Month: July 2008

Are these Cuban immigrants refugees?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I bet you were under the impression that the era of Cuban refugees streaming to the US had pretty much ended.  A reader sent this article about a Cuban family being resettled in Texas by the International Rescue Committee and commented about this line in the article:

 The family said they sought asylum in the U.S. three years ago for economic reasons.

The legal definition of a refugee is:

REFUGEE – Any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

So, we don’t just take people, even families like this one who sound like nice people, into the refugee program who are economic migrants as they appear to be.  They need to be persecuted or fear persecution.

What is the big deal?  Well, refugees are entitled to taxpayer subsidized airfare loans, subsidized housing, a case worker provided through the volag and funded by you, food stamps and other forms of welfare.    Other immigrants are on their own.

One bit of information I discovered is that the Cubans don’t even have to be outside of the country to seek asylum, we now process them in Cuba.  See this information.

Obama: Islamic terrorism is all about poverty and racism

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m getting off topic a bit here, but thought you should see this important story.  Hat tip:  Robert.    Here is how the story at World Net Daily begins:

JERUSALEM – The 9-11 attacks were carried out because of a lack of “empathy” for others’ suffering on the part of al-Qaida, whose terrorist ideology “grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair,” Sen. Barack Obama explained in largely unreported comments eight days after the mega-terror attacks that rocked the nation.

Please read the whole article.   Obama isn’t alone in his thinking that poverty breeds Islamic terrorism, we see that notion as a driving force even among high level  State Department officials.  Note former Asst. Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey’s comments last year here (bring more refugees to the US so they won’t become terrorists).    Sauerbrey, before joining the Bush Administration, was a Republican leader in Maryland, but must have been drinking too much of the kool-aid at the State Department.  Her comments, and Obama’s, show a fundamental misunderstanding of the imperatives of Islam.

Ho hum, another abuse of women story, this one from Cleveland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Believe me I am not as heartless as my title above suggests.   We have a very serious and growing problem with abuse of women and girls in the immigrant population and it is especially hard to eradicate in the Muslim community that views women as the property of men. 

The difficulty in rooting out the problem is compounded by our reverance for the concept of cultural relativism—multiculturalists would have us think that all cultures are equal.   It is not true, and immigrants and refugees must be taught to assimilate to our culture and the standards we set in this country for the treatment of women.  From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

The first time her screams brought police to the house, the Lakewood mother lied. She told the officers that her husband did not strike her.

She was thinking of her immigrant community and the role she was expected to play. Faithful wife. Submissive mother. Mostly, she was thinking of her children and how she would support them without an income.

The night the police came back, she did not have to weigh what to say. She heard her enraged husband admit that, yes, he smacked his wife. He owned her. He could hit her.

“No, you cannot,” she recalls the officer answering, and he led her husband out of the house and out of her daily life.

The Lakewood mother asked that her anonymity be protected because she fears further angering her husband or his family. She is a Palestinian Muslim who last year took a step almost unheard of in her community. She declared herself a victim of domestic violence, secured an order of protection against her husband and filed for divorce.

Good for her!   Since we have been posting lately about the Palestinian refugees, I am wondering how this Palestinian family came to be in the US.  I don’t see any statistics at the Office or Refugee Resettlement database to indicate we are taking Palestinian refugees, yet.

Brian Mosely, Shelbyville reporter, receives award for Somali series

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Congratulations to Brian Mosely who took a lot of heat this past December for his hardhitting investigative report on the Somali refugee inlux to this small Tennessee city.   

NASHVILLE — Times-Gazette staff writer Brian Mosely received the state’s top award for investigative reporting by The Associated Press Saturday night, highlighting a total of 18 awards won by the paper in the state’s two major press competitions held this weekend.

Mosely was honored with the Malcolm Law Memorial Award for Investigative Reporting for his five-part series published in December of last year chronicling the influx of Somali refugees to Bedford County.

The Law award for investigative reporting was established by the Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors in 1973 to honor Malcolm Law, associate editor of The Jackson Sun, who died in December 1972. The award is recognized as one of the most prestigious awards given for journalistic accomplishment in Tennessee. 

Read the rest of the article here.

We followed this story at Refugee Resettlement Watch as it unfolded.   By just discussing the issue of the conflict between citizens of small towns and cities and the refugees from very foreign cultures, especially a culture that resists assimilation,  Mosely was accused of being a racist.       Mosely and his editor at the Times-Gazette must be feeling some sense of having been vindicated by receiving such an important journalistic prize.

Italy tackles the Muslim polygamy problem—will we be next?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to some very brave Muslim women, Italy is now beginning to face up to the problem of polygamy among Muslim immigrants.    Everytime I see an article like this one in the Los Angeles Times which has this lead-in: 

A boom in the illegal marriages is a byproduct of voluminous immigration by Muslims. Authorities largely ignore the unions, leaving the women in a murky world with no recourse when things go wrong.

I am reminded that we are seeing the advance warnings for us— the United States.  Already there are stories of such abuses of women among refugee communities here.  See our previous posts on polygamy.

Also, I’ll bet some of those so-called family members, sisters(?), that have been found to not be related to the applicant through DNA testing are actually extra wives (or would-be wives) the refugee wants to bring to the US through the family reunification program.