Day: June 29, 2008

Michael Savage being himself on refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is something I missed previously,  radio talk show host Michael Savage commenting on remarks by First Lady Laura Bush for World Refugee Day.    I don’t know what Laura Bush said, I didn’t even pay attention at the time or look it up now because I knew it would be some politically correct mumbo jumbo.    Here is Savage: 

And moreover, let me tell you something. I am an immigrant son, but when my grandfather came here, he could read and write. And he had a business that he opened with his money — the first monies he got, he opened his own business. He knew how to use toilet paper; he had used a toothbrush. We’re getting refugees now who have never used a telephone, a toothbrush, or toilet paper. You’re telling me they’re going to assimilate? They will never assimilate. They come here and they bring their destitute ways to this country, and they never assimilate. And then their children become gang-bangers. It is a disaster. Did you hear what I just said? A disaster. And Laura Bush is talking about political refugees as though it’s 1955. It’s pretty amazing to me that she is as out of touch as her husband is. 

I wonder if Mr. Savage has seen an advance copy of Mark Krikorian’s latest book, The New Case Against Immigration, due out this week.   Krikorian, in more genteel terms says the same thing—this isn’t 1955, or 1924—things have changed.

The “lottery”: Somali refugees in Africa stream to camps in hopes of going West

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is an article from The National (a UAE newspaper?) this past week that explains why the flow of Somalis to camps will continue as long as there is hope that the US will scoop them up and bring them to a town near you.

UN officials are trying to deal with overcrowded camps along the Somali border.   One option is to move them a thousand miles to camps originally set up for Sudanese but increasingly empty because the Sudanese are going home. 

One option the United Nations is considering is moving Somali refugees across Kenya to camps originally set up for Sudanese refugees.

The Kakuma camp on Kenya’s north-western border holds 130,000 refugees from Sudan’s 22-year civil war. But since a peace deal was signed in 2005, most of the Sudanese refugees have returned home. Last year, 66,000 Sudanese were repatriated from Kakuma and the United Nations expects a further 50,000 to return this year.

As the camps near the Somali border continue to fill – 4,000 refugees are estimated to flee across the border every month – officials would like to move some of them to Kakuma.

OK, that sounds like a good plan, but the article goes on to give excuses why that would be difficult.  So, they send some here.

Since Somalia is still too dangerous to send refugees back home, UN officials have been trying to resettle them in other countries. But this is a slow process as refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries compete for the limited number of refugee resettlement spots that western countries make available.

About 3,000 refugees were resettled from Dadaab last year, mostly to the United States. This is still less than the amount arriving in the camps each month. Yet refugees hold out hope that they will be among the lucky ones to start a new life in the West.

“The refugees call it the lottery,” said Francesca Bonelli, a community services officer with the United Nations. “It is completely life changing if they get resettled. It is the big dream.”

As long as the UN and the US send any Somalis to the US, the spigot will remain open and the flow continue as Somalis play the lottery.   Put out the word that “refugees” will be sent a thousand miles to another camp across Africa and I bet they will stop arriving at the rate of 4000 a month.