Day: January 15, 2009

CAIR helping US State Department find sponsors for Palestinians from Gaza

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Whuptdue just brought this information to our attention.  You have probably heard on the news that American citizens are being evacuated from Gaza and brought to the US, but I didn’t know they were coming with their non-American families.    I wondered who these people are and why they were living in Gaza.  According to Fox News there are 150 families involved.   Now I see, read on.

WASHINGTON — The State Department is arranging the evacuation of about 150 Americans and their non-American family members who have been trapped in Gaza during Israel’s military operations against Hamas militants there.

[….]

So far, the department has evacuated 27 people, 16 Americans and 11 non-American family members, from Gaza since the fighting began on Dec. 27. They were taken by convoy to Amman, Jordan on Jan. 2.

From Earth Times about the US State Department emergency plan:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said today that the U.S. Department of State’s Visa Office has set up an e-mail address, GazaAssistance@state.gov, to help coordinate assistance for American citizens and their family members who plan to travel to the United States after being evacuated from the Gaza Strip. 

[….]

…. it’s a very specific type of assistance that the Department of State, in conjunction with other U.S. government agencies, is coordinating: some of the Gaza family members require sponsors who will take on the responsibility of providing room and board during their stay in the United States. The sponsor can be a non-governmental organization, or a private individual.

“Sponsorship would require a high level of commitment on your part. We’re planning that some families will require assistance for up to six months, so you would be committed for that period of time. At the end of six months, families would either be leaving the United States (likely returning to Gaza), or making their own arrangements for a longer stay in the United States. [Editor:  be assured they will get immigration lawyers specializing in asylum and poof—permanent residency in no time]  Sponsorship is completely voluntary, but once you’ve decided to commit, only the most extraordinary circumstances would change the obligation. Although you would sign an affidavit of support and provide it to the U.S. government, the assistance that you provide is a private arrangement between a sponsor and the family that is being assisted…”

At RRW we have long advocated that any refugee entering the US should have individual or group sponsorship (one family=one sponsor) so that the burden of the refugee did not fall on the taxpayer, however, I was still wondering how it is that Americans had non-American families in Gaza and that they had no other family in the US.  

Who are these families?

I got my answer at CAIR’s website:

State Department officials tell CAIR that some of the almost 150 potential evacuees do not have family members in the United States. A number of those seeking evacuation are non-citizen parents of young American-born children. CAIR is calling on individuals and relief groups to offer support.

So, are we seeing the results of birth tourism?   Did Mom just happen to be in the US for a little visit around her due date?

It is young children who are the US citizens and are bringing Palestinian Mom and Dad to the US for six months or longer.  Hummmm!

*CAIR is the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  All of our previous posts on CAIR are here.

Rohingya boat men arrive in NY Times “Luxury Destination of the Year”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Things are really heating up  in the waters off Thailand.   We have been reporting about increased numbers of Burmese Muslim men—Rohingya—trying to reach Thailand by boat and being intercepted by the Thai Navy, see my post just yesterday.

Now, according to Phuket Wan,  Refugees International and Amnesty International are weighing in on the case and blasting the Thai government for mistreating  the Rohingya boat men.

AMNESTY International has released a report that accuses the Thai military of ”systematic” torture of suspected insurgents in the South.

The BBC says the report, citing testimony from victims, ”said troops had beaten and kicked detainees, given them electric shocks, near-suffocated them and sexually abused them.

”In one case, it said, three rubber farmers were detained. One was beaten until he died, the other two were brutally tortured by soldiers who wanted them to admit to being insurgents.”

This follows the report a day earlier from Washington-based Refugees International, calling on the Thai Government to ”instruct its Army to desist from its new and troubling policy of pushing refugees and migrants intercepted on boats back out to sea.”

For the Thai government’s side they maintain that the Rohingya are arriving to join the jihad on-going in southern Thailand.     In light of the location in which all this is occuring the government of Thailand needs to come up with a better plan for handling illegal aliens.   It’s kind of stupid of them to be allegedly violating human rights in plain view of New York tourists sunning at  “The Luxury Destination of the Year” , or anywhere for that matter.

This human drama is being played out on the same Andaman stretch that was this week labeled ”The Luxury Destination of the Year” by the New York Times Travel Section.

My suggestion to the Thai government:  Intercept the boats, have a nice detention center where the detainees are well cared for and as soon as possible deport them back to where they came from.   In the long run it would be much cheaper even if you have to do it over and over again.

Unfortunately the push is now on, the “durable solution” drums are beating, to resettle Rohingya in the west and charges of such abuses will only help make Refugee International’s case that the Rohingya need to be living in your town.  Most recently the UK and Canada have taken Rohingya.

See our ‘Rohingya Reports’ category here for more.