Month: November 2010

Australian asylum seekers sew lips shut

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They did it as a form of protest for their detention on Christmas Island!   Australia has big problem with ‘boat people’ attempting to get into Australia and this detention facility has been in the news for years.   There is probably a much larger story on this somewhere but this is what the Arizona Daily Star is reporting:

Ten asylum seekers at an Australian detention center sewed their lips together to protest delays in processing their refugee applications, as the government warned that protests will not change the outcome of the visa process.

The male asylum seekers have refused medical assistance since sewing their lips together Friday morning at the Christmas Island detention center. They are taking water and sugar.

The incident was part of a larger protest by 160 detainees at the remote center on Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean where asylum seekers who illegally enter Australian waters by boat are detained.

For more on Australia’s refugee and asylee issues, visit our category on Australia, here.

Legal immigrant workers pour into Tennessee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The unemployment rate in Tennessee is at 10%, yet businesses are applying in record numbers for immigrant employees according to an investigation by NewsChannel 5:

A NewsChannel 5 investigation found companies across the state are importing foreign workers at a time when the unemployment rate is near 10 percent.

We spent months reviewing applications Tennessee businesses sent to the federal government as part of a federal visa program called H-2B.

The use of H-2B guest workers has soared nationally, from around 15,000 visas issued in 1997, to an all time high of more than 129,000 issued in 2007. The program was designed to provide temporary workers for small businesses with jobs Americans do not want.

When businesses apply for the right to bring foreign workers into the country, they must prove that no Americans are qualified or interested in the jobs.

Our investigation revealed companies are bending the rules and even lying on federal applications.

Here in Tennessee, business owners told the federal government they could not find people willing to do horse grooming jobs that paid $15.00 an hour, golf course landscaping that paid more than $10.00 an hour and operating carnival rides at more than $7.00 an hour.

Look who gets it—-a labor union!  Yet, labor unions have been organizing for the Open Borders movement.  A chink in the armor?

“You can’t tell me that an employer can’t find somebody in this country to do the work anywhere,” said union leader Jerry Lee, president of the Tennessee AFL-CIO.

With unemployment near 10 percent in the state, Lee said it’s ridiculous to think Tennesseans would walk away from so many jobs.

So, why might businesses want cheap immigrant labor—they are compliant and desperate people.

He thinks many employers now prefer foreign workers because their legal status in this country is tied to their job, making them willing to endure poor conditions.

“They’re not going to rock the boat because they know if they get fired or they make the boss mad, they’re gone,” Lee said.

I’ve been saying for years that this cheap labor demand by business also drives the refugee program.   In addition to the desperation factor (the workers don’t complain about conditions), we are still looking for the benefits that we believe are built into laws that ‘encourage’ businesses to hire refugees over the average out-of-work American.

That reminds me, remember the incredible story from 2009 where Visa lottery winners (another legal immigration program) were bused into Shelbyville, TN to stand in line overnight in hopes of applying for in-demand meat packing jobs.

And, it sure is a good thing that the refugee program was closed in Washington County, MD, where we live, in 2007.  The unemployment rate here is at 10%.

San Diego: Another indictment on terrorism charges….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….a woman this time!  First we had Somali women in the sex slave business, now it’s terrorism.

We told you about the three indicted, here, earlier this month.  Now comes news that a 24-year-old Somali woman, the mother of 5 or 6 kids, has been indicted in California on charges that she helped the terrorist group Al-shabaab raise money.  

By the way, since we know San Diego has been a gateway in and out of the country, should the many visitors to her apartment be just passing through town?

Here is the story at Sign On San Diego, read it all to learn more about the woman from a neighbor.

SAN DIEGO — Federal prosecutors in San Diego have charged a woman with providing money and other assistance to the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab.

Nima Ali Yusuf, 24, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to provide material support to al-Shabaab and lying to a government agency investigating a terrorist matter.

Yusuf appeared in federal court Monday for an arraignment after being arrested Friday, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday to determine whether she should be granted bail.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sabrina L. Féve declined to comment Monday afternoon on the case until that court hearing.

Yusuf is the fourth Somali native living in San Diego to be charged this month with aiding al-Shabaab, a militia that has links to al-Qaeda. The group wants to establish an Islamic state in that war-torn country.

About 10,000 Somalis live in San Diego, mostly in the City Heights neighborhood, making it the second largest Somali community in the United States, behind Minnesota’s Twin Cities.

For new readers: We have admitted well over 100,000 Somali refugees to the US.   To check out the numbers visit this post, one of our most widely read posts over the last few years.   In FY2010 which ended September 30th the US State Department resettled 4,884 Somalis (here) to towns near you.

Also, after being closed for nearly two years, the US State Department is on the verge of resuming the fraud-ridden family reunification program that admitted as many as 36,000 Somalis fraudulently to the US between 2003 and 2008.  See the latest on new regulations, here.  The State Department is on the verge of re-opening the program.

Unaccompanied minors taken care of (well, sort of) by ORR

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is charged with the job of taking care of a growing number of illegal alien children who get into the US with parents who abandon them or get in with the help of human smugglers.  I came across a couple of mentions of this “business” recently.

The first is a Q & A published at a accident and divorce lawyers website here where a questioner asks why Mexican parents turn their kids over to human smugglers.  The article reports a Kansas case, which you can go read, and ends with this:

Typically in cases of illegal immigration by juveniles, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency policy calls for agents to work with social service agencies to return the children to their families in their home countries, said Jim Cross, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas.

ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro declined to release any information about the juveniles found in Kansas, citing privacy concerns. But she said all unaccompanied minors encountered by ICE are turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health & Human Services.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement gets about 7,200 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children a year in its facilities, said spokesman Kenneth Wolfe. Their average stay is 55 days before they are released to family members or sponsors, age out of the facility, or are returned to their home countries, he said.

When I used the word “business” above I didn’t just mean the business of human trafficking, but the “business” of caring for all these children whose parents have abandoned them.   ORR doesn’t have “facilities,” it contracts them out, which brings me to the California case.

“Non-profit” that runs home for unaccompanied minors sues state of California

Courthouse News tells us that a “non-profit” group whose “home” was found in violation of California law and ordered closed has sued California because they claim it will cause them to break their federal contract.  I’m no lawyer, but does this mean that if the contractor wins they can put unaccompanied kids in some sort of jeopardy just so as not to hurt their contractual arrangement with ORR?  And, get this they are citing the Supremacy clause claiming that California can’t cite them for violating California laws!

SACRAMENTO (CN) – A detention home for undocumented children sued the California Department of Social Services, claiming the state’s attempt to shut it down would violate the facility’s contract with the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Plaintiff BCFS-Health and Human Services houses boys who are believed to be in the United States illegally, “and who have had some criminal arrest or conviction.”

The federal complaint states: “These children, who are also known as ‘unaccompanied alien children,’ do not have parents or guardians who are available to care for them. The BCFS facility provides shelter and care to these children while the federal government determines the appropriate next steps toward reconnecting them with their families.”

The BCFS facility was licensed as a group home in October 2009, and was allowed to house up to 24 children at a time.

But California’s Department of Social Services refused to renew its provisional license in October this year, after several visits to the facility revealed several violations.

BCFS claims:

“Further, defendants have failed to consider the obligations that flow from BCFS’s grant from ORR, and BCFS’s need to provide a safe, secure environment for the group of unaccompanied alien minors at their facility to further the goals and policies of the federal government.”

BCFS asks the court to declare the state regulations preempted by federal law, and that the state’s denial of licensing a violation of the Supremacy Clause.

Can you imagine the power a “non-profit” could have in a state if they can claim their federal contract lets them get out of state laws because federal law supercedes state law!   In other words, ORR in partnership with a  non-profit contractor could say, ‘too bad for you state government.’

See more on BCFS, Baptist Child & Family Services, here and here.  Finally, for the umpteenth time I ask, where is the ACLU to uphold the separation of church and state?

Time magazine: Sweden deporting Iraqi Christians

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But, how many???

I saw the headline and read the story in Time entitled:  ‘Why Christian Iraqis are running scared—in Sweden.’  But I would like to know how many of those deported are Christians?  We know from many previous posts that Sweden is having a huge problem with Muslim immigrant populations in certain cities and that there is a growing ‘close the borders’ political movement in the former welfare mecca of Europe.  Just one recent story is here.

Here then is Time from Saturday:

With numerous attacks against Iraq’s Christians in recent weeks — including a Halloween day massacre in a Baghdad church, which left 52 dead — the country’s religious minority fears for its survival within the boundaries of the Middle Eastern nation. Yet, a long way from their native land, many Iraqi Christians are also living in terror in a far more serene place: Stockholm.

Swedish immigration officials have been deporting Iraqi refugees to Baghdad on flights about every three weeks, declaring that some of them have no legitimate claim to political asylum in Sweden. That includes Iraqi Christians — a category that does not automatically imply a risk of persecution, according to Swedish guidelines. Of the 80,000 or so Iraqi refugees in Sweden, about 6,000 of them are Christian, according to estimates by the Syriac Orthodox Church in Stockhold.

Read it all.

O.K. so there are 6,000 Iraqi Christians and 74,000 Iraqi Muslims in Sweden, but I cannot see where the article says how many of each batch of deportees are truly Christians.  I’m so cynical I think the Christians supposedly deported are used as a PR tool to stop all deportations.   Someone in Sweden, please give us the facts.

Off topic a little, but almost two years ago I reported that Time magazine wrote a politically correct version of the Rohingya illegal aliens story and completely ignored its own reporting from 2002 about Rohingya links to Islamic terrorism.  Bottomline, I don’t trust Time magazine’s reporting on immigration issues.