Month: November 2009

Refugee suffering from depression, first to become homeless in NC

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a story from Greensboro, NC about a Burmese refugee, resettled in North Carolina in 2007 who has become homeless, possibly the first* of many to come. 

GREENSBORO — In a case that highlights thinning assistance for incoming refugees, a Burmese exile resettled through the United Nations has taken emergency shelter at Greensboro Urban Ministry.

Soe Win, 56, arrived in 2007 to be resettled by Lutheran Family Services. Now destitute and suffering from a breakdown, he arrived in mid-November at the homeless day center on East Bessemer Avenue.

There, volunteer social workers contacted Lutheran Family Services, but no services were available. [ Edit: I guess the social workers don’t know that these agencies, bring’em in, and in a few months it’s sink or swim for the unfortunate refugee.  I forgot what they call it.  It’s kind of like the tough love notion, but it’s just some excuse they came up with because they don’t have enough money or volunteers to do it right.]

[….]

“It may be the first case like this,” State Refugee Coordinator Marlene Myers said this week, “but it won’t be the last.”

Oh, what’s a few homeless refugees here and there and no jobs, what the heck, we still plan to bring thousands to NC this year!   The Obama Administration announced it will keep the refugee numbers high even if we are in a recession.  By the way, the reason you don’t hear about more Burmese homeless, as we learned in Bowling Green, is that they just move in with each other—two and three families to an apartment!

Myers was in Greensboro this week to meet with a network of local providers who are expected to help resettle 800 of the state’s anticipated 2,100 new refugee arrivals this year.

Guilford County has led the state in resettling political refugees because four local nonprofit agencies have contracts to do so: Lutheran Family Services, Church World Services, World Relief of High Point and N.C. African Services Coalition. Refugees are resettled within a 50-mile radius of the agencies.   [I’ve highlighted the agencies just so readers will know who exactly is responsible for the refugees’ situations.]

I especially want to remind readers that back in February we learned that Lutheran Family Services was cutting back because refugees were not finding work, but that Church World Service was just picking up where they left off.

And, what a coincidence, no interpreters for the various Burmese language dialects here either.

At the Interactive Resource Center on East Bessemer, where Win showed up earlier this month, social workers contacted Lutheran Family Services to ask for help. Win’s caseworker, Halat Mlo, said Friday that the agency has no Burmese interpreters and that no services were available beyond a client’s initial year.

UNCG social work graduate student Jennifer Clark said LFS gave her the same answer earlier this month when Win showed up at the day center where Clark interns and the staff tried to find help for him.

“I was in desperate need of an interpreter, and I was kind of shocked that this (LFS) was the agency that everybody was referring me to,” Clark said.

“It would be like calling the health department for medication and being told, ‘We don’t do medication.’

Can I believe my eyes?  Someone in the refugee industry is actually saying what the majority of Americans would say if they knew all this was even happening.

With so many North Carolinians out of work, Myers’ assistant, Pat Priest, observed that it might be human nature to question the importance of refugee resettlement.

But, of course we need to bring refugees because that is what defines America, whaaat?

I’m glad this woman is taking the initiative and helping without asking for more government money (well, at least I think she isn’t asking taxpayers), but this notion of refugees defining America is nuts.

In Angela Chavis’ view, however, refugees are what defines the United States. Recognizing the increasing need this winter and the lack of resources and coordination, she has organized a mutual assistance agency, HeavensGate World Services.

Ms. Chavis, is this about you and how you feel, or about this poor Mr. Win?  Is he really better off in a homeless shelter in America than he would be with his own people in the camp in Thailand where he was culturally at ease and cared for by the UN?  One of my many reform suggestions is that the agency that failed to settle a refugee in a job and a comfortable new life should pay the return airfare for any refugee wishing to go HOME!

That reminds me.  A few days ago I came across this little article about Burmese refugees and resettlement in Europe and the US.  Check out the lines I’ve highlighted.  It looks to me that the western countries which have been taking Burmese are getting ready to turn off, or at least slow the flow of Burmese from the camps in Thailand.  So we aren’t taking them all anyway!  Maybe Mr. Win could go back to his family?

The European Union (EU) mission to Bangkok said it is the committed to “taking a new bold and longer-term steps for a better and more sustainable future for the refugees” and stands ready to work with the Thai government on this task.

In a press statement released after their two-day visit to Mae Lae refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border the EU noted that opportunity for resettlement to the US, Europe and elsewhere will not be available to all refugees.

Endnote:  I wanted to know what was the magnet that drew 4 resettlement agencies to Greensboro, but right off hand I couldn’t find any chicken plant employers.  I did find this article about Greensboro (Guilford County) being a refugee and immigrant mecca for quite some time.  It must be one of those “welcoming” cities.

* Oops! A reader just reminded me there have been other homeless refugees we’ve written about.  Here is one from Shelbyville, TN.

Comment worth noting: Burmese Karen must have Karen language interpreters

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a comment we received in an e-mail to RRW in response to my post earlier in the week about the conflict on-going in Pittsburgh regarding Burmese Karen refugees and their charge that Catholic Charities hired a Burmese interpreter and not one who understands the Karen dialect.  This is from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

The protest was organized by Three Rivers Coalition for Justice, a group with ties to organized labor that helps workers with problems such as evictions. It printed a leaflet claiming that Catholic Charities had assigned the Karens a Burmese translator who did not speak the Karen dialect and who treated them with contempt.

A reader, Madeleine, from the UK wanted us to know the following:

In the 2nd World War, the majority of ethnic groups in Burma fought the Japanese. The Karen (and Karenni, an affiliate ethnic group of the Karen), Kachin and Chin fought for Britain and the Allies. The Americans would know the Kachin better as they were in a different part of Burma. This knowledge of who were really our Allies has been suppressed since the end of the 2nd World War, firstly by P.M. Atlee and then consequent British Governments

The Karen played a vital role in saving many, many lives of British and Allied Soldiers from Japanese Prisoner of War Camps. They did this during the conquest of Burma by the Japanese during the retreat of British and Allied Soldiers. They harried the Japanese coming in through Thailand, giving time for the Allied Soldiers to escape and then guided them out through various paths. During the Japanese occupation, the Karen sent out vital Intelligence to the Armies in India. The Japanese knew they were doing this and they would slaughter and torture the Karen when they could find them, men, women and children. With this Intelligence, the Allies were able to re-take Burma and again the Karen were instrumental in the success of this by harrying the Japanese; they were between the Japanese and Allied lines. I have Attached an article supporting this from ‘Dekho’ – The Journal of the Burma Star Association, U. K.

The British colonial administration headed by Mountbatten betrayed the Karen who had been promised that they would be protected after the War from those who fought for the Japanese and that they would be granted statehood in line with the other groups in Burma. Instead, Mountbatten handed over the first Independent Burma Government to those who fought for the Japanese. The Karen were not heard and in many cases not represented at the so-called ‘Democratic’ process of the British Government.

Almost immediately after Independence, those who fought for the Japanese, now the Burma Government, opened fire on the unarmed Karen, blowing up their Churches, their villages, killing men, women and children.
For the Karen, the 2nd World War has never ended. They are being tortured, using techniques taught by the Japanese to the Burman during the War, burnt alive, raped, tortured; for instance, one accredited report states how the Burman Military Junta (Tatmadaw) came across a Karen family in hiding. They tied up the parents and threw their infant onto the campfire where these poor parents had to watch.

The Karen are being slaughtered because:

1) They were part of the Allies of the British & the Allies in the 2nd World War
2) A large majority of them are Christian – the most devoted Christians I have ever met
3) Their homeland is very rich in minerals particularly substances for nuclear use, rubies and oil.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the use of a Burman translator or interpreter can only be detrimental to the Karen. I say this because I have had first-hand experience. When I was assisting in claims for Asylum for the Karen here in the U. K., it became clear that the Court appointed Burman was, quite frankly, lying, when he interpreted to the Judge from a Karen claimant. At other times he omitted to interpret all that the Karen had said. I immediately set about finding and putting Karen translators and interpreters onto an official government web site. Since then, British authorities have only appointed Karen to translate and interpret for Karen.

Note to the US State Department:  Why not identify the Karen refugees who speak English well and get them out of chicken processing plants and into interpreting jobs.

LA Times: (at least) two views from Little Mogadishu

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Another take on this article is here, by Brenda Walker at VDARE.

The Los Angeles Times has an analysis of what might have prompted Somali former refugees to trade their lives in Minneapolis (aka Little Mogadishu) for life in the real war-torn hell-hole, Mogadishu.  I don’t really buy the ‘youths trying to find themselves’ angle or the ‘poverty made them do it’ excuse.   As a matter of fact, other refugees from other nations also live in poverty and they don’t take up arms and dash off to terrorist training camps.  The article doesn’t say much about the patriotism angle we often hear, and barely touches on what I believe is the real reason—they responded to the call of Allah.

In any case, please read this article, it’s more than the usual boilerplate story we have seen on this topic because it gives us some new information, even if for some it may get your blood pressure up! 

Here is how it begins, little Moghadishu—a neighborhood Mark Twain would not recognize!

Reporting from Minneapolis – Barely a block from the Mississippi River sits a neighborhood Mark Twain could not have imagined.

Men with henna-streaked beards and women in full-body hijabs streamed Tuesday past the Maashaa Allah Restaurant, the Alle Aamin Coffee Shop, the Kaah Express Money Wiring stall, the storefront Al-Qaaniteen Mosque and other similar structures.

“When I came here as a refugee in 1995, there were just a few hundred Somalis, and we were very alone,” said Adar Kahin, 48, who was a famous singer back home and now volunteers at a local community center.

“Now everyone is here,” she said cheerfully. “It’s like being back in Mogadishu. That’s what we call it, Little Mogadishu.”

Then here we go with the FBI promoting the ‘poverty made them do it’ excuse.

For the FBI, Little Mogadishu has become the center of an intense investigation into a recruiting network that sent young men to fight in Somalia for a radical Islamist group known as Shabab, or “the Youth.”

Investigators say the poverty, grim gang wars and overpacked public housing towers produced one of the largest militant operations in the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Trying to find their identities, some ‘youths’ applaud the Jihadists who called America the land of the devil and others don’t.

Outside the Brian Coyle Community Center, five young men who emigrated from Somalia as toddlers huddled in black hoodies under a cold, clammy fog that turned the day dull gray. They shared smokes and spoke of those who had joined the jihad, or holy war.

“Some of them felt America is the land of the devil,” said Said Ali, who is 20, rail-thin and jobless. “They were losing their culture, their language and their religion. They’ve got family there. They feel at home.”

If he had the money, he said, he would go to Somalia too.

“My friend went,” he said. “He’s running a hotel. He carries an AK-47. He’s living life good.”

Ali Mohamed, also 20 and unemployed, jumped in. “These guys are blowing up women and kids,” he said. “That ain’t right.”

The difficult search for identity is an old story in this area.

This is new information: the radical cleric who is thought to have influenced Major Nidal Hasan is fingered in this article by none other than our old buddy Omar Jamal.  I wouldn’t put it past Jamal to shift the attention away from the mosque in Minnesota to an Imam in Yemen.

Some members of the group that went to Somalia were said to be followers of Anwar al Awlaki, an American-born firebrand imam who preaches on the Internet in flawless English about the need to fight for Islam.

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused killer of 13 people at Ft. Hood in Texas this month, had exchanged e-mails with Awlaki, who is based in Yemen.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center here, said Awlaki’s fierce sermons helped inspire several of the youths who later joined Shabab in Somalia. Awlaki has praised the militia, which U.S. officials say is allied with Al Qaeda.

“They exchanged messages on his blog,” Jamal said. “They prayed for him. They watched his videos. They fell under his spell of influence.”

Finally at the end, a hint about the real reason these youths joined the Jihad—the mosque and the call of Allah.

“All these guys who left, we looked up to,” Bosir said. “When we came here to play basketball, they would go to the mosque. And somehow, they got brainwashed. And now they’re dead.”

Just a reminder to readers, we learned from Zakaria Maruf, one of the  missing (maybe now dead) youths, that they heard the call of Allah.

If only we citizens and people in authority in places like the FBI, would start to focus on the real reason (religion) and not try to analyze this in terms of our view of the world, we might actually avert Islamic radicalization and inevitable terrorist attacks.  These Somalis don’t care about patriotism or material things, two main driving forces in American society, they care about creating an Islamic caliphate across the globe!

For new readers :

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened, but will be soon.  Nevertheless, thousands of Somalis continue to be resettled as I write this.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Wishing all of our readers a wonderful day with friends and family, and thank God today and every day  that you live in a great country—the United States of America!

We’re not planning to post anything today (unles a major story breaks) but will be back tomorrow with lots of news on refugee issues around the world.

In the meantime, if you aren’t the cook in your house and have extra time, use our search function for refugee and immigrant topics that interest you.  We have written 2557 posts since July 2007, so surely there is information you might have missed!

Climate refugees, elephant in the living room in Copenhagen?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since there is so much titillating news over the last few day about those leaked (or hacked) e-mails and documents calling into question the whole scientific underpinning of the so-called global warming (aka climate change) “crisis,” I thought this “elephant in the living room” reference was a bit overblown.  I suspect the real discussions will center around, not climate refugees, but, well now, how do we salvage this whole mess!

In any case, here is just a bit from one of the latest alarmist screeds on “climate refugees,” a subject that is not expected to be formally addressed in Copenhagen to the chagrin of these authors.

According to this Australian on-line journal, millions upon millions of “climate refugees,” that I notice are quietly being called “environmental refugees,” are expected to be swarming the planet by by 2050.

Until there is a significant movement calling for recognition of climate refugees – under the UN climate convention or another international governance instrument – the issue will continue to be swept under the carpet. This will not make the problem go away. Estimates of likely displacement continue to grow. Professor Norman Myers, who has been researching the topic for decades, suggests that, without serious action to reduce greenhouse emissions, we could be facing the prospect of perhaps 200 million climate refugees by mid century.

Check out this new verbiage we can all expect to see creeping into the mainstream lexicon.

…..campaigns for climate justice for those most threatened by environmental changes.

Climate justice—don’t you just love it!   And then, note that they have recognized the hole they dug with the “global warming” mumbo-jumbo and they then went to “climate change” and now its just “environmental change” we in wealthy countries are responsible for!