Month: July 2008

East Africans easily entering US illegally

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story is in keeping with the African theme I’ve been stuck on for the last few days. But here is what I’m wondering:   why do these East Africans have to sneak across the border when our immigration programs, like refugee resettlement, will just bring them over, pay the airfare and set them up in an apartment?  And, lest we forget, take care of any HIV problems they might have.

 

Concern about a terrorist threat to the United States is growing among American intelligence officials due to a recent upsurge in the number of East Africans who have been caught trying to enter the US illegally.

Citing an “internal government assessment” that it had obtained, the Associated Press reported last week that the US is focusing new attention on networks that smuggle people from Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.

These four countries are among 35 confidentially listed by the US Department of Homeland Security as being of “special interest” due to the alleged presence of terrorists in their territories.

A total of 159 citizens of the four East African countries have been captured in the past several months as they tried to enter the US without permission. That compares to 125 for all of last year and a total of 22 in 2003.

          

Read the rest of this sobbering article here.    I bet these illegals can blend right into the African immigrant neighborhoods developing in cities large and small across the country.  Where’s the fence?

Bertha Avila speaks out: why Iraqi refugees to US?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know Bertha Avila of Marysville, CA.   I just came across her letter to the editor because the List Project blog takes her to task for asking why we are bringing Iraqis to the US.   Good question Bertha, we have asked the same thing now that Iraq is beginning to get back on its feet.  And, Bertha, you have a right to ask that question without having your character impugned by a bunch of New York City lawyers.

She must be ignorant and hate-filled they say.

Here is Bertha’s letter:  

 

The Department of Homeland Security has recently allowed refugees from Iraq to settle in our country through a program called U.S. Refugee Admission Program, and as of June 4, 6,480 Iraqis have been admitted into the USA and an additional 27,940 Iraqis referred to DHS for interviews, with approvals growing each day.

Iraq was considered a global terrorist threat. We go to war to prevent terrorism and then we turn around and welcome their displaced citizens into this country giving them special visas and loans to travel and all the benefits such as welfare, food and medical services while our own government is facing a recession?

I am puzzled and can’t understand the fairness of this country. One day U.S. sons and daughters fighting in this bloody war will come home to be neighbors with the sons and daughters of the of the enemy enjoying the benefits they will only hope for.

Go to www.USCIS.gov and read all about this program.

 

Here is what the List Project blog says about a woman who is probably just your average citizen asking a good question.  You go girl!

It is really sad to see an American think of an Iraqi refugee as an enemy. This is either ignorance or simple hatred or maybe both.

…there is this American woman named Bertha Avila from Marysville who is shocked to see Iraqis, whose lives were destroyed because of her [what, not your country List Project lawyers] country, being resettled and compensated for what they lost in Iraq.

What Bertha doesn’t seem to understand or maybe doesn’t seem to want to understand is that once upon a time those Iraqis had a relatively normal life compared to their destroyed life after her [what, not your country too, List Project lawyers] country invaded theirs.

So who is sounding hate-filled now?    What the lawyers at the List Project aren’t telling you is that 365 would-be Iraqi refugees have been found to have terrorist ties and have been turned down for resettlement in the US, see our previous story here.  They want you to believe everyone of the millions they claim were displaced by us (not by insurgents, not by Al-Queda, not by Saddam) are just poor struggling good folks.  Some are and some aren’t.

Senator Sessions to move to strike HIV provision

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update July 18th:  Senate did vote to lift the ban on immigrants with HIV, see report here at Blue Ridge Forum.

Update July 14th:  Read the latest information on this issue at America’s Survival, Inc. here.   Today is the best day to call Senators with your opinon.

Urgent notice:  The word is that Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) will move to strike a provision in S. 2731 when it reaches the floor as early as tomorrow, Monday, July 14th.   As I reported yesterday, this provision would allow immigrants with HIV/AIDS to enter the US and receive government (read taxpayer) supported medical treatment. 

Critics believe it will serve as a huge magnet to further illegal immigration, and fuel more demands for legal immigration.  Also, foreigners getting into the US and seeking asylum could also presumably then ask for medical care.   I suppose it’s also possible for any HIV positive foreigner entering the US on a tourist visa  to ask for treatment for AIDS.    Refugees can already enter the US with HIV/AIDS.

Senator Sessions was the leader in last summer’s defeat of the McCain/Kennedy Amnesty bill.  It will take 60 votes in the Senate to remove the HIV (come to America one and all for free medical care) provision.

Congress to authorize $50 billion for disease programs, allow immigrants with HIV to enter US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update July 18th:   Passed by the Senate by a wide margin, see report here at Blue Ridge Forum (including link to  how they voted).

Urgent, July 14th:  Read the latest on this issue at America’s Survival, Inc. here.  Today is the best day to express your opinion to your Senators.

Your tax dollars:

Interesting that this information should come on the heels of our Africa post yesterday.  Hat tip:  Richard at Blue Ridge Forum.    In answer to a commenter yesterday, we do send enormous aid to countries around the world to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, but $50 billion over 5 years is way beyond anything I even imagined.

S.2731 goes to the Senate floor on Monday and is expected to be signed into law by September because it is supported by the Bush Administration  (well, maybe its a tad bit more than the Bush proposal of $30 billion, but what’s $20 billion here or there).

Here is the kicker (if $50 billion of our tax dollars wasn’t already) from the Congressional Budget Office:

….enacting S. 2731 would increase direct spending [no kidding].  The bill would allow immigrants with HIV/AIDS to enter the United States. CBO estimates that providing certain benefits to those immigrants and their children would increase direct spending by less than $500,000 in 2010 and by $83 million over the 2010-2018 period.

Refugees are already coming here with HIV (and TB for that matter) despite the ban on foreigners with the disease from traveling or immigrating to the US.  This bill would allow all immigrants to enter the US with HIV and be treated at taxpayer expense.  I don’t think it takes a genius to see how this opens the door wide to more immigrants (including illegal immigrants) who will rush the gates and become dependent on our already overburdened health care system.

Read the entire CBO report here.

Global warming causing an uptick in refugees–not!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been trying to ignore this because it strikes me as ludicrous, but readers should know that leftists are shamelessly linking their pet  projects.   The UN reported in June that climate change (note they no longer say global warming because there is no warming) fuels conflicts which in turn produce refugees.

Climate change is fuelling conflicts around the world and helping to drive the number of people forced out of their homes to new highs, the head of the UN’s refugee agency said yesterday. After a few years of improvement, thanks mainly to large-scale resettlement in Afghanistan, the numbers of civilians uprooted by conflict is again rising. During 2007 the total jumped to 37.4 million, an increase of more than 3 million, according to statistics published today.

The figures, described as “unprecedented” by the UN, do not include people escaping natural disasters or poverty – only those fleeing conflict and persecution. But Antonio Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said that climate change could also uproot people by provoking conflicts over increasingly scarce resources, such as water.

In an interview with the Guardian, Guterres said: “Climate change is today one of the main drivers of forced displacement, both directly through impact on environment – not allowing people to live any more in the areas where they were traditionally living – and as a trigger of extreme poverty and conflict.”

I wonder if I will live to see the day when news from the UN says that Islamic terrorism is one of the main drivers of forced displacement.    I thought maybe UN High Commissioner for Refugees Guterres  was getting close here until the last line.

“What we are witnessing is a trend in the world where more and more people feel threatened by conflict, threatened by their own government, threatened by other political, religious ethnic or social groups, threatened by nature and nature’s retaliation against human aggression – climate change is the example of that.

Threatened by nature’s retaliation against human aggression!  What!   Nature is retaliating?  Nature is getting even?  Nature doesn’t like people fighting with each other?  Nature is angry about human aggression and is fighting back by changing its climate?    Ahhh!

Maybe I just haven’t had enough coffee this morning.