Day: February 23, 2010

Refugee Council of Australia: we want more refugees!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a report from the Sydney Morning Herald today (tomorrow for us in the US) where the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) is insisting that Australia take more refugees.   Presently Australia takes around 11,000 but RCOA wants the numbers upped to 20,000.

This RCOA is a consortium of NGO’s that have a financial interest in resettling refugees probably very similar to our Refugee Council USA where all the non-profit quasi-government agencies get together on letterheads (trying to look more muscular) and press releases (like the one the Sydney Morning Herald is writing from)  and produce reports advocating for more refugees to be brought to their respective countries—all to keep their member agencies in work.

Shock!  Horrors! Australian refugee intake lowest in 35 years!

The number of asylum seekers that make up the nation’s migration intake has fallen to its lowest level in 35 years, prompting calls for Australia to take a greater role in refugee resettlement.

The Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) says Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program has dropped to 6.6 per cent of the nation’s total migration program despite a rise in the number of people seeking resettlement around the globe.

In its annual submission to the federal government, the Refugee Council calls for a five-year expansion of the offshore component of the Refugee and Humanitarian Program.

The council wants the refugee component boosted to 20,000 places per annum, beginning with 1000 additional resettlement places in 2010-11 for highly vulnerable refugees in Asia.

Just a reminder, the Obama Administration is aiming to resettle 80,000 refugees in the US during this year of the Great Recession.

For more on refugee problems in Australia, visit our  Australia category with 47 posts on the joys of multiculturalism down under.

Israel wants to bring issue of Jewish refugees into peace talks

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

When Israel was founded, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab countries, or forced to leave in other ways and their property was seized without compensation. You haven’t heard much about them until recently, but in the last couple of years some groups, individuals and legislators have been bringing this chapter of history into public consciousness. We posted on it here where we discussed the film, The Forgotten Refugees, and here, where we give an overview and more links.

The issue has been in the news lately because the Israeli Knesset (parliament) has been discussing a bill dealing with these refugees. Here’s the most complete report I’ve seen, in the Jerusalem Post of February 18, 2010. It begins:

Israeli lawmakers are seeking a law that will make compensation for Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries after 1948 an integral part of any future peace negotiations.

Lawmakers put together a bill demanding compensation on behalf of current Jewish Israeli citizens, who were expelled from Arab countries after Israel was established in 1948, leaving behind a significant amount of valuable property.

Originally submitted almost a year ago to the Knesset, the bill passed its first hearing two weeks ago. Now various interest groups are pushing the bill with the Knesset’s 120 members before it is subjected to a second and third hearing next week. 

The bill was sponsored by MK Nissim Ze’ev (Shas) and follows a resolution passed in the US House of Representatives in 2008, calling for refugee recognition to be extended to Jews and Christians similar to that extended to Palestinians in the course of Middle East peace talks.

We reported on the Congressional effort here. As the updates to that post show, the resolution passed by voice vote on April 1, 2008.

Compensation is not the only issue, according to a Canadian former justice minister who was at the Knesset during the discussion of the bill.

“We’re not just speaking about financial compensation or indemnification,” Cotler said. “We’re talking about justice for Jews from Arab countries. This speaks to the question of, among other things, rectifying the justice and peace narrative of the last 62 years where the question of Jews from Arab countries has not been part of the narrative.”

“There have been more than 160 UN resolutions on the matter of refugees,” he continued. “All 160 dealt with Palestinian refugees only. I’m not saying they shouldn’t address Palestinian refugees, but I’m saying there’s no justice and no truth if it does not also address the plight of Jews seeking justice from Arab countries.”

The bill is specifically directed at any peace talks with Arab countries.

The Israeli bill stipulates that “The state of Israel will not sign, directly or by proxy, any agreement or treaty with a country or authority dealing with a political settlement in the Middle East without ensuring the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries according to the UN’s refugee treaty.”

“In any discussion where the Palestinian refugee issue is brought up in the framework of peace negotiations in the Middle East,” it continues, “the Israeli government will bring up the issue of compensation for loss of property and giving equal status to Arab refugees who left their property after the state was established and to Jewish refugees from Arab countries.”

One website is reporting the bill passed, but as there’s nothing in the Jeruslam Post I’m not announcing that yet.

Update 2/24/10: The World Jewish Congress reports the bill passed in the Knesset. It comments:

Stanley Urman, the head of the advocacy group Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, welcomed the Knesset decision, saying: “The world must realize that Palestinians were not the only Middle‐East refugees; that there were Jewish refugees who also have rights under international law. This recognition is good for the State of Israel and it is good for the people of Israel.”

ICE looking for 270 illegal Somalis who could be connected to Al-Shabaab

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update June 26th: Tracy appeals his probation, here.

Update June 11th: Two indicted in Kenya for helping Tracy get Somalis to the US, here.

Update June 5th: Tracy walks—he is a free man today!  Read about it here.

Update May 17th: Tracy’s trial opens today in Virginia, here.

Update April 29th: Maybe we found one, here.

Update February 26th: Debbie Schlussel has obtained the affidavit, here.

Update February 25th: Writer asks why you would spend $30,000 just to get a menial job in the US, here.

Update February 24th: Fox News is reporting more details on this case, be sure to read this!

A Virginia man has admitted he helped 270 Somalis, possibly with terrorist connections, get into the US by crossing the Mexican border. None have been found, but all are believed to have blended into states with large Somali or African refugee populations.  Hat tip:  Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum who just yesterday noted that few at CPAC last week discussed National Security.

From the Washington Examiner today:

Authorities are searching for 270 Somalis believed to have entered the U.S. illegally with the help of a Virginia man who admitted contacts with an Islamic terrorist group.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent said his agency had yet to locate any of the suspected illegal immigrants.

According to an affidavit filed in Alexandria’s federal court, Anthony Joseph Tracy told authorities that he came in contact with the Somali terrorist organization Al-Shabaab, which announced an alliance with al Qaeda earlier this year.

ICE Agent Thomas Eyre testified during a hearing that authorities are “concerned” about the 35-year-old’s dealings with the group.

In an e-mail, Tracy reportedly wrote, “i helped alot of somalis and most are good but there are some who are bad and i leave them to ALLAH,” the affidavit said.

Are they in your state?

Eyre testified that authorities had not yet tracked down any of the Somalis whom Tracy allegedly helped travel to the U.S. The affidavit says Tracy’s e-mails, combined with information on Facebook, show that the Somalis have spread across the country and are living in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Minnesota and Arizona.  [Other states with large Somali populations are California, Ohio, Maine, Virginia, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington state—ed]

A circuitous trip involving Kenya, Cuba and Mexico among other stops!  We reported on this route previously here.

Eyre indicated authorities are trying to find the Somalis and determine whether they’re associated with Al-Shabaab. An ICE spokeswoman said she could not comment on an ongoing investigation. The Somalis are believed to have entered the United States through the border with Mexico after making a circuitous trip from Kenya to Dubai to Moscow to Cuba to South America to Mexico and then the U.S., Eyre testified.

Then we have the naive (or is it purposefully duplicitous) Refugees International that is complicit in encouraging other illegal Somalis to come here over  many years as part of the now suspended fraudulent Family Reunification program (where the State Department admits as many as 36,000 Africans entered the US illegally) running their mouths about how could those poor people get all that money!   Shut up, would you!  Terrorists have access to money!

Vanessa Parra, a spokeswoman for Refugees International, estimated the trip could cost as much as $30,000. “It would be difficult for most Somalis to get that kind of money,” she said.

Tracy split to Kenya in April.  That means these possible Somali terrorists have had ten months to disappear into a town near you.

Tracy, who moved to Kenya in April from Winchester, is accused of helping the Somalis move to the United States by getting them travel visas to Cuba through contacts he had at the Cuban Embassy, court documents said. The visas were issued using fraudulent information Tracy allegedly provided his contacts. Authorities say Tracy knew that the U.S. was the Somalis’ intended final destination.

For new readers:

For information on Somali missing youths, American citizens who have gone to Somalia to learn the Jihad trade, some leaving through Mexico, use those search words.  We have written dozens of stories on the case.  For more on Al-shabaab (sometimes spelled Al-shabab) also use our search function.

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US (this linked post continues to be one of the most widely read posts we have ever written) in the last 25 years and then in 2008 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. We recently learned that we will be taking 6000 Somalis this year from one camp in Uganda and as many as 11,000-13,000 total from around the world.

Swedes to deport Iraqis this week, protests planned

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is from AK News, a Kurdish news agency, obviously written by someone whose English is a bit rough, but you get the gist.  Demonstrations planned in London! 

We have been telling you recently, here and here, about problems in “welcoming” Sweden with Muslim refugees, so this deportation plan is not a surprise.

Sulaimaniyah, Feb. 21 (AKnews) – The Special Representative of Kurdistan Branch for the Iraqi Refugee Association announced that the Swedish government has planned to deport forcefully 70 Iraqi refugees back to Iraq, and the Refugee Association has decided to hold a massive demonstration in in London and Sulaimaniyah to protest against the decision.

“The Swedish government has planned to deport a number of Iraqi Refugees forcefully, whose their cases are cancelled by the Swedish Juristic Court,” Amanj Abdullah said today.

According to the latest information, Abdullah said: “the Swedish authority exiledd to Iraq 60-70 refugees, including 40 Kurds, via Baghdad International Airport on Friday.”

See our ever-popular post from last year, ‘Muslim immigration killing Sweden,’ here.  I don’t know why this post persists in being near the top of  RRW’s most visited posts— the only thing I can figure is that the title is catchy!

Brits to teach immigrants how to queue!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just now I was going to tell you about the “squatter’s rights” that illegal immigrants have in the UK —if they hang out in Britain for 14 years illegally they can then apply to stay!  Here it is at Counter Jihad blog (it is a story from the Telegraph).   However a story posted in the sidebar at the Telegraph entitled, ‘Immigrants to be taught how to queue,’  attracted my attention instead.

Foreigners applying to settle in the UK will have to learn about the revered British practice of forming an orderly line for everything from buses to sandwiches.

While the idea may sound like a joke, ministers insist they are entirely serious and want to indoctrinate migrants more effectively into the British way of life.

They claim a lot of tension in communities is caused by immigrants not understanding that they must wait in line for services rather than barging to the front.

This is not their fault, ministers say, but happens because in less-wealthy countries the only way to get access to necessities is to push yourself forward.

But to elderly people waiting in bus queues, for example, such behaviour can be off-putting and frightening.

Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, confirmed that he was pushing the idea as part of moves to ensure immigrants integrate properly.

He said: “The simple act of taking one’s turn is one of the things that holds our country together. It is very important that newcomers take their place in queues whether it is for a bus or a cup of tea.

“It is central to the British sense of fair play and it is also better for everyone. Huge resentment is caused when people push in. [No kidding!  It is one of the complaints I hear all the time with especially Muslim refugees–ed]

British citizenship tests include questions about such things!  I doubt we have anything like this in the US.

Since 2005, foreign nationals applying for UK citizenship – which confers the right to a British passport – have been required to sit a written test at one of 90 centres across the country before taking part in a formal citizenship ceremony.

The 45-minute tests, introduced by David Blunkett, the then-home secretary, include questions on various aspects of the British way of life from politics to pop music.

The answers are all to be found in a 150-page book, Life in the UK, which applicants must study before sitting the exam. Topics covered veer from complicated matters of government procedure and welfare entitlement to the apparently banal.

The book already addresses the thorny question of what you should do if you spill someone’s pint in the pub, with the correct response being to buy them another one.

But, of course for the hundreds of thousands of illegals hiding out in the UK for the 14 years before they seek “squatters rights” whether they stand in line or buy a new pint for one spilled in the bar matters not.  They will have had 14 years to irritate the Brits.