Month: January 2010

Bowling Green police department helps refugees stay warm

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As record-setting cold descends on the United States, the Bowling Green, KY police department brought a special gift to Karenni refugees crowded together in what has previously been described as substandard housing, here. 

Police arrived in squad cars bearing 150 warm winter coats for the refugees living at the Lover’s Lane Apartments on New Years Day.

Cindy, who helped coordinate the project,  reports from Bowling Green:

The refugees said they were all so happy when the police arrived and to receive their gifts.

The refugees in return, gave them homemade gifts from their native culture and made them a small meal.

Some refugees were surprised that a caseworker for the International Center was in attendence since tensions between refugees and the resettlement agency have been evident for months.

Refugees must adjust their immigration status at the end of first year in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I mentioned this story back in early December, here, but I don’t think I had the link for the report that must have spawned the story (or is certainly part of the political campaign). Here is a link to the Human Rights Watch report provactively titled “Jailing Refugees” which says refugees are being detained by ICE and face deportation if they fail to update their immigration status. 

The report claims that no one advises refugees to do this necessary paperwork.  So where are the government contracted resettlement agencies?  Isn’t this part of their job? 

Each year, the US government sends officials to refugee camps overseas to interview thousands of people displaced by persecution and conflict, classifies a select number as refugees in need of resettlement, and brings those refugees to live in the United States.

After one year in the United States, every resettled refugee is required to apply for lawful permanent resident (LPR) status, more familiarly known as a “green card.” However, refugees’ limited English, ignorance about the requirement, confusion over the legal process, and lack of resources, as well as the government’s failure to notify them of the requirement, often prevents them from timely filing to adjust their legal status. In some parts of the country, the consequence of not applying can be lengthy, indefinite and arbitrary detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The purpose of this report is to encourage legislative and policy changes that will eliminate the potential for indefinite detention of resettled refugees for failure to file for adjustment to lawful permanent resident status after one year in the US.

Instead of eliminating detention, why not write a law that specifically says resettlement agencies (or state refugee agencies) are responsible for this notification requirement.   It might also force resettlement agencies to keep track of refugees they resettle—something not presently required.

Refugees are supposed to notify Homeland Security when they move, but I wonder how many actually do.

Stop Honour Killings blog is one you should know about

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This month-old story came to my attention last night.  It is the story of an honor killing of a young woman named Rifqa—murdered by family members in a “refugee” camp in the Gaza Strip.

Here is the post, and then I recommend exploring the blog, Stop Honour Killings.

On Friday afternoon, 27 November 2009, Rifqa Ghazi ‘Abdullah Salama, 29, from al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City, was killed allegedly “to maintain family honor.”

According to police sources in al-Shati, at approximately 13:30 on Friday, 27 November 2009, the woman’s brother, two uncles and two cousin strangled her using a wet towel while she was sleeping at home near Hmaid intersection in al-Shati refugee camp. The police initiated an investigation into the murder and arrested the 5 accused persons. Initial investigations indicate that the woman was killed allegedly to “maintain family honor.”

Sources of the forensic medicine department at Shifa Hospital reported that the woman was strangled by a wet towel.

According to PCHR’s documentation, the number of people killed allegedly “to maintain family honor” since the beginning of 2009 has amounted to 10 (7 women, two men and a child) in 8 crimes. One of these crimes was committed in the West Bank, whereas the rest of the crimes were committed in the Gaza Strip.

PCHR must be the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, here.

Israel’s African refugees keep coming

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’re still getting hits on a story I posted a year ago, Asylum seekers head for Israel, so I thought I’d post this update I came across, How refugees cope in Israel, by blogger Michael Horesh. It’s a short summary of the situation of the refugees who come across the Egyptian border after traveling from farther south in Africa. Here’s some of it:

In the past decade, the country has absorbed 17,500 refugees from Sudan, Darfur and Eritrea. According to UN stats and quoted in the hebrew newspaper “Yediot”:-

  • 1,500 are minors
  • 7,500 are from Eritrea and 6,500 from Sudan
  • Around 16,000 are Muslims

Many quite simply walked to Egypt, entered Sinai, and then reached Israel across the porous desert border with Egypt. And the numbers continue to grow every month.

Horesh points out that the governments of the refugees’ countries are hostile towards Israel. Yet the refugees deliberately head for Israel, because they know they will be treated decently there. (Egypt, by contrast, has shot would-be refugees trying to cross the border.)

I will add my comment that people who know little about Israel usually have no idea how tiny the country is: it’s 12,877 square miles, smaller than New Jersey. Here’s a map showing Israel compared to neighboring countries. And even this map overstates Israel’s size because it includes Gaza and the West Bank. It’s fairly densely populated, with about 7.5 million people. Yet Israel is taking in thousands of refugees, mostly Muslims. How many Muslim countries do you think have taken in Jewish refugees?

Somalis coming in through our wide open back door

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Arrggghhhh!   Check out this story at the Los Angeles Times today.  It seems that Somalis aren’t waiting to get into the US as refugees but are sneaking across our borders and flying into our airports and asking for asylum.

LANCASTER, Calif. (AP) — The asylum seeker from Somalia hung his head as an immigration judge grilled him about his treacherous journey [is this description of a treacherous journey supposed to make him sound sympathetic!] from the Horn of Africa. By air, sea and land he finally made it to Mexico, and then a taxi delivered him into the arms of U.S. border agents at San Diego.

Islamic militants had killed his brother, Mohamed Ahmed Kheire testified, and majority clan members had beaten his sister. He had to flee Mogadishu to live.

The voice of the judge, beamed by videoconference from Seattle, crackled loudly over a speaker in the mostly empty courtroom near the detention yard in the desert north of Los Angeles. He wanted to know why Kheire had no family testimony to corroborate his asylum claim.

Kheire, 31, said he didn’t have e-mail in detention, and didn’t think to ask while writing to family on his perilous trek.

It seemed like the end of Kheire’s dream as he waited for the judge’s ruling. He clasped his hands, his plastic jail bracelet dangling from his wrist, and looked up at the ceiling, murmuring words of prayer.

Kheire is one of hundreds of desperate Somalis in the last two years to have staked everything on a wild asylum gamble by following immigration routes to the United States traditionally traveled by Latinos.

With the suspension of a U.S. refugee program and stepped-up security in the Gulf of Aden and along Mediterranean smuggling routes, more overseas migrants from Somalia are pursuing asylum through what one expert calls the “back door.”

Arrggghhhh!  Only family reunification is suspended due to the widespread fraud discovered through DNA testing in 2008.*  We are still admitting thousands of Somalis every year to the US.   Mr. Hatfield of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has been helping them resettle in the US—he knows the truth!   We admitted 670 Somalis into the US in the refugee program in the first two months of FY2010 alone.

The U.S. has closed most of the doors for Somalis to come in through the refugee program so they’ve found alternative ways to get in,” said Mark Hetfield, senior vice president for policy and programs at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. “This is their new route.”

About 1,500 people from around the world showed up in U.S. airports and on the borders seeking asylum during the 2009 fiscal year, according to statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Somalis were the biggest group to make the journey, with most arriving in San Diego. More than 240 Somalis arrived during that period — more than twice the number from the year before.

Arrggghhh!   When the refugee program is not robust!!!  What the heck, we are bringing more refugees to the US now (when there are no jobs) than we did in any year since 9/11.

Immigration experts say such circuitous paths are routes of last resort.

“I always call it the back door,” said Bob Montgomery, director of the San Diego office for the International Rescue Committee.

“When the refugee program is not robust, we see more people trying to come through the asylum system,” he said.

Most Somalis have reached the United States — there are some 87,000 here — through U.S.-sponsored refugee resettlement programs. But the State Department in 2008 suspended a family reunification program for refugees over fraud concerns. The number of Somalis admitted by refugee programs dwindled to about 4,000 last year.

Arrggghhh!  And, what the heck is this—87,000 Somalis in the US.  We have hundreds of thousands of Somalis in the US because we admitted nearly that many over 25 years through the refugee program.*  Those Somali families have been having on average of 6 kids per family for two decades!

Read the rest of the story, but be prepared to be outraged!

*For new readers :

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon.  Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled as I write this.