Spain sends us a jaw-dropping message, but will we listen

01/27/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Or is it already too late?

How many times in recent years have we heard that Europe is so far ahead of us, so multicultural, so sophisticated, so you know—advanced! Even Barack Hussein Obama while running for President made his pilgrimage to the great region of diversity and enlightenment sending a message back home that we knuckle-draggers needed to follow Europe’s lead.

Now, besides Judy’s news this morning that immigrants in France will be DNA tested we have news from Spain which I found appalling, shocking, depresssing. Will we follow Europe’s lead now?

From the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago, as the economy crumbles, Spaniards are now doing the work immigrants used to do:

MANCHA REAL, Spain — Spain’s unemployment rate rose to 13.9% in December — an eight-year record and by far the highest rate in the European Union. In this southern village, that means olive grower José Morillo is hiring locals and turning away foreigners who worked for him during the country’s economic boom.

Half of Mr. Morillo’s pickers used to be immigrants, as Spaniards shunned the low-paying work. This year, all but one of his 11 workers is Spanish — and the nearby town is teeming with unemployed immigrants who sleep outdoors or in church shelters.

It is so bad the Spanish government is paying immigrants to leave!

Government efforts to free up more jobs for Spaniards are having a limited effect. Billboard-size ads in subway stations and on city buses pitch payments for legal immigrants who go home: If they agree to leave Spain for at least three years, the government will pay the unemployment benefit they’re entitled to in a lump sum — 40% on leaving and 60% on arrival back home.

The average payment runs about $14,000. In the program’s first two months last year, just 1,400 immigrants took up the offer.

Spain got in the same problem we did—easy credit fueling over-zealous construction.

A building frenzy helped Spain generate more jobs than any other country in the euro zone this decade. More than five million immigrants arrived, and the registered population, which had been stable till 2000, jumped 15% by 2008.

Last year, the cheap credit that fueled Spain’s boom dried up. The economy likely entered recession in the second half of 2008, and the European Commission expects it to shrink 2% this year. Data out Friday show the number of Spanish out-of-work job seekers rose by 609,100 in the fourth quarter, bringing the total number to 3.2 million. The unemployment rate was nearly twice the euro zone’s November average of 7.8%

Thank God for the defeat of the Kennedy-McCain Amnesty bill in 2007! Thank God for knuckle-draggers, rednecks and assorted bitter clingers! Spain granted its illegal aliens amnesty and now they are sleeping on the streets!

During Spain’s flush times, immigrants were welcome to come and work. In 2005, the government granted amnesty to more than half a million people living in Spain illegally. Today, they are seen as a growing social problem.

I wonder if the Wall Street Journal editorial staff, that had pushed Amnesty here in the US, took note of this message from Spain.

As time goes on, I think we too will see that there are many jobs Americans are happy to do, just as advanced Spain (Europe!) has belatedly discovered.

France plans to DNA-test new arrivals

01/27/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It happens all over the civilized world: A would-be immigrant falsely claims family ties with someone in a desirable country in order to get a visa. Now France is cracking down by ordering DNA tests for these claimants, the UK’s Daily Mail reports:

France’s hard-line new immigration minister is set to implement legislation that would allow DNA testing of new arrivals.

Eric Besson, who was appointed this month, has said the tests would establish which foreigners were claiming visas by making up fictious family ties with those already settled in the country.

Civil liberties groups have reacted furiously to the controversial scheme, which was approved by the French parliament 15 months ago.

It’s beyond me what this has to do with civil liberties. Following the law is a civil liberties violation? I guess it must be, since civil liberties groups go crazy in the U.S. when we require proof of citizenship for things like getting hired.

A recent report said there was often doubt over the authenticity of papers in family applications for visas.

It claimed that in African countries such as Senegal, Ivory Coast and Togo up to 80 per cent of birth and marriage certificates were forged.

France, and all European countries, have more of a problem with fictitious family ties than we do here, because so many of their immigrants come directly from Africa, where this fraud is most rampant. Many of the Africans who come to the U.S. are refugees, which is why we are concerned with this issue.

The State Department suspended a family-reunification program for Africans when DNA testing showed that the majority of claimants were not related, and that tens of thousands of Somalis and other east Africans are here illegally because of fraud. It then suspended the program worldwide. See our previous posts on DNA testing here, here, here, here, and here. We’ve been posting on it since July.

France has a reputation here of being a nation of softies. But they have often been very tough when it comes to defending themselves. They have much stronger anti-terrorist laws, for instance, in which there is a lot less concern for the “rights” of terrorists. (They can’t seem to figure out how to deal with their car-burning Muslim “youths,” though.)

Outgoing immigration minister Brice Hortefeux recently announced that France deported 30,000 illegal migrants in 2008 – a record number. It was a rise of more than 25 per cent on the number expelled the previous year.

I don’t know what our numbers are here, but I doubt we expelled that many.

Hat tip: Blulitespecial

World Relief: North Carolina refugees unemployed

01/27/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

So what else is new! We hear this everywhere. If the economy continues to slide more refugees will require more public assistance to survive and these government contractors, like World Relief (not wanting to lose their jobs funded by the feds), will still be agitating to bring in more refugees.

From the High Point Enterprise (you will have to register to read the whole story):

HIGH POINT – The 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008 created unemployment woes for Americans, and even harder struggles for refugees who sought a haven in the land of opportunity.

From October 2007 to September 2008, about 370 refugees came to High Point with World Relief, a nonprofit organization that has helped resettle refugees in 21 U.S. cities for 22 years.

The refugees came from Myanmar (Burma), Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Vietnam, Bhutan, Somalia, Sudan and Burundi, and though currently about 118 refugees are employed, 62 motivated people in High Point who are eager to work are without jobs to satisfy. Many come with limited English skills, making employment even harder, especially under such economic circumstances.

“This is by far the highest number of employable adults without work we have ever experienced,” said Mark Kadel, affiliate director for World Relief in High Point, adding that locations throughout the United States are experiencing the same difficulties.

Note that an impediment to employment is their inability to speak English. Gee maybe we could send them all to Nashville where English doesn’t matter. Maybe Mr. Oreck can employ them all.

This last paragraph is a reference to the Iraqis. We have reported previously that Iraqis are not finding work in North Carolina (oh, and in at least 14 other states!):

Many refugees who resettle in America are qualified to work higher-paying jobs, but have left lives as doctors and lawyers in their home countries and taken severe cuts in pay and status to come to the United States.

Nashville churches being asked to help Iraqis headed to the US

01/27/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Church World Service, one of the top ten government contractors resettling refugees in the US, is behind a meeting in Nashville this Saturday to find churches to take care of Iraqis now headed to the US by the thousands.

Iraqis displaced by the war in their homeland are coming to the United States by the thousands. And Christians have a responsibility to care for them, faith leaders say.

A Nashville congregation will host a forum on Iraqi refugees on Saturday, hoping to draw attention to the plight of millions of Iraqis who have fled their homes since 2003.

The Saturday morning forum at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Nashville will feature a report from activist and journalist Kelly Hayes-Raitt, who worked with refugees in Iraq for several months in 2008. Organizers hope the event will rally support for the plight of refugees.

If Refugees International gets its way , or the Center for American Progress (Obama’s good friends) get their airlift these numbers will be increased ten-fold.

More than 12,000 Iraqi refugees were resettled in the U.S., with an additional 17,000 expected in 2009. That includes 26 Iraqis resettled in Knoxville last year by the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program.

The problem is, as we have now documented more than a dozen times, the Iraqis are generally well-educated, highly skilled, have lived upscale lives in Iraq and they want the same life here. They aren’t getting it and they are not hesitant about voicing their dissatisfaction with their new American lives.

There is no mention in this news about whether the Iraqis arriving in Tennessee are the truly persecuted Christians or are Muslims. But, here is a hint.

During the discussion, which will include a representative from the Islamic Society of Nashville, attendees will discuss practical ways they can assist refugees.

You can bet the representative of the Islamic Society of Nashville isn’t there to say, ‘oh yes, we need to take care of those Christians the Muslims are persecuting in Iraq.’

To learn more than you ever wanted to know about Iraqi refugees, visit our Iraqi category here, which now contains 300 posts!