Month: January 2009

Nashville churches being asked to help Iraqis headed to the US

~ 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!

More Auntie Zeituni news: Bush administration lifted rule. But why?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update Feb. 3rd:  More here on Auntie.

Updating the news from earlier today, the Associated Press now tells us:

The Bush administration quietly withdrew in the weeks after Barack Obama’s election a new rule requiring high-level approval before federal agents nationwide could arrest fugitive immigrants. The future for Obama’s aunt, who had been living in the country illegally, will be determined at an immigration court hearing in April.

…The directive from Immigration and Customs Enforcement expressed concerns about “negative media or congressional interest,” according to a newly disclosed federal document obtained by The Associated Press. The department lifted the immigration order weeks later, on Nov. 26.

And then on December 17 a judge stayed Auntie’s deportation order, and reopened her asylum case on December 30. Her hearing will be April 1 in Boston.

ICE, the immigration agency, doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing.

The immigration directive was lifted weeks after the election, according to an internal e-mail provided Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel previously had told the AP the directive was still in place, and the White House told the AP late Sunday that Obama would consider whether to overturn it.

And does anyone have an explanation why the order was put in place at all and then lifted? It seemed that Bush wanted to spare Obama possible embarrassment, but then why lift the order?

The AP article is on the MSNBC web site and has a number of links to previous stories on Auntie Zeituni, including the Obama campaign’s reaction to the first news about her.

LOL! Four arrested in Somaliland thought to be Americans

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update!!!!   The Jawa Report is now saying they have captured 11 more Somali-American terrorists, for the hot news go here.

 

Well, what do you know.  Maybe they have been found!   Just when Somali Mommy and Daddy in Minneapolis are wondering what happened to their  kids (former refugees), it turns out that American “terrorists” are being arrested in Somaliland.  Could they be four of our missing youngsters?  (Hat tip to a Tennessee friend)

Hargeisa (Somalilandpress – 25th Jan 2009) – Somaliland security forces arrested five people after they raided a house in Hargeisa. The suspects consist of four men who are said to be from the United States and a woman from Mogadishu, all five suspects were taken into custody yesterday.

The article in the Somaliland Press is really short, but here is a little more news:

Local newspapers reported today that the woman who came from Mogadishu rented a villa in Hargeisa days before the four men arrived from the US. Members of the security forces had received a tip about the terrorist suspects and were ready to move in and arrest them.

So, assuming they are American Somalis, will our State Department now be in a position to get them back?  Good luck with that.  We will be watching!

By the way, FOX News at noon today was reporting the original missing men story we first reported two months ago.

Are you feeling powerless? Maybe this is why.

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Philip K. Howard has an article in the Wall Street Journal today that explains a great deal about the state of our society. It’s called “How Modern Law Makes Us Powerless.” He begins:

Calling for a “new era of responsibility” in his inaugural address, President Barack Obama reminded us that there are no limits to “what free men and women can achieve.” Indeed. America achieved greatness as the can-do society.  …

And then he comments:

But there’s a threshold problem for our new president. Americans don’t feel free to reach inside themselves and make a difference. The growth of litigation and regulation has injected a paralyzing uncertainty into everyday choices. All around us are warnings and legal risks. The modern credo is not “Yes We Can” but “No You Can’t.” Our sense of powerlessness is pervasive. Those who deal with the public are the most discouraged. Most doctors say they wouldn’t advise their children to go into medicine. Government service is seen as a bureaucratic morass, not a noble calling. Make a difference? You can’t even show basic human kindness for fear of legal action. Teachers across America are instructed never to put an arm around a crying child.

He points out that the rights that now count are the rights of those who disagree, instead of the focus on personal freedom we used to enjoy.  And here’s the nub of it, the reason I am posting the article:

Here we stand, facing the worst economy since the Great Depression, and Americans no longer feel free to do anything about it. We have lost the idea, at every level of social life, that people can grab hold of a problem and fix it. Defensiveness has swept across the country like a cold wave. We have become a culture of rule followers, trained to frame every solution in terms of existing law or possible legal risk. The person of responsibility is replaced by the person of caution. When in doubt, don’t.

If you read RRW regularly, you see how often Ann urges you to act on your beliefs. Start a blog, write something, tell somebody, organize.  But maybe you think it’s not worth it; that you are powerless.

Of course, it’s not just the explosion of litigation and regulation that makes us feel powerless. We are lied to by the media and have difficulty uncovering the truth in many matters. Our elected representatives often pay no attention to our wishes. Or they themselves have little power against the elites who control much of society. There are a thousand reasons to feel powerless. And maybe Ann can comment on how Alinsky’s rules are intended to make us feel (and be) even more powerless.

But diagnosing a problem puts you at least halfway to the cure. Read the whole article, and decide that you will not be controlled by outside forces. You can figure out in what spheres you can act, and what you want to accomplish — and then you can act.

Obama’s Auntie Zeituni is back in the news

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Barack Obama is not just the first black president — he’s also probably the first president to have an aunt who is an illegal alien. And George W. Bush made sure to protect her before he left office. The Associated Press reports:

The Homeland Security Department still is requiring high-level approval before federal immigration agents can arrest fugitives, a rule quietly imposed by the Bush administration days before the election of Barack Obama, whose aunt has been living in the United States illegally.

The unusual directive from the Homeland Security Department came amid concerns that such arrests might generate “negative media or congressional interest,” according to a newly disclosed federal document obtained by The Associated Press.

The directive makes clear that U.S. officials worried about possible election implications of arresting Zeituni Onyango, the half-sister of Obama’s late father, who at the time was living in public housing in Boston. She is now believed to be living in Cleveland.

We reported on Auntie Zeituni here, here, here and here.

The AP goes on:

Obama’s aunt was instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. The East African nation has been fractured by violence in recent years, including a period of two months of bloodshed after December 2007 that killed 1,500 people.

Despite the deportation order, Onyango traveled to Washington last week for her nephew’s inauguration. News organizations observed her attending an inaugural ball at Washington’s Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, a historic luxury hotel, with her immigration lawyer, Margaret Wong.

Obama is playing it cool. (That’s his M.O. — act cool as a cucumber, and do what he likes out of the spotlight.) The AP again:

Obama has said he didn’t know his aunt was living in the United States illegally and believes that laws covering the situation should be followed. The White House said late Sunday that Onyango’s lawyer, Margaret Wong, contacted Obama’s lawyer to confirm Wong’s role in the case.

“They agreed at the time that the case should proceed in the ordinary course, with neither the president nor his representatives having any involvement,” the White House said.

She’s fighting the deportation order, of course. Although she has broken the law, here’s what ICE is concerned about:

ICE has since said it is investigating whether any laws or rules were broken in the disclosure about Obama’s aunt.

If laws were broken, I’m sure some lawyer will contact Auntie Zeituni to help her with a lawsuit. Maybe a personal lawsuit against whoever disclosed her illegal status. That might be the AP:

The AP was first to disclose Onyango’s illegal status Oct. 31, hours after the Homeland Security directive was issued.

I applaud the Associated Press. Lately their news dispatches are often more like opinion pieces (leftist, of course), but they have done stellar reporting on the Auntie Zeituni matter. The Times (UK) broke the story about Auntie’s existence but the AP has stayed on the story without bias. Kudos to the writers of this article, Ted Bridis and Eileen Sullivan.

In one of my earlier posts I linked to a Victor Davis Hanson piece about the meaning of the Auntie Zeituni matter, called How Many Laws Can One Break? It’s worth reading again.

Update: See the new item on Auntie Zeituni later in the day here.