Day: September 10, 2009

Reform Canadian immigration by taking more refugees the UN picks for them?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Canadian immigration minister, Jason Kenney, says he wants to reform the Canadian refugee program by getting rid of all the “fake” asylum seekers and taking more refugees that the UN wants to move out of camps around the world.   Nice sentiment I suppose but I see some flaws in his thinking.

First, I see nothing mentioned in this story about sealing Canada’s borders which would be the only way to stop the asylum seekers from getting in, once in what does he propose they do with them?   And, secondly, he places a lot of faith in the UN picking refugees for them.  Here is the story.

As part of its efforts to reform Canada’s refugee system, the government wants to bring in more refugees designated by the UN High Commissioner on Refugees, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says.

This, he argues, would be a much more effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars, benefitting people who are really facing persecution, instead of the thousands of “fake” applicants who apply within Canada each year.

In recent months, Mr. Kenney has spoken extensively about his desire to reform Canada’s refugee system. He has made it clear that he wants to lower the number of applications made within Canada, which has created a backlog of more than 60,000 applications and costs the government millions of dollars in social assistance while claimants await their hearings.

“My concern is more broadly with how easy it is to abuse Canada’s generosity and for non-refugees to immigrate to Canada through the back door of our asylum system using the long processing times and the…various levels of appeal, to string out a fake asylum claim to several years of residency in Canada and sometimes ultimately to gain permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds,” Mr. Kenney said in an interview last week. 

The minister says resources aren’t properly spent the way the system works now, and that real refugees in desperate need of assistance are being allowed to languish in limbo as others take advantage of Canada’s system. He wants to see that situation reversed.

Interestingly I didn’t spot this story at its original source but got it from a Muslim Rohingya website, here.  You can bet Mr. Kenney’s proposal makes their day at Rohingyas International.

Canada is accepting thousands of Bhutanese Hindu, Burmese Karen, Burmese Rohingya and Iraqi refugees, all of whom live in refugee camps, said Mr. Kenney.

The Conservative government, over the years, has made a point of highlighting the admittance of such groups into Canada whenever they have occurred, and Mr. Kenney said he would like to increase such intakes.

We have written a lot about Canada and I should have made a category for it but didn’t.  Our search function is a good one, so just type in ‘Canada’ to learn more about refugee issues there.

Three Uighurs agree to be resettled in Palau

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is the latest on the on-again-off-again story of the Chinese Muslims being held at Gitmo.  The Obama Administration wants a few more released, but the group which was offered the Pacific island nation Palau has been reluctant.  Looks like three have agreed, but get this they will be allowed to travel.  From Fox News (hat tip:  Blulitespecial):

KOROR, Palau – Three Chinese Muslims imprisoned for years at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay have agreed to be released to the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, their lawyers told The Associated Press.

The deals struck recently with U.S. officials are the first among a group of 13 Uighur detainees at Guantanamo who have been offered relocation to Palau under President Barack Obama’s plans to close the controversial prison in Cuba. Negotiations are continuing with the rest of the group.

Relocating the Uighurs would bring the Obama administration a step closer to its goal of finding new homes for terrorism suspects and others captured in Afghanistan who have been cleared of wrongdoing but cannot go home for fear of persecution.

But it has also raised tension with Beijing, which regards the inmates as terrorist suspects and wants them returned to China.

[…..] 

Clarke has said previously that the detainees had been concerned about whether they would be allowed to travel after getting settled in Palau. His clients hope eventually to make the Hajj, or holy pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The Uighurs will not be eligible for Palauan passports but the government has said the men would be free to travel so long as another country accepted them. It’s not clear what passports they would have.

No Uighurs currently live in Palau, though there is a Muslim population of about 400 — mostly Bangladeshi migrant workers.

I’ll bet you a buck the Obama Administration gives them US passports!

We have been following the Uighur story ever since they were first to be resettled in Virginia.   Use our search function for earlier posts.

This is so funny! Blog suggests Maryland is still an ‘old south’ state with a slavery mentality

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Clearly Yahyasheikho0786’s Blog is not written in the US.  He knows nothing about what sort of state Maryland has become since the late 1860’s!    And, apparently the blogger doesn’t follow us regularly because if he did he would know that calling us “racist” is something that just inspires us more because it means we have pushed someone’s buttons.  Here is his whole post (commenting on my post, here, yesterday).

Sooner or later, the anti-Islam/anti-Muslim crowd in the US was going to become aware of the large number of Muslims entering America in refugee resettlement programs and join forces with the anti-immigration activists to advocate against them. This was an easy connection to make between two major ideological pillars of right-wing American politics.

There is a blog now called “Refugee Resettlement Watch” – you know, like “jihad Watch” and “Islam Watch, and sure enough, it juxtaposes right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment with anti-Muslim sentiment – though it is an equal-opportunity disparager of all refugees.

Of course you do find other strains of right-wing behavior there, such as blatant racism. In a story published today on the president of Somalia’s impending visit to the US, blogger “acorcoran” writes:

I can’t see what this will accomplish except maybe bring in some bucks for the beleaguered Islamic government in Somalia…

The word “buck” as racist slang for a black man has a long history going back to slavery in the American South. As political speech, it was used most successfully by Ronald Reagan in the phrase “strapping young buck” as a racist dogwhistle when he reinitiated Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” which led to his eventual victory in the presidential election of 1980.

“Refugee Resettlement Watch” is published in an old South slave state (Maryland), where it seems “Old times dar am not forgotten.”

O.K. now Yahyasheikho0786 don’t you think you are stretching things a bit with your focus on the word “bucks.”   Why on earth would I say Somalia needed more bucks when they already have a lot of bucks of the sort you are describing?   Of course, Al Shabaab has been “buck” shopping in the US and managed to convince about 20 former refugees to go to Somalia to learn to be terrorists.  I think  one reason the “moderate” Somali President is actually coming to the US is to try to convince Somali immigrants not to go back to Somalia and fight with Al-Shabaab against his government.

“Bucks” as I am using it is deep slang for MONEY, CASH, FUNDS… and you know it.

Hey, but thanks for noticing us!

Update later in the day!    I had no idea when I wrote this earlier today that tonight Glenn Beck would show the world how Maryland is still a slave state—of a different sort.  See the story at Big Government. com about ACORN and how some of its Baltimore workers turned a blind eye to underage sex slaves, here.

Denmark: We will take Burmese refugees, but not Iraqis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had a pile of stuff on the on-going conflict involving Denmark and the Iraqi refugees they have been deporting, but lacking time, have posted little of it.  So, just accept this simple summary.  Many Iraqis who arrived (presumably illegally and then asked for asylum) in Denmark have been ordered deported.  So, political activists hid them in a church and ultimately authorities entered the church and physically removed them—a riot ensued.  Now, according to this report, Denmark says it will take refugees that the UN designates, but only Burmese, no more Iraqis.

Below is the whole short article from the Copenhagen Post:

Despite announcing just two months ago that Denmark could accept the Iraqi refugees as agreed by the UN, Immigration Minister Birthe Rønn Hornbech has now said they will not be the first choice this year.

Head of the Social Liberal party Margrethe Vestager is demanding an explanation for the u-turn and said she suspected that domestic politics may be responsible. ‘Birthe Rønn doesn’t want to be in a position where she is throwing Iraqis out of the country, while at the same time bringing more in,’ said Vestager to Politiken newspaper.

The minister did not wish to elaborate on the reasons for the change, but told the paper that past experience showed that Burmese refugees were good at integrating into their new country.

Quota refugees are different to asylum seekers in that they are resettled in a country following agreement with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Denmark has agreed to take approximately 500 of these refugees annually, who are selected under a number of criteria, such as geographical regions, those who are critically ill and need treatment, those who are at risk of being sent back to their original country or those who are currently in danger where they are living.

Note to Danish government:   If it’s Muslims you are concerned about, although many Burmese refugees are Christian,  take into consideration that Burmese Rohingya are Muslims too.

To learn more than you ever wanted to know about Rohingya, visit our category on the topic here (80 posts!). So far, the US has not officially taken any Rohingya, but Canada, Australia, the UK and Ireland have, among others.