Month: February 2009

Iraqi refugee: Why did the US bring so many refugees if they aren’t ready to host them?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For Iraqi refugees that is the question.  I’ve read at least 20 stories about unhappy Iraqi refugees in 15 states,  but this one is probably the most wrenching.

The subject of this story is a well-educated and formerly prosperous Iraqi family resettled in Oakland, CA.   From Oakland North, it begins:

When I knocked on the door of an apartment building in East Oakland, a woman’s voice nervously asked who I was. The voice belonged to a 45-year-old woman who wishes to be identified only as S. Mohamad because she fears prosecution [Editor: persecution?] in her native Iraq; she is a former radiologist who came here as a refugee three months ago along with her husband and their three children. She hid behind the door because she was without a headscarf; Muslim women usually wear one to cover their hair when they are around anyone but family or other women.

The family which apparently had been doing well in Jordan was resettled to California because of availability of cheap housing (is that because people are leaving CA in droves?).  But, as we learned yesterday, California has no jobs.

Mohamad, her husband and children left everything behind and at first found refuge in Jordan. They lived in Amman for two and half years before applying to the United Nations refugee program to obtain legal papers and avoid deportation. They were accepted into the program and granted refuge in the United States. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a nonprofit group that works with the U.S. State Department to help refugees resettle in the United States, relocated Mohammad’s family to East Oakland because of its affordable rental houses.

The number of Iraqis coming to the US will increase.  The Presidential determination for 2009 is 17,000, but NGO’s are pushing for up to 100,000 this year (see yesterday’s post here).    I’m puzzled by this next quote from the article about where the Iraqis are resettled.   The State Department knows exactly where they are resettled.  But, within three months or so refugees are free to move wherever they want and are not tracked, so I suppose that is what is being referred to here.   One downside of not tracking is that any refugee who began treatment for TB can readily fall through the cracks, but I’m digressing.

There were 13,000 Iraqi refugees admitted to the United States in 2008, according to the State Department’s resettlement program, and the IRC says it expects that number to increase to 17,000 this year. The records do not break down the number of refugees in each state because the State Department stopped tracking them more than a decade ago. “I think they stopped tracking the refugees in the States because it costs a lot of money to do the job,” said Don Climent, the regional director of the IRC’s office in San Francisco.

Then this was a shocker.  The family was safe in Jordan but they feel the same insecurity in Oakland as they did in Baghdad!

There is the also the problem of security. Many Iraqi refugees feel shocked and frustrated when they realize that they have to deal with security-part of the reason they had run away from home-again. Mohamad’s 21-year-old son made his own security, buying pepper spray and a knife to protect his life. “I only felt safe in Jordan and all I did is to focus on my study,” he said. “But here, I found the United States similar to Baghdad. I changed my old nice clothes into saggy ones to blend in. I avoided passing any young men group standing in a corner of the street. I tried to put my wallet, phone and my ID in different places in my clothes. I have to struggle to stay safe in Oakland.”

The article goes on to tell more of the travails this family is experiencing including the biggest of all—joblessness.

My eyes are dry of tears,” his mother said as she considered her family’s situation. “I cannot see well because I cried so hard. I just wish I could go back home but I could not. I have no family left there, my house is rented and I can not just ask the residents to leave because I will have to go through the court and that means many papers and time and money. It is not safe yet for us to go back and I’m torn between longing to go back and my children’s safety and future. “

We are alone, we struggle by ourselves.

“We did not leave our country for fun-all my concern was my children’s safety and their future,” she continued. “We struggle to learn the American system here by ourselves and it is very hard. How am I supposed to learn all this and get a job in a month? Why [did the] U.S. bring big numbers [of refugees here] if they are not ready to host them? I do not have any relatives in the United States like some have to rely on. I cannot go home now. I sold everything I have in Jordan, and I can not go back to Baghdad because we will be targeted.”

She broke into tears.

Why Mrs. Mohamad?   You were brought here as political footballs.  You were used by the likes of Refugees International which wanted to score political points in Washington against the Bush Administration.   And, you were brought here to keep these resettlement agencies like the IRC in business.

I’m getting tired of repeating it and Judy has written often on it as well,  but for families like this one, all efforts should have been made jointly with the UNHCR, the government of Jordan, our government and the new Iraqi government to keep these people safe in the region.  Obviously they were doing fine in Jordan and funding should have been found to keep them comfortable and safe there until they could go back to Iraq and be part of re-building the new country.   Instead Iraq will continue to see a brain drain as educated people like the Mohamad’s rot in Oakland on welfare.

Learn more about Iraqi refugees in our special category here.

Mark vs. Transitionland: a birds-eye view into a local resettlement office

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I hadn’t planned to post on Transitionland after I realized the author of the blog was a ‘twentysomething.’  I have so much to do and so little time, I didn’t mind at all that she was hurling insults at us.   Anytime anyone takes on a sacred cow, name-calling and demonizing is to be expected.  

That said, I am posting now because a reader, Mark, and Transitionland had such a hearty discussion I thought it would be useful for our readers to see.  The exchange serves as a window into the local resettlement process where you may (but not always as we have so often reported on these pages!) find people dedicated to making the resettlement of refugees as comfortable as they can.

Transitionland does in the end,  just before closing the thread, admit that the program needs to be reformed.  

And let’s be honest, few members of the public know anything about refugee resettlement, and fewer still care at all. Calls from people like Ann Corcoran and her toxic friend Judy to “increase accountability” are, in general, thinly veiled attempts to limit the numbers of refugees being admitted to the US.

Believe me, I KNOW the system is broken and needs to be reformed. Refugees aren’t being served as they should be. But demonizing the resettlement agencies and their already underpaid, overworked and poorly supported staff is NOT going to help anyone.

If anyone deserves your anger, it’s the neglectful head offices of struggling resettlement agencies and ORR, which is never quite grounded in the same reality field staff are.

Good for you Transitionland, you have taken the first step toward reform—speaking up!   This program will never be reformed until people are willing to look at the truth and then speak the truth!

Shelbyville (Bedford Co.) Emergency Management Agency gets briefed about radical Islamic agenda in US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Boy, it seems like little Shelbyville, TN is the center of the universe these days on issues involving immigrants and now potential terrorist activity.    Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying there are terrorists in Shelbyville only that the town seems to be forward-thinking in learning how to defend against subversive activity.  From the Shelbyville Times-Gazette:

A former FBI special agent told law enforcement and Homeland Security personnel that a network of Islamic organizations are working to incrementally implement Islamic law in the United States.

During a presentation at the Bedford County Emergency Management Agency, former FBI agent John Guandolo briefed members about groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which he claims is working with other Islamic groups to slowly implement Shariah, also known as Islamic law, which encompasses all areas of life.

Guandolo worked in the FBI since 1996, including nine years as a member of its SWAT team. After 9/11, he worked in the Bureau’s Washington Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division, developing expertise concerning Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood organizations and the Islamic movement in the U.S.

He now works with Stephen Coughlin, former Islamic Expert for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to advise leaders at the federal level and also brief local law enforcement about the Islamic threat at home.

Coughlin was fired from his position with the Joint Chiefs following a report revealing opposition to his work by officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, according to a Washington Times report dated Jan. 4, 2008.

Coughlin had run afoul of a key aide to England, Hasham Islam, who accused him of being a Christian zealot or extremist “with a pen,” according to defense officials, the report states.

Learn more about Coughlin’s story at American Thinker here.   Back to Shelbyville:

Every major Muslim organization is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, the former FBI agent said, which he said was formed to overthrow America and establish Islamic law.

Guandolo goes on to warn that much of our defense will depend on local law enforcement and others at the local level.  He said you can’t count on Washington.

“The solution to this is you,” Guandolo said. “If you are looking to DHS, the FBI and Congress to solve this … you’re going to be woefully disappointed.”

He said that FBI agents in the field “are working good cases,” but that the FBI leadership “is unwilling to do what the agents are asking them to do, which is to pony up and use some courage and start stepping on these people.”

“This is political subversion, this is an insurgency in the United States,” he said of the Islamic movement. “Insurgency is thwarted at the local level and the tip of the spear is local police.”

Meeting participants also viewed the film, “Homegrown Jihad…” that we discussed here last week.

Also presented was a viewing of the documentary “Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S.”, produced by the group Christian Action Network (CAN).

[….]

The terror group is called Jamaat ul-Fuqra, but is known in America as Muslims of America, which CAN alleges is a front organization for Pakistani Islamic cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani.

CAN asserts that one of these compounds is near Dover, in rural Stewart County. The site was the subject of a 2002 Tennessean article about the small Muslim community.

Be sure to read the whole article, there is a lot more information you should know about.

By the way, if anyone is interested in getting a briefing for your town, I’ll see if I can get the information for you.

Minneapolis Somali: 500 Somali youths have gone to fight Jihad

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Jerusalem Post is reporting today that possibly 500 or more American Somalis have gone to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab in Somalia.   Hat tip:  Jerry Gordon.   The highest number we’ve heard so far is 40 and federal officials have been consistently saying 20 are missing.

Abdinur Hussein, a Somali national who lives in Minnesota, the state with the largest Somali community in the U.S., believes that more than 500 youths might have gone to Somalia to fight alongside Islamist rebels.

Besides this new and shocking figure, the story interested me because it implies that all the missing are “children.”  In fact it uses the world ‘children’ 23 times in the course of the article to make sure we get the message.  The one Minneapolis Somali we know that did go to Somalia and blow himself up was 27 years old, hardly a “kid.”

The Jerusalem Post begins with this improbable story:

“I had returned from work and asked my other children where my son Mohamed Yasin was; but they said they hadn’t seen him all day,” Abdi says.

She reported the 14-year-old boy to the police as missing, but they could not find him. 

After 10 days she gave up looking for him. One day, she says, a young boy called their phone from Somalia, saying, “Mum, it’s your son Mohamed; I came to Mogadishu to fight against the enemies of Somalia.”

She just gave up looking for him after 10 days?  Oh come on, unless its some cultural thing (ha ha), every mother I know would be moving heaven and earth to find her child.  The story continues:

He hung up the phone without saying another word.

She says she was upset that her child went to the anarchic country and took up a gun to fight.

So, did her caller ID register Mogadishu?   How does she know where he was calling from?  

Then this!  It’s all our fault, our US security,  for letting her little boy leave the country on a plane.

“The only thing I am expecting now is for him to die,” she says tearfully.

Abdi blames the U.S. federal police for her young boy’s disappearance – according to her, it is because of lack of good safeguards at airports.

“How can a very young boy be allowed to fly on a plane? The police are irresponsible,” she says.

Maybe Mom’s irresponsible for not keeping a better eye on her son and monitoring who he is spending time with!   Besides, she would have had to approve a passport.

I’m going out on a limb here and suggest all these “children” have not left the country. I even think we are being mislead for some reason, but why?

Part III: Refugee Council USA tells Obama we need to resettle 45,000 Iraqis this year

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been telling you about the briefing book prepared by the Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) for Obama and the 111th Congress.   (See Part I and Part II)

Today I’m writing about the section (page 6) entitled:  Iraqi Humanitarian and Displacement Crisis. 

Right off the bat, I’m ticked off.  They define the problem with this first sentence:  “Millions of Iraqis have been violently displaced and made vulnerable since the 2003 war.”   But, they never tell you that many of these same groups that make up RCUSA were coping with possibly hundreds of thousands of refugees from Iraq BEFORE the war because of Saddam Hussein’s policies.    But, telling us that some of these refugees have been refugees earlier than 2003 does not suit their political agenda!

They go on to recommend that we resettle 45,000 Iraqis in the next 12 months.

Then here is something we have been warning about for some time.  There are Palestinian refugees in camps along the border between Iraq and Syria that no Muslim country will resettle.  The pressure is on for us to take the Palestinians.  Here is the recommendation from this group:

Create a priority two processing category to resettle Palestinians forced out of their homes in Iraq and particularly those languishing in camps near the Syrian border.

These Palestinians are refugees because they are persecuted by their fellow Muslims.  There is however no special treatment recommended for Christian Iraqis being persecuted by Muslims.

Obviously refugee lobbying groups are not on the same page.   Here is a roundup of Iraqi refugee resettlement wishlists:

Refugees International wants 105,500.

Obama’s friends at the Center for American Progress will only be happy with an airlift of  100,000.

And, Human Rights First wants a paltry 60,000 over two years.

Meanwhile there are no jobs for Iraqi refugees, or most other refugees either.