Day: May 18, 2010

Michael Posner puts foot in mouth by apologizing to China

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You’ve probably heard about it, it’s been all over the news.  The State Department’s Michael Posner APOLOGIZED to China for our human rights abuses.  What were our abuses?  Arizona passed SB1070!  Think about it APOLOGIZING TO CHINA.  Here is Sarah Palin blasting the Obama apology tour at Gateway Pundit (one of my favorite blogs by the way and Sarah Palin is one of my favorite people!).

Posner, before going through the revolving door  to the State Department, was the well-paid head of Human Rights First.  I told you about  him here when he was pushing for more Iraqi refugees to be admitted to the US and promoting Samantha Power as the Iraqi refugee czar in the White House.    Surely as head of Human Rights First for decades he knew about this:

North Korea pays China a bounty of around $300 for each North Korean caught and returned to North Korea. Returned escapees will typically be prosecuted, then imprisoned, or, if it is their third attempt, summarily executed, for the crime of betraying the fatherland by leaving.

And, he must have known about this:

They have to be careful and alert – North Korean refugees looking for a better life in South Korea run the risk of being rounded up by Chinese troops. But there are groups and organizations who try to help. They call themselves the Catacombs, a reference to early Christians who fled underground to avoid Roman persecution. This group of Korean and foreign Christian human rights activists, along with the refugees they are helping, are trying to avoid being detected by China.

These groups help refugees by giving them shelter and food during their escape. They also assist them in moving on to South Korea. To them it is clear that China puts the lives of North Koreans fleeing across the border at risk.

Now, go here to the Office of Immigration Statistics Annual Flow Report, and take note that we granted asylum to 10,000-11,000 Chinese nationals who sought asylum each year for the last 3 years.  Indeed the Chinese top the list of those seeking asylum here.  How many Americans sought asylum in China during those same three years?  I bet the number is zero!  Case closed.

Iowa editor admits it: we want refugee labor in our state

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you in January that the State of Iowa (one of 10 major refugee contractors) was getting out of the business of bringing refugees to Iowa.  I meant to tell you the other day, but didn’t get around to it, that only Catholic Charities would still be providing Iowa’s meatpacking laborers.

Now comes an editorial from the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa that spells it all out clearly—the refugees are needed for (cheap) labor.  The editor even suggests that if Iowa doesn’t get legal immigrant labor the meatpackers will continue to exploit illegal aliens.  There is another option, offer a decent wage and lots and lots of people will want the jobs.

Let me be clear, I understand that the refugees brought to the US must work to stay off welfare, but then let’s be honest and stop pretending that the US State Department and the volags are motivated only by humanitarian zeal.  There is a lot of  money (and  future voters!) involved!

Fourteen- and 15-year-olds testified about back-breaking, low-paying work for Sholom Rubashkin, the former Agriprocessors CEO charged with 83 misdemeanor state child labor law violations. He already has been convicted of massive financial fraud.

He has yet to be tried for immigration law violations federal authorities filed after the biggest immigration raid in Iowa history May 12, 2008. Federal agents removed 390 undocumented workers from the plant, shutting it down and proving once again that Iowa’s agriculture economy cannot function without immigrant labor.

The work force at every meatpacking plant in the state affirms it. So do the past three Iowa governors, who agree legal immigration is essential for the state’s economic growth, not simply “important” or “a key factor.” While in office, Govs. Terry Branstad, Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver all said Iowa simply cannot grow without legal immigration.

This is the context for the regrettable closing of Iowa’s Bureau of Refugee Services, the state’s No. 1 manager of legal immigration. Since 1975, this bureau brought 28,000 legal immigrants to Iowa and supported another 10,000 who moved to the state after legally entering the country.

The Iowa State refugee office is closing and so is Lutheran Social Services of Iowa.  Only Catholic Charities will continue.

End result: Legal immigration refugee resettlement to Iowa will plummet by more than 85 percent.

Of course, that doesn’t mean immigration to Iowa will end. Hundreds will find their own ways to the state or be recruited for hard-to-fill tech, education and science positions. [Flash! Job seekers in the tech field, education and science should get to Iowa now because they have jobs!]

If history is an indicator, thousands of illegal immigrants will continue to be drawn into the traps set by those like Rubashkin, who federal and state authorities say built a business around exploited illegal immigrants.

Refugee resettlement is an honorable part [honorable for whom?] of Iowa government and faith mission history. It also is a vital part of the state’s economic development.

The Clintons knew all about supplying Iowa big business with cheap immigrant labor as I learned in 2008, here.

The logical solution to the Palestinian refugee problem

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Alexander Levkovsky on David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog posts Another Look at the Problem of Refugees. He quotes Michael Steinhardt in the Wall Street Journal to summarize the problem:

Descendants of the Arabs who left their homes in 1948 now number in the millions. The Palestinians want these people returned to Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel says no, knowing this would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

(Check out our category Israel and refugees for our many posts on the issue.)

Levkovsky continues:

All attempts to resolve that problem have failed – mostly, because of the stubborn and utterly unreasonable resistance on the part of the Arabs. But Mr. Steinhardt’s proposal (and many similar ideas) to cut this knot by employing a combination of monetary compensation and granting of citizenship to stateless Palestinians is worth considering seriously.

History provides convincing examples of how refugee problems have been successfully – although in most cases, painfully – resolved. For example, in the wake of World War II, untold millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from the territories they had lived in for centuries – from East Prussia, the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, eastern provinces of Germany proper, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. They were all accepted by the two post-war German nations as full-right citizens.

Very few people nowadays are aware of the enormous flow of refugees after World War II. I knew about it because my maternal grandmother came to America from Konigsberg in East Prussia. That city became part of Russia after the war and was renamed Kaliningrad. Since the Soviet Union dissolved and Belorus became a separate country, Kaliningrad has not been physically connected to Russia, but it is still a part of Russia. I didn’t know my grandmother and have no connection with her family, but they must have been among the millions of Germans displaced from their longstanding homes and taken in by Germany.

So, Levkovsky says,

If Arab leaders do feel true compassion for the plight of their Palestinian brethren (as they invariably insist they do), and have sincere desire to put an end to their stateless existence, they can learn from very humane laws of granting citizenship that have been adopted by many nations: Armenia, Belarus, China, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Poland, Japan, France, India, Bulgaria, and many, many others.

He gives examples of a few of the laws adopted. Here is Lithuania’s:

From the Constitution of Lithuania, Article 32(4): “Every Lithuanian person may settle in Lithuania.”

Pretty simple, isn’t it? The problem is that (as Levkovsky knows), the Arab leaders have no desire whatsoever to put an end to their brethren’s stateless existence. Their desire is to keep the Palestinians in misery and stateless as a permanent weapon against Israel. I am glad to see that this proposal has been spreading around for a while, though at a less visible level than I’d like. It calls the bluff of the Arab politicians and shows them up for the hypocrites they are.

Sheboygan gets a mosque

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is happening in small towns and cities throughout the US.  Sheboygan, WI has been riled for months over whether a use permit to convert a former store into a mosque should be granted by the town fathers.  The local refugee population was cited by the Palestinian (from Gaza) imam as one reason they needed the religious center.  Last night the mosque was approved over the objections of the majority of the citizens of Sheboygan.  Hat tip: Robert

From the Sheboygan Press:

After an hour and a half of fiery discussion, including comments from two dozen speakers, and before an audience of more than 120 people, the Wilson Town Board voted unanimously Monday night to grant a conditional use permit for Sheboygan County’s first mosque.

With the approval, Mohammad Hamad, the Imam, or spiritual leader, of the local Muslim community, said the first worship service at the former Tom’s of Wisconsin health food store at 9110 Sauk Trail Road would be held Friday, the traditional day of worship for Muslims.

Hamad said he was happy the process was over.

“I believe right now we have to focus on the future and put this harsh talk behind us,” Hamad said after the meeting.
“I was a little surprised at the misunderstanding” about Islam and the local Muslim community, he said, adding but the mosque will help open a door to better understanding.”

The proposal had drawn large crowds over the last several months to town Plan Commission meetings and several hundreds to public forums at local churches and other locations, with some saying the U.S. Constitutional guarantee of freedom of worship dictated approval while others said the mosque could attract Islamic fundamentalists and even terrorists to the area.

Read on.

In an earlier story we learned that the owner of the property is a Pakistani, the Imam is a Palestinian from Gaza and refugee families need the mosque.

Mansoor Mirza, a Pakistani-born physician who bought the four-acre property and plans on leasing it to the Islamic Society, estimated 80 to 100 Muslim families live in Sheboygan County and that 20 or 25 of them were likely to attend the mosque. Mirza recently moved to Sheboygan from Manitowoc. Mirza is board certified in internal medicine at Holy Family Memorial in Manitowoc.

Mohammad Hamad, the group’s imam, or spiritual leader, and Mirza said a large number of those Muslims are European, especially Albanian and Bosnian refugees. Others, Hamad said, hail from Tajikistan, Jordan and Syria. Hamad is a Palestinian from Gaza who moved to the United States 10 years ago. Hamad works in the Sheboygan area as a consulting engineer.

This story is filed in our ‘stealth jihad’ category for obvious reasons.