Israel’s real refugees

There are refugees who want to live in Israel, and there are “refugees” who want to destroy Israel. An article in the Jerusalem Post last week dealt with the first category. The Post reports:

Disagreement on terminology and lack of accurate entry registration makes determining the exact number of refugees in Israel difficult, but according to a recent Knesset Research Department report on the matter, in the beginning of May, there were 24,399 infiltrators and asylum-seekers in Israel. [The Knesset is Israel’s parliament.]

Of them, 18,959 cannot be expelled from the country, as they hail from Eritrea (13,310) and Sudan (5,649), where they may face harm if they return. The remaining ones, mostly asylum-seekers or economic migrants from central Africa, await status determination and will either be recognized as refugees or be subject to expulsion.

The report also indicates that the number of people crossing over the Egyptian border has been consistently growing. In January 866 people crossed over. In February, 904 and in March and April the numbers were 1,158 and 1,258 respectively.

So Israel, whose enemies are engaged in a worldwide campaign to brand it an apartheid nation, has refugee laws much like other civilized nations’. Those who deserve real asylum because they are in real danger in their home countries receive it by law. The UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees representative in Israel, William Tall, commented:

“In the last couple of years, Israel has begun experiencing flows, similar to those in southern Europe, of mixed migration. Depending who you talk to, determines how you call them,” he said.

“Some people in the government call them infiltrators, some people call them economic migrants, some call them asylum-seekers, refugees and some say they infiltrated to do harm to Israel,” said Tall. “What’s happening is that Israel is groping for tools in how to address the issue and how to stem the flow.

“When a person comes into the country, they can become an asylum-seeker and they go through a process to determine whether they have a valid asylum claim. If they do, they become a refugee,” said Tall.

He explained that over the last year, Israel has taken over the responsibility for conducting the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) process, a job that was previously done by the UNHCR. This, said Tall, has generated mixed results.

“They are quite serious in how they approach it, but the biggest drawback in how the government is approaching RSD is that there is no legal framework in place. There are no published procedural guidelines on their work,” said Tall.

Unlike most UN officials, Tall is treating Israel realistically, not as spawn of the devil. He seems to understand, furthermore, that Israel doesn’t have laws that cover these refugees because kind of migration is new to the country. He went on:

“A lot of ideas are coming up, but what’s needed is some sort of comprehensive legal framework, which is missing,” said Tall. “The rate of the people coming here is a big concern to the government and I fully appreciate that concern. Israel has a lot of different issues and challenges on its plate. It doesn’t need the added one of huge mixed migration coming from Africa.”

“Our major objective in Israel now is to ensure that the asylum process here develops with integrity, that the structures are in place and that they operate according to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. We also advocate that a refugee law will be put in place, which will ensure the integrity of the system,” said Tall.

Such a law has been promoted by the Prime Minister’s Office, but nothing has been passed yet, the article says. It goes on to discuss the protests of Israeli refugee aid and human rights organizations who think the proposed law is draconian.

What a normal country Israel is, despite the way it is depicted. It has a refugee problem, the government is trying to deal with it, there are groups operating within the democratic process to argue about the proposed law. The UN representative is sympathetic to the problem of the influx of refugees.

New Zeal blog: More Cloward and Piven evidence

We’ve been writing at RRW about the Cloward-Piven Strategy—a Far Left plan hatched in the 1960’s to bring down city (or state) governments by overwhelming welfare systems thereby forcing a greater federal role in the redistribution of wealth and ultimately a change in our form of government (or at least that is the plan).  Famed New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon (Judy and I met him in Washington here) has unearthed additional documentation of the strategy and posted it today at New Zeal.

My theory is that as  more Americans moved into the middle class (or were becoming more conservative) we were running out of poor people willing to demonstrate and demand goodies from public welfare — enter the immigrant pawns.

Loudon now presents more evidence of the strategy (he must live in musty libraries!):

Many commentators on the U.S. left have tried to minimize the significance and importance of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, made famous by writer James Simpson* and TV personality Glenn Beck.

According to Simpson and Beck, Columbia University sociologists, husband and wife team Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, devised a strategy in the early 1960s, to crash the U.S. economy and bring on socialist revolution by deliberately overloading state welfare rolls to the point of bankruptcy.

Many on the left regard this hypotheses as gross exaggeration at best, deliberate misrepresentation at worst.

Cloward and Piven outlined their strategy at the Second Annual Socialist Scholars Conference , held September 9-11, 1966 at the Hotel Commodore, New York, in a panel entitled; “Poverty and Powerlessness Organizing the Poor: Can it Be Done?”

Read it all at New Zeal!

*  We recently hosted Jim Simpson at our local Tea Party!

More on OTMs coming across our southern border

OTMs are Other than Mexicans.  Here is an article with a clever title ‘US–Mexican border is Terrorists’ Moving Sidewalk.’

From ReporterNews.com:

NEW YORK, N.Y. — While Americans march against Arizona’s new restrictions on unlawful immigration, hundreds of illegal aliens from countries awash in Muslim terrorists tiptoe across the U.S.—Mexican frontier.

According to the federal Enforcement Integrated Database, 125 individuals were apprehended along the border from fiscal year 2009 through April 20, 2010. These deportable aliens included two Syrians, seven Sudanese, and 17 Iranians, all nationals from the three Islamic countries that the U.S. government officially classifies as state sponsors of terrorism.

Federal authorities also track “special interest countries” from which terrorism could be directed against America. Over the aforementioned period, 99 of those nations’ citizens also were nabbed on the border. They were: two Afghans, five Algerians, 13 Iraqis, 10 Lebanese, 22 Nigerians, 28 Pakistanis, two Saudis, 14 Somalis, and three Yemenis. During FY 2007 and FY 2008, federal officials caught 319 people from these same countries traversing America’s southwest border.

Likely these illegal aliens blend into Muslim communities in your city.  Read on, there is more.

Refugees needed for meatpacking and more—food service, janitorial service etc. etc.

We’ve written innumerable posts on these pages about the big meatpackers needing cheap LEGAL immigrant labor.  As a matter of fact, I believe they and other big companies are the drivers behind the refugee resettlement program.  Big businesses know how to work the political and federal government systems to supply their needs—Jonah Goldberg writing in Liberal Fascism calls this “corporatism.”

Wages will stay relatively low when there is a large pool of employable people willing and able to do the job—a simple fact of business economics.  In the case of refugees, wages can remain low because some of the other needs of the new immigrant are met through various forms of  public welfare.

Well, they have to work somewhere you are saying!  Yes, they do.  I don’t disagree!  I also suppose there are many American citizens desperate these days to work at Cargill, Swift & Co., Tysons, or Aramark.  I’m not addressing that question here.  What drives me crazy is to see do-gooders think and act like the refugee program is all about warm cuddly humanitarianism.

The fact of the matter is that pouring immigrants into the US to benefit big business fits very nicely into this public relations framework that the political Left has well-established.   Whether it’s historic “preservationists” supposedly saving a site and cashing in on its tourist potential with hotels and convention centers nearby, or “environmentalists” being sucked into the global warming corporatism where the big players are going to make a bundle selling carbon credits, or big companies lobbying for amnesty for illegal aliens trying to look like humanitarians when it’s the bottomline they have their eye on—that is the well established strategy.  Do-gooders keep falling for it and can be counted on to call critics (like us) racists (or whatever fits their demonizing goal) thus shilling for the big money bags behind the strategy.

My point is, just be truthful.  In the case of refugees, the State Department (the Obama Administration now and the Bush people previously) just tell the truth, just admit there is a big business element driving the refugee program and the Open Borders movement as well. (In addition to adding voters to the Democratic voter rolls.  I could never figure out why the Republicans don’t see that.)

So what got me off on this latest tirade?   Two articles last week mentioned that refugees are working for Aramark (see also Aramark at wikipedia, here).  I didn’t even know what Aramark was, but have since learned that they are a giant company that runs such things as food services at your kid’s college cafeteria, or even whole public school cafeterias.  They also supply cleaning services for airports, hotels and even hotels in National Parks!*   They need a constant supply of cheap labor.   They are working with the volags (federal refugee contractors). They are also involved with Michelle Obama’s campaign against obesity.  Because there is so much, I’m going to make a whole category just for Aramark here at RRW and follow their involvement in the refugee program.

Here are the two articles that first caught my eye:

This one, from Deseret News, tells us about Aramark employing refugees in Utah.

Roughly 1,000 new refugees arrive in Utah each year after fleeing wars and persecution, and the biggest issue now is finding enough jobs, says Emily Smoot, refugee job developer with Catholic Community Service.

Smoot is encouraged by the successes of refugees she has placed in jobs recently — including 26 with Aramark Corp. at Lake Powell Resort.

The second one is about the Bhutanese in Cincinnati :

The family is happy in Greater Cincinnati. Khadka Neopane works in the laundry at Aramark.

I bet you are saying again, so what, they have to work, they apparently don’t mind the work—that is not my problem.  My issue again is that I want an admission that the refugee program is not simply an issue of helping the world’s downtrodden.  It helps the Far Left achieve their political goals and it helps big business.

Below are links I’m saving for future reference.   Let me be clear, I am not saying Aramark is a good or bad company for taking advantage of immigrant labor.  I only want to make the point to humanitarians that the refugee program is not all about doing good for the immigrants and refugees, it is doing good for the corporate bottomline and for professional politicians willing to help their corporate friends.

Aramark angers Union in Detroit, here.

Aramark hammered by SEIU, here.

Aramark CEO holds wedding reception at Ellis Island, here.

Aramark found guilty of discrimination by EEOC, here.

Aramark gets “diversity” award, here.

Aramark targeted, here.   Apparently they oppose card check!

*  I’m digressing, but I know a good bit about the National Parks because I had to fight to keep my farm from being taken by the National Park Service a long time ago.  Did you know that the same strategy was and still is employed in connection with the Park Service.   Preservation types (do gooders) push for expansion of old parks or the creation of new ones while their big money friends build hotels and convention centers nearby.  It is actually a brilliant scheme.  The public (taxpayer) pays for the care of the attraction (the park) and the big money friends of the preservationists (sometimes the preservationists themselves!) cash in nearby.   It is sold to the public as an issue of “saving” some important environmental or historic asset, but financially benefits certain people and allows the federal or state government to take over more land.   Do you see the core strategy and how it’s just the same with the refugee program?

Canadian proposal to fix “broken” system—add more refugees

Because the system is “broken” Canadian refugee program reformers plan to add more refugees to Canada’s refugee quota.  I don’t know what it is with this word “broken.”    Some public relations firm must have tested the word in the English speaking world and determined it was a good one to get people to move on so-called reforms.  Funny thing is that the PR in the US says our program is “broken” too.

In my mind, the refugee system might be broken in both the US and Canada, but it is something that could be fixed by simply not overloading countries with poor people who will not find work right now.  In addition to ferreting out corruption that is!

This story is from earlier in the week so maybe it’s already happened, but check it out here anyway.

As part of the package of reforms for Canada’s asylum system, known as the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Government of Canada proposes to increase the number of refugees resettled from overseas as well as the support we provide to help them settle in Canada. Only by fixing the broken in-Canada system can we effectively increase the generosity of our overseas system.

If the legislation receives Royal Assent, Canada would increase the resettlement target by 2,500. This increase would bring the total number of refugees resettled by Canada to as many as 14,500 a year. This increase will mean Canada would be resettling more refugees per capita than any other country in the world.

Read it all.