Month: April 2009

Utah wants even more money for refugees so they won’t become mentally ill or leave US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Regular readers are likely saying, oh no, not another story about unemployed Iraqi refugees leaving the US to go back to the Middle East.  I am afraid so, but this story had a few more pieces of information that are very timely in light of our recent spate of news about mentally ill immigrants, including the depressed Turkish guy just today.

We told you previously that Utah is getting extra money for refugee resettlement from the federal government  in an experimental program, but apparently it’s not enough.

As more Iraqi refugees return to the Middle East disillusioned about America and defeated by unemployment, many of those who remain in Utah are increasingly angry. Recognizing their sacrifices and the growing dilemma, the state refugee office is fighting for additional federal funds to alleviate their painful transition.

[….]

More than 300 Iraqi refugees are expected to arrive in Utah in 2009, pushing the state’s community beyond 500.

[….]

To help create a softer landing in Utah, the state hopes to secure federal funds [your tax dollars] to hire staff at nonprofits for additional counseling and orientation.

“We’re not asking them [that’s you the taxpayer] to pay for everything,” Brown (Gerald Brown, director of the Utah Refugee Services Office) said. “But with this group, with the problems that it has, I think they [you, again] should be obligated to give us additional resources.”

Then there is kind of an ‘or else’ tone to this article.  Angry, unhappy refugees can lead to mental health issues and I don’t need to tell you where that leads!

Not treating the Iraqis’ mental health issues may lead to more anger, Rabin (Mara Rabin, medical director at Utah Health and Human Rights Project) wrote in her comments to the state. She believes it’s likely that Sulejman Talovic, a teenage Bosnian refugee who shot and killed five shoppers at Trolley Square in 2007, had untreated mental health problems.

And, we need to throw more money at refugees so they won’t leave the US like this Iraqi family.

Ahmed Ahmad, 26, used to be surrounded by family: his mother, father and sister came to Utah with him last year. Now he lives alone in Salt Lake City.

His family went to Syria last month after his father spent 10 months futilely looking for work in his field. The periodontist, who was an academic in Baghdad, quickly got a job teaching at a university.

Ahmad, a structural engineer, hopes to attend a master’s program at the University of Utah.

Though he has friends in Utah, he concedes he feels “sad, lonely, and I hoped my family would stay here.”

Is that the best sob story out there in Utah.  I guess I just have no heart, but this guy is not 16 years old, he is 26!  He can live a little while without mommy and daddy, get a degree and then go for a visit to his homeland.  Isn’t that what immigrants have done for eons?

Turkish Canadian steals plane and joy rides into US air space

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know this has nothing to do with refugees, unless Canada admitted this Turkish immigrant as a refugee or asylee, but I thought it was an interesting and informative story nonetheless.   Hat tip:  Blulitespecial.   From CNN:

The pilot of a small Cessna 172 aircraft reported stolen from a Canadian flight school has been captured, authorities said.

The pilot reportedly stole a small Cessna 172 aircraft from a Canadian flight school, flew hundreds of miles across the Midwest, landed on a dirt road in Missouri late Monday and took off on foot, federal officials said.

Federal, state and local authorities launched a manhunt for the pilot, who was identified by the FBI as Adam Leon, 31, a native of Turkey who became a Canadian citizen last year, according to FBI spokesman Richard Kolko. He was formerly known as Yavuz Berke, though officials did not indicate a reason for the name change.

We scrambled fighters jets and I presume prepared to shoot the Cessna down if necessary.

The plane had been intercepted and tracked by U.S. military aircraft as it flew from Canada into U.S. airspace and meandered southward for several hours before landing, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said.

[….]

“We don’t want to suppose the motive of the individual,” Kucharek told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” after the landing. “But it certainly made a day for the professional pilots that were flying these missions and a very serious situation from a NORAD perspective.”

Test run or just another crazy immigrant with many aliases?

Update a few hours later:

Supposedly this Muslim man (according to ABC News here) only wanted to commit suicide, was too chicken to do it himself and was hoping to get blown out of the sky by the US military.   Believe that one and I’ll tell you another!

The Canadian man who led fighter jets on a chase across six states Monday flew his stolen plane into the United States. in hopes the military would shoot him down and kill him, according to a Missouri state trooper who apprehended the rogue pilot.

Missouri state trooper Justin Watson told “Good Morning America” today that 31-year-old Yavuz Berke, formerly known as Adam Leon, wanted to commit suicide, but didn’t have the courage to do it himself.

He was happy when authorities caught up with him.  Yes, because he had learned the answer, the US military failed the test, and they were too chicken to shoot him down!

He was found drinking Gatorade, seemingly relieved that his ordeal was over.

“He actually seemed fairly happy that it came to a good end,” Watson said. “He didn’t seem to be down in spirits or anything like that.”

There are lots of provocative comments at this article; one of my favorites is from spinky1 who said:  “Hey….this whole thing is fishy…what can I tell ya???”

Endnote:   I thought it interesting to consider that this was going on just as Obama was sucking up to Turkey and Islam.  See Jihad Watch here.

Which immigration program admitted Jiverly Wong to the US?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been following the shooting rampage in Binghamton, NY for the last few days and am wondering how Wong entered the US.  It seems no report ever tells us, only that he “moved” here one day in the early 1990’s.   You can’t just “move” to the US and become a citizen “soon afterwards.”

This is from an AP story published in Medeshi, a Somali publication.

Police are still reaching around the world to notify families of those killed Friday by 41-year-old Jiverly Wong, who was apparently upset about losing his job at a vacuum plant and about people picking on him for his limited English.  [I don’t believe this part about being “picked on” about his English, his letter wasn’t that terribly written.]

His victims came from around the globe, including Laos, Mexico, Somalia and the former Soviet republics.

Four Chinese were among those killed, said Zinqi Gao, spokesman for the Chinese consulate in New York. Their names will be released Sunday, he said.

One Chinese student was among the wounded, according to consular officials quoted by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. He was shot in the arm and leg.

Wong was born in Vietnam to a Chinese family. He moved to the U.S. in the early 1990s and soon afterward became a citizen, friends and relatives said.

Was Wong a refugee, an asylee, or what?    And, it’s pretty surprising, don’t you think, that we are still taking refugees from Vietnam, twenty years (the 1990’s when Wong arrived) and more after the country got a stable government.  In fact, in 2008, we took 1,196 Vietnamese refugees.  I thought the leftwingers in the US loved the Communist government of Vietnam; isn’t that what they were all cheering for during the war?  Are we admitting there is a problem with Communism by allowing “refugees” to move to the US?

For our previous discussions about the Binghamton rampage, just type ‘Binghamton’ into our search function.

Iraqi Christians: the good news and the bad news

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have two stories on Iraqi Christians, one optimistic and the other sad. The first is an item from Zenit, a Roman Catholic news service. It’s from February, but I just came across it. Headlined Iraqi Election Seen to Invite Return of Christians, it says,

Results of the recent local Iraqi elections include the defeat of extremist religious groups, and the possible return home of Christian exiles, said an auxiliary bishop of Baghdad.

….The count on Feb. 5, with 90% of votes weighed in, showed that the Islamic religious parties had suffered losses. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s party, on the other hand, won a significant part of the vote. Official results are expected at the end of the month.

Bishop Abouna reported to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that this news “delighted” the Christians who were forced to emigrate due to sectarianism and the violence of the post-Saddam stage.
 
….Underlining the peaceful environment during and after the elections, he affirmed, “This will make [Christians] think differently and may encourage them to start returning.”

The bishop explained that many Christians believe that “a more secular government will favor minority religious groups” more than religious parties would.

Although Maliki and his party have “strong religious leanings, they have pursued a non-sectarian agenda.”

Now a story from yesterday in the Christian Post, 4 Christians Killed Within 48 Hours in Iraq.

Four Iraqi Christians were murdered within two days by unknown assailants, according to a Christian persecution watchdog group.

“The killing of four innocent people within the last two days has put a renewed fear in our hearts,” said Julian Taimoorazy, president of Iraqi Christian Relief Council, in an interview with International Christian Concern. “What is important is to keep these continuous atrocities in the media and on the policy makers’ radars. What we need is a more safe and secure Iraq for all of Iraqi’s especially for the Christians who have faced ethno-religious cleansing.”

The story also relates these facts, some of which surprised me:

Since 2003, some 750 Christians have been killed in Iraq, according to Archbishop Louis Sako, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Kirkuk. Dozens of churches have also been bombed.

Islamic extremists often target Christians under the assumption that they are supporters of the coalition force since they share the same faith as the West.

Constant death threats, lack of economic opportunities, and security instability have forced more than half of the Iraqi Christian population to flee the country within the past five years.

The U.N. High Commission for Refugees reports that although Iraqi Christians make up only three percent of Iraq’s population, they account for nearly half of the refugees leaving the country.

I knew about the disproportion of Iraqi Christian refugees, but didn’t realize it was that large. Almost half the Iraqi refugees are Christians.

But what surprised me is the figure of some 750 Christians killed since 2003. Every death is sad, but 750 is a much lower figure than I would have guessed. It includes a disproportionate number of clergy and leaders, of course, since killing leaders terrorizes and bewilders a population. I somehow had the idea that many thousands of Christians had been killed. I’ll have to check on this further.

Chicago: Overloaded, exhausted, drained and out of stuff for refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Daily Northwestern tells us about the plight of Sudanese refugees and laments the fact that we aren’t bringing so many these days from Africa, but then goes on to report that volag, World Relief, can’t handle the refugees that are coming.    Nevertheless, the US State Department is still sending refugees to Chicago.

“Chicago as a city is really overloaded,” says Christine Deyerler, a Communication senior who interns at World Relief-Chicago, an immigration and refugee aid association that helped Liduba. “Right now they’re taking a lot of Burmese and Iraqi refugees, but not a lot of African ones.”

For those who reach the United States, the first person a new arrival might see is someone such as Deyerler, who often meets refugees up at the airport by prearrangement. The U.S. State Department disseminates highly specific set of services refugees must receive within their first 90 days in the United States, down to the smallest details, such as the number of dishes and mattresses per occupant. The case worker will ferry them to their apartment, the Social Security card office and the grocery store. Within the first week, their children are administered vaccines so they can enroll in school. However, these ready-made accommodations cannot negate the emotional shock of the move.

Chicago is running out of jobs, donations, and furniture even.

“Your status has been ripped,” says Keri Lucas, director of educational services at World Relief. “You are nothing. What’s valuable is handed to you, and you have no concept of the future.”

However, the State Department does not mandate any additional assistance after the first 90 days. More personalized services such as job training, English classes and psychological counseling are often “referred out” to community-based organizations, Lucas said.  [Like the American Civic Association in Binghamton]

“The first thing my boss said to me was that Chicago is really exhausted,” Deyerler says. “(World Relief) is running out of donations and jobs slowly. Right now they have no furniture and are trying really hard to get more donations. A lot (of refugees) have to keep going off and on public aid to get by.”

It’s the same old story everywhere these days—-refugees piling into American cities and the agencies contracted to care for them are not fulfilling their contracts with the government.  And, it’s not just the economy, these stories could be found all over the US before our economic downturn began, it’s just they weren’t being reported!  

I wonder how the State Department is getting around this—their requirement that their contractors supply refugees with the bare minimum to survive and that, in some cases,  isn’t being done.

Here for your review is the US State Department’s Operational Guidance for Resettlement Agencies.   If you should see this is not being followed by a resettlement agency in your community, please contact the US State Department, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to report neglect of basic requirements for refugees.

You will note at the contact page there is no place for anyone to complain.  We have advocated for a Complaint Hotline for the refugee program so citizens and refugees could have one place to lodge complaints.   I see that hasn’t happened.   In the meantime, contact Barbara Day (  daybj@state.gov )    who heads up the portion of the program that manages the resettlement.