Month: September 2009

More Somalis on the way from Malta to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The controversial and precedent-setting “resettlement” program for “refugees” who arrived as illegal aliens in Malta continued this week according to Alshahid (a Somali publication that is probably blasting this good news all over Africa):

A group of seventeen refugees from Eritrea and Somalia left Malta to begin a new life in the United States, Malta Independent Online reported on Wednesday.

This brings the total number of refugees who have been resettled to the US this month to 37, and the total resettled since the resettlement program began to 340.

At a reception for the refugees hosted by the US Embassy last week, US Ambassador Douglas Kmiec reiterated the US government’s commitment to help ease the burden that migration has placed on Malta.

At least they aren’t calling the “reception for the refugees” a tea party this time!

Then this last is a joke and I hope they didn’t tell the refugees they would be cared for for two years—it is more like 3 or 4 months!

Once they arrive in the US, each refugee will be assigned a sponsor agency that provides initial services such as housing, food, and clothing, as well as referral to medical care, employment services, and other support during a transition period lasting up to two years in order to ensure integration and assimilation.

We’ve been covering the Malta issue for two years.  Use our search function for ‘Malta’  and note how the US has been so kind as to take Europe’s illegal aliens to the US in a program that I contend serves as a magnet for more Africans to try to reach Malta.

Texas Candidate for Congress wants to halt all Muslim immigration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This guy is brave!   From ReporterNews of Abilene:

Big Country congressional hopeful Canyon Clowdus wants no more Muslim immigration to America.

But the conservative Republican doesn’t want to stop at the stance he outlined to radical blog “Dr. Bulldog & Ronin,” which endorses him for 11th Congressional District representative.

It’s not just them,” Clowdus told a reporter Sunday night. “They need to check all immigrants. They used to assimilate.”

Instead, immigrants retain their beliefs, weakening America, Marble Falls businessman Clowdus said.

[….]

Clowdus wants to halt Muslim immigration to stop what the blog termed a “Stealth Jihad” and “creeping sharia” to replace the Constitution with Islamic religious law.

Read on as the reporter attempts to smear Clowdus.

Now, you gotta go see the blog Doctor Bulldog and Ronin on this story, here where they take this article apart and analyze it using facts and humor.

State Department: Lousy economy, who cares, bring in more refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Wishful thinking, I guess, but I thought there was some possibility that the Obama Administration would take into account the rotten economy and high unemployment figures and slow the flow of refugees into the US (and on to our welfare rolls) this coming fiscal year.   Fat chance in light of recent revelations about the Democratic strategy of flooding the welfare system and changing the demographics of the US.

According to a report from President Obama to Congress as the new fiscal year begins tomorrow, we will keep record high numbers of refugees coming to America. Nevermind that in some areas of the country only 20% of refugees find work and fear eviction from their apartments after only a few months in their new homes.

I haven’t yet read the full report, “Proposed Refugee Admissions for FY2010, Report to Congress from the President,” but the chart on page 5 tells us all we need to know.   Incidentally in fiscal year 2009, a deep recession year which ends today, we resettled more refugees than any year since 9/11.  The ceiling* for 2009 was 80,000 and at the time of this report the projected actual resettlement number is 75,000 (in a few days we should know the actual number).

For Fiscal year 2010, the State Department and the Office of the President set the ceiling for admissions at 80,000 again.  That figure includes a substantial increase in the number of Africans proposed for resettlement while East Asia and the Near East/South Asia will have less slots for resettlement.  Which, of course, suggests that Iraq numbers may not be increasing (again I haven’t read the whole report, to see exactly what they say about the controversial Iraqi refugees).

I did note that. according to the report, there have been meetings of insiders in the refugee industry on reforming some aspects of the program, but surely they didn’t include any outside criticism from the likes of us or our readers.

Interesting stats from FY2008

The report also gives us some interesting information and statistics from 2008.  We learn that the twelve top states for refugee resettlement are (in decreasing order by number of refugees resettled):  CA, TX, FL, NY, MI, AZ, IL, GA, NC, WA, PA, IN.   Among the lowest receiving states are Arkansas (9), West Virginia(5), and Delaware (1).  And, of course, Wyoming doesn’t participate in the program and so has zero.

I have said this on many previous occasions, but I find it fascinating that Delaware takes virtually no refugees.  One might argue that it’s such a small state, but so is Rhode Island and it took 134 in 2008 to Delaware’s 1.  Why is that interesting, because former Senator, now VP, Joe Biden is one of the original sponsors of the Refugee Act of 1980 and I think somehow he (an elitist like Ted Kennedy, the chief sponsor) likes the idea of refugees, just not too close to home.   I even called Delaware officials once and got some gobbledegook answer about why that state took so few.

I’m sure we will have more on this report as we find time to digest it all!

 *”Ceiling” is an important word. It is not a goal per se, although the resettlement industry advocates are making it one.  Its original meaning was that we were not to go over that number, not necessarily shoot for it.

State Department official calls Gitmo prisoners “refugees”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I heard this on the radio yesterday, and had promptly forgotten it until last night when reader Paul sent me this column by Connie Hair at Human Events about the verbal slip-up, or was it a slip-up?

Yesterday State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley referred to Gitmo terrorists as “refugees.” During the daily State Department briefing, the Assistant Secretary of State unveiled the new terminology (Video here at 24:10 minutes):

REPORTER QUESTION: Talk to us a little bit about response and talks and any commitments that you may have gotten from our European and other friends in the international community about taking in Guantanamo detainees as the camp in Guantanamo is expected to close at some point in the near future. Have you gotten any commitments from our European friends and anybody else?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY PHILIP J. CROWLEY: Ambassador Dan Fried continues his efforts to resettle, you know, Guantanamo refugees to various places around the world.

Resettling refugees. Like we resettled the Vietnamese boat people fleeing oppression? Like the Irish emigrating to escape the potato famine? Sure: to Hillary Clinton’s State Department, the terrorists imprisoned at Gitmo are “refugees” to be “resettled.”

A refugee is a person seeking protection from religious persecution or political oppression or seeking safe haven during a war. The Obama administration denies we are even at war. Could they possibly consider these terrorists as victims seeking safety?

Ms. Hair then tells us about some good advice she once received and how it can be a tip-off to one’s real thoughts on any matter.

A dear friend once passed along very sage advice about playing with verbal fire. He told me if you ever speak before the public, never say anything in private that you might regret saying if it were to slip out in public. Because it will come out of your mouth at the most inopportune moment…

[….]

When something as substantial as “Gitmo refugee” rolls so easily off of a spokesman’s tongue, you can lay odds that it’s been said before — and often.

You can take it to the bank that the State Department talks about Guantanamo prisoners as “refugees.”  They have from the very beginning.  For the last year we’ve followed the ins and outs of the release of the Chinese Muslim Uighers—ever since they were initially to be “resettled” in Virginia.   I couldn’t find our first mention of the Uighers as “refugees,” but here is a post in which Human Rights Watch mentions “refugee resettlement” for these Gitmo prisoners.

Here is the reason why!   “Refugees” get all sorts of stuff—subsidized housing, food stamps, health care, job counseling, language lessons etc. etc.  Regular immigrants are often barred from stuff for a long time.  I am sure that is the case, not just in the US, but elsewhere in the world (or at least the part of the civilized world where they would be sent).  I am also sure there was no slip-up, the State Department is referring to them as “refugees” for a reason—they will get stuff (goodies, welfare) from whatever country takes them, or maybe stuff paid for by us if they are called “refugees!”  The State Department is hammering that point home—at least to the insiders in the worldwide refugee industry.

Sharp lawyer needed!

Oh, and one final thought.  Because this situation (releasing prisoners captured on the battlefield) has no legal precedent, they are trying to squeeze them into some legally recognized category—refugees.  It is too bad we don’t have some sharp lawyers on our side who could challenge this perversion of the definition of refugees.

Another great article on how SEIU/ACORN and Wade Rathke want to flood the welfare system

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t have time to write about it, but Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center has a very thorough updated article at Big Government on what we’ve been trying to explain for some time—how SEIU and ACORN are working to overload the American welfare system in order to redistribute wealth and ultimately bring down our form of government.

I contend that in order to make their plan fully operational they need to open the immigration flood gates as wide as they possibly can—the more poor and demanding people they have, the more likely they will succeed.