their local embassy monitoring them, that they are frightened whether it is Melbourne, Berlin or it's Dublin or Toronto they worry that their Chinese embassy is monitoring them&nbsp;

WION: What is the number of non-Chinese or foreign citizens in these prisons?

Fergus Shiel: Oh Yes we think so, I think the figure is like forty-eight Australian Uighurs in detention camps and it makes sense as that documents say that people who are under target are people who have visas for other countries so it makes sense, these are people with dual nationalities who are in the camps. Nobody knows the exact number of people in the camps, what we do know is that human rights groups, overseas govt have said that it is one million but some people expect it to be more than two million. To give an example in India it will be the city with a size of the equivalent to Varanasi, so it is what you are to talk about. You have to go back in history to World War two to find anything similar. You see almost one-tenth of the community disappears in detention camps.

By: Saurabh Bose A popular mobile application has been used by Chinese authorities to carry out surveillance against minority Uighur population. A leak of highly classified documents, China Cables exposes the horrors of AI-usage by China to put a million people In detention without judicial recourse.

By: Saurabh Bose A popular mobile application has been used by Chinese authorities to carry out surveillance against minority Uighur population. A leak of highly classified documents, China Cables exposes the horrors of AI-usage by China to put a million people In detention without judicial recourse. The documents reveal that the minority Muslim population have been held in detention camp even if they have not committed a crime, but have downloaded apps to download religious material. WION caught up with Fergus Shiel, the Project manager of 'China Cables', an ICIJ investigation report to discuss the horrors of Xinjiang. WION: How is China Cables different from other exposes, including the latest NYT expose? Fergus Shiel: Two things differentiate China Cables from previous investigations, that an operation manual has revealed the camps in which more than a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are understood to be detained. The NYT had policy settings of these camps, anecdotal reports, satellite images, but this is the very first time that a document outlining the camps have been leaked we understand that it is the first document of it's kind to come out of China for the last thirty years because of it's classification level. The second thing that we can say about it is, that the first time the surveillance platform and it's a vast sweep has been revealed in such details. We have one document which is the operational manual for the camps where more than a million Uighurs are believed to be detained We also have four(bulletins) directives from the Chief security person in Xinjiang outlining the kind of data which is used as the basis for detaining the person without charge, without judicial process. And the smallest thing can get you detained, in 2017 one week alone 15,000 people were detained according to the bulletins and many of those people were detained because of an app on the phone, visa to travel outside the country or returned to the country or mere suspicion of the behaviour which the govt considers unacceptable. WION: What do the classified intelligence briefings reveal about the scope and ambition of Chines govt's AI-based policing platform? Fergus Shiel: Do you think the AI platform is trying arrests as pre-crime prevention efforts and does the Xinjiang police take these orders directly from IJOP or cybernetic? The cybernetic tools pull out the most intimate details of the people's lives into a huge database and that becomes the basis for local authorities to believe that they can predict who may commit a crime in the future. The final document illustrates a court case of a Uighur man who is incredibly jailed for 10 years, for telling his work colleagues that they should be good Muslims, they should not swear, they should not watch pornography for that he was jailed for 10 years. And this gives you an idea of the repressive nature of the data collection. WION: Is there evidence that can link him to Xi? Fergus Shiel: What we know is that Xi Jinping authorised in speeches and directions after some horrific terror attacks in Xinjiang and the response from Chinese authorities have been extraordinarily sweeping. Xinjiang authorities with the approval and encouragement of Beijing have detained more than a million people. There are 11 million Uighurs in Xinjian. Every family has someone who has disappeared into camps. Documents that we have shown that once they are in the camps they have to learn Mandarin, forced to learn Chinese law we are not sure what that means. Essentially it is targetting of ethnic minorities to socially re-engineer them. China says the reason to do this is to prevent terrorism and to re-educate impoverished community, but what our documents show is that people who are never suspected of terrorism, people who have never committed a crime, more than a million people who have never committed a crime have been detained nevertheless. Once they are in the camps the regiment that they suffer under is rigorous, they are guarded by police stations, cameras. The detainees must use the same seat every day and must line up in the same way. WION: What are the differences between the 3 categories of security zones? Fergus Shiel: According to the Chinese govt, the camps are entirely designed to re-train, re-skill impoverished people to improve themselves but in reality, the documents show they are prisons, where you are put right off the street without going through a judicial process. We also know that there are three levels of security inside the camps. The detainees/trainees find themselves either in minimum, medium or maximum-security jails. And in order to be freed from the camps, you have to be in minimum security, so if you are in maximum security you will spend longer time in the camp and we also know from the documents that they should stay for a year in the camps and after that, they should be retrained but in effect we have spoken to 40 Uighurs who had stayed in the camps we know that is not accurate and some have spent less time and some more time there. The manual states they have to stay for one year but in reality, it could be more or less than one year. WION: What do you infer from the creepy section on manners, change of clothes? Fergus Shiel: We understand from experts that many of Han Chinese view Uighurs as less cosmopolitan, less modern than they are. Consequently, we see in the documents is this bizarre, chilling, horrific effort to retrain, reengineer a huge community of more than a million people in basic hygiene. We learned from former detainees that conditions are so awful that some of the dormitories are crowded, there are one or two commodes so that people who want to go to the toilet in the night are forced to use very few facilities. One of the oddest and most chilling aspects is that people have two to three minutes in the toilet, so even the toilet time is regulated. The way you sleep is regulated, they are told that they can sleep only on one side, so camp guards tell them where to sit, where to line up, where to sleep, how long can they can go to the toilet. They monitor them with facial recognition, they take away their phones. They are not allowed to contact friends or families. And this is called by Chines govt as free and voluntary camps but everything in the manual and what we have learned from talking to former inmates that this is not the case. WION: How local authorities are targeting Uighurs? Fergus Shiel: IJOR has 4 bulletins (directives) essentially to collect data. It is mass surveillance Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, what they say amongst other things that people who have a certain app on their phones can be targetted, detained, people who leave the country , the people who come back into the country , people who apply for visa , connections with people overseas or if you try to bypass the firewall to contact people overseas so essentially anyone who has connection to the outside world from Xinjiang is immediately suspect and can be targetted for detention. and we know the huge number of people detained something like more than 15,000 people in one week of June 2017 were detained, that is not fanciful not exaggerated but real, they are targeting everyone and viewing everyone with suspicion. WION: What is the evidence against the role of Chinese embassies in tracking Uighurs? Fergus Shiel: All we can tell the Uighurs that we have spoken with abroad in Ireland, Turkey, Netherland, Germany, and Canada. What they all say is that only their friends and family being monitored in Xinjiang but also have their local embassy monitoring them, that they are frightened whether it is Melbourne, Berlin or it's Dublin or Toronto they worry that their Chinese embassy is monitoring them WION: What is the number of non-Chinese or foreign citizens in these prisons? Fergus Shiel: Oh Yes we think so, I think the figure is like forty-eight Australian Uighurs in detention camps and it makes sense as that documents say that people who are under target are people who have visas for other countries so it makes sense, these are people with dual nationalities who are in the camps. Nobody knows the exact number of people in the camps, what we do know is that human rights groups, overseas govt have said that it is one million but some people expect it to be more than two million. To give an example in India it will be the city with a size of the equivalent to Varanasi, so it is what you are to talk about. You have to go back in history to World War two to find anything similar. You see almost one-tenth of the community disappears in detention camps.

Xi Jinping authorised mass detention through speeches after terror attacks in Xinjiang: Project manager 'China Cables'

Refugees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru were handed a lifeline on Sunday with Australia and the United States reaching a &quot;one-off&quot; resettlement deal.

Under Australia&#39;s tough border security laws, asylum seekers who try to reach Australia by boat are sent to the controversial remote detention facilities in the Pacific, even if found to be refugees. &nbsp;

&quot;The arrangements with the United States will offer the opportunity for refugees, both on Nauru and Manus, to be resettled,&quot; Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters in Canberra. Turnbull would not say how many refugees would be resettled in the United States, but that women, children and families would be prioritised.&nbsp;

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in New Zealand, confirmed the arrangement, adding that &quot;we know that these refugees are of special interest to UNHCR and we&#39;re very engaged with them on a humanitarian basis there and in other parts of the world&quot;.

Abdul Aziz, 24, who has spent more than three years on Manus Island after fleeing his home in Sudan in 2013, was very happy. &quot;All the refugees were smiling and hugging each other. This nightmare is going to end finally, but the main question is when and how and how we get out of here,&quot; he told Reuters.

The agreement, to be administered with the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), is available only to those currently in the processing centres and will not be repeated.&nbsp;

Immigration minister Peter Dutton said asylum-seekers whose refugee applications are rejected would be expected to return to their home country. While those who are offered the US move but reject it themselves would be offered a 20-year Nauru visa instead.&nbsp;

Some 1,200 people are in detention in the camps have been widely criticised by refugee advocates and medical professionals, who say some asylum-seekers suffer from mental health problems due to their prolonged, indefinite detention.

(WION with inputs from agencies) 
&nbsp;

Australia stressed that under the deal, refugees in remote camps will be offered the US move but immigration policy will remain unchanged

Refugees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru were handed a lifeline on Sunday with Australia and the United States reaching a "one-off" resettlement deal. Under Australia's tough border security laws, asylum seekers who try to reach Australia by boat are sent to the controversial remote detention facilities in the Pacific, even if found to be refugees. "The arrangements with the United States will offer the opportunity for refugees, both on Nauru and Manus, to be resettled," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters in Canberra. Turnbull would not say how many refugees would be resettled in the United States, but that women, children and families would be prioritised. US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in New Zealand, confirmed the arrangement, adding that "we know that these refugees are of special interest to UNHCR and we're very engaged with them on a humanitarian basis there and in other parts of the world". Abdul Aziz, 24, who has spent more than three years on Manus Island after fleeing his home in Sudan in 2013, was very happy. "All the refugees were smiling and hugging each other. This nightmare is going to end finally, but the main question is when and how and how we get out of here," he told Reuters. The agreement, to be administered with the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), is available only to those currently in the processing centres and will not be repeated. Immigration minister Peter Dutton said asylum-seekers whose refugee applications are rejected would be expected to return to their home country. While those who are offered the US move but reject it themselves would be offered a 20-year Nauru visa instead. Some 1,200 people are in detention in the camps have been widely criticised by refugee advocates and medical professionals, who say some asylum-seekers suffer from mental health problems due to their prolonged, indefinite detention. (WION with inputs from agencies)

Australia-US migrant deal: Refugees in detention camps offered US resettlement

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