Day: January 7, 2008

Sauerbrey gets warm send off

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Asst. Sec. of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey was feted today with a good-bye party at the US State Department.    The ceremony included high praise from Sec. of State Condolezza Rice and Sauerbrey’s lobbying friends in the refugee industry.   Here Ken Bacon of Refugees International writes in glowing terms about the conservative MD Republican who ran a billion dollar (and growing!) agency of the Federal government.

Mrs. Sauerbrey held the post for two years and during that time worked hard to increase admission during a period of increased security screening and new laws that complicated refugee resettlement in the United States. A major accomplishment was increasing the number of refugees resettled in the U.S. to 48,000 in fiscal year 2007, which ended last Sept. 30, from 41,000 the year before.

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To do this, Mrs. Sauerbrey had to overcome an obstacle in new anti-terrorist laws–the USA Patriot Act and the REAL ID Act– called material support.

Kind of makes you shake your head, how did we get to the point of praising a conservative for bringing more refugees to America while lessening the security procedures? 

Iraqi refugee admissions down again

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Last week when the AP reported (and every news outlet in the world picked it up) that the Iraqi refugee admissions were down for the third straight month we didn’t  report on it.    Frankly, the news was ho-hum.  However, for readers at American Renaissance the news prompted some provacative comments.  Here is a sampling from three differant people (bracketed comments are mine!):

what a clever way to get your jihadi’s into america. have them pose as refugees. buy conveience stores [Hagerstown?]. send money back home and bring in family. i wonder how many white south africans we allow. [last I checked they aren’t among the refugees allowed in the U.S. Don’t you know white Christians are the persecutors not the persecuted.]

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The Iraqi refugees are arriving in Detroit, thanks to the U.N., the State Department and the Lutheran Church (refugee contracts get big taxpayers money, and the refugees get to bring over thousands of their distant relatives. The newspaper article states some Iraqi’s brought two wives. [those would not be the Christians]

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Lastly I do oppose relocating Iraqis in The USA because there are probably suicide bombers among those arriving. They should stay in their own country and rebuild it instead of coming here. [Thats what I’ve been saying all along]. If they come to The USA it’s just a matter of time before they bomb malls or burn synagogues. It only takes one idiot to destroy things.

I get the distinct impression that this issue is catching on.    Check out our Iraqi refugee category here, we have posted 72 times on this!

More thoughts on Lewiston “mad dog poster”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago I posted on the Mohammed poster in Lewiston, ME and I’m seeing this morning that it is quite a hot topic on other blogs.   Despite some criticism I got for saying people of good will should condemn this act, I’m sticking with that.  

Obviously, I see the enormous frustration building in small and medium sized American cities that are frankly being inundated with refugees and are not able to cope.  Either in some cases the new immigrants are bringing disease, or are unemployed and reaping welfare benefits, or are Muslims who are not attempting to assimilate, or there are just too many at once for communities that have no experience with immigration,  whatever the reason some citizens are being driven to take extreme measures to vent their frustration.

The fault for this lies with our federal government, the State Department, so-called “progressive” legislators like Sen. Ted Kennedy and others, Republicans in name only, and the volags (voluntary agencies) who benefit financially while breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for doing good.  The blame does not fall on the individual refugee who took advantage of this lax federal program and only gets guidance on how to be an American from some civil rights group or the local interfaith council, where demanding one’s rights seems to take precedence over blending in.

I don’t have a solution for the refugees already here, except to advise their handlers to start paying attention to the concerns of the local residents.     However, for those not yet here….. No one has ever really challenged the legal immigration industry so the waves will keep coming unless we get smart and get organized to reform immigration policy.  We must organize within our democratic process, not sit by and watch individual frustrated and angry citizens inflame already very tense cities.  Concerned citizens need to be given an alternative to counter-productive methods (like this mad dog poster) of getting the attention of elected officials.

Finally we must stop yakking on blogs, dissecting every word and having behind the scenes pseudo- intellectual debates and actually do something.  We must organize a political movement.   More later…