Day: April 17, 2008

Asylum for those persecuted because of sexual orientation

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Frankly we haven’t paid much attention to asylum but we need to.   Briefly stated asylum is the other side of the refugee coin.  Refugees are identified primarily by the United Nations and some sort of screening process occurs abroad (we can only hope it is a serious and thorough process because no one will tell us about it).    Asylees, on the other hand, can get into the US illegally and then say they are persecuted with the help of lawyers like this one.

Just now as I was searching for something else I came across an ad* for an immigration lawyer that goes like this:

That’s why I have a special interest in the developing area of gender-related claims (gay/lesbian/transsexual/domestic violence); I’ve always been interested in issues involving persecution, be it political or gender- based.

 If you believe you have been persecuted because of your sexual orientation, you may be eligible to apply for political asylum in the United States.

Although this particular lawyer works mostly with Hispanics who apply from abroad for asylum, one could arrive illegally in say New York from Egypt, Iran or Saudi Arabia or any other Muslim country where homosexuality is illegal and where gays have been killed and seek asylum based on sexual orientation.

Asylees are eligible for all the welfare, housing subsidies, food stamps and so on that refugees receive.

You learn something new every day.

* Sorry I have no link.  I accidentally closed the article and when I opened it again the advertisement was gone.  I know her name was Hedi something.   Maybe just as well I lost it because she isn’t paying us for promoting her business.

 

Another story about a jobless (but skilled) Iraqi refugee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a story from Rhode Island about an Iraqi family down on its luck in America.  

PROVIDENCE — Seven months after an Iraqi refugee family received a warm welcome here, bad luck burst through the back door.

Make that bad luck on top of bad luck for Atheer Kiriacos Jajou, his wife, Baydaa Elshwaie, and their two children, who are the first Iraqi refugees resettled in Rhode Island since the 1990s.

The family has been here seven months and just at the time they are being evicted from their home, someone broke in and stole all of their money.  The couple was out earning some bit of additional cash cleaning another home at the time.   Seems that cleaning houses and motels is the kind of work Iraqis are getting these days.  This man has a skill, so I wonder why the International Institute of Rhode Island can’t find him more suitable work.  Maybe these outfits are too busy lobbying in support of illegal immigrants to bother finding jobs for the legal ones (check out their website and you’ll see what I mean).

 Jajou was trained at a technical institute in Baghdad, and is both a metalworker and mold-maker.

We have testimony in Congress where Representatives are claiming that we need to expand the H2-B visas to bring in more immigrants because we don’t have enough workers.  We have companies continuing to import illegal workers, and yet these volags can’t find work for refugees.  This family will now go on further taxpayer funded assistance.

Yesterday afternoon, Jajou got a tiny bit of good news: the family will be receiving federal assistance of $325 per month.

This does not add up.

By the way, the International Institute is a sister organization to the other International Institutes we have written about in Akron, OH,  Erie, PA and Waterbury, CT.