Day: September 19, 2010

Another mosque controversy, this one in Kentucky

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

ACLU steps in to defend Somali mosque plans, from the Courier-Journal:

The American Civil Liberties Union has agreed to represent a man whose application for a mosque on behalf of his fellow Somalis was denied by Mayfield’s Board of Zoning Adjustment.

The Kentucky and national branches of the organization took the case after the board last month reversed its original approval for the mosque, citing a lack of adequate parking. The decision was applauded by an overflow crowd that attended the meeting.

Will Mayfield be another Shelbyville?   How many chicken plants are near Mayfield, does anyone know?

Update September 23rd:  I was only joking about the proximity of a chicken plant but this update story at AP confirms it—chicken plant nearby.

The ACLU said the applicant, Khadar Ahmed, prefers to resolve the issue outside of court but reserves the right to a court appeal. Ahmed is among about 150 Somalis who have moved to the Mayfield area recently to work in a chicken plant.

Be sure also to see this story about NGOs working with meat packers.  And, this one about Khadra’s warning about a huge storm coming to small town America.

France and Germany roiled over plans for Roma

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Moving south from Sweden, where elections today will determine whether Sweden’s open door policy toward immigrants and refugees will continue, to France and Germany where a dispute has grown between the two countries about what to do with the Roma (also known as gypsies).

From the New York Times:

BERLIN — European tempers over the treatment of Roma immigrants flared again on Friday, as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the Germans were preparing to follow France’s lead and expel migrant Roma, while German officials denied they had said any such thing.

The altercation marked a significant widening of the diplomatic repercussions spreading across Europe after France in July began deporting Roma to their homes in Romania and Bulgaria.

Read on.

Is this just one more example of the growing rise in ethnic nationalism?

Look for the Roma to appear soon on the list as refugees being resettled in the US.  Afterall, there are lots of precidents.  How is this attempt by France to keep France for the French any different than the Bhutanese wanting Bhutan for the Bhutanese?   When Bhutan expelled the Nepalese and sent them back to Nepal, we scurried in (critical of Bhutan) and promised to take 60,000!  (See the latest post here at RRW on how many have arrived.)   One could say Burma has done the same—expelled those it believes not to be truly Burmese.  Now we take their minorities.   So, will the Roma be next?  Just wondering.

Swedish elections today could change balance of power in Sweden and beyond

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, it’s all about immigration!   See this story (with a pro-socialist spin) from the Guardian and watch for news later today.

The Swedish Social Democrats are no ordinary party. If Mona Sahlin, their leader, loses tomorrow’s election, as seems almost certain, she will become the first leader in the party’s history never to have been prime minister. The party has been in government for 65 of the last 78 years, and in that time no non-socialist government has ever been re-elected. But today a far-right party that blames Muslim immigration for almost all the country’s ills is poised to enter parliament and hold the balance of power. It already has members in local government across more than half the country. The local paper in Malmö, the country’s third-largest city, publishes a Google Map marking all the shootings in the city – there have been 46 this year, though no one has been killed. What on earth is going on in this tranquil, ordered and progressive country?

If you believe the international rightwing press, the answer is simple, and has been since 2004, when Fox News made a special report on the subject: Sweden, and especially Malmö, has become a laboratory for the creeping Islamisation of Europe. The most common child’s name there is now Muhammad; police dare not go into immigrant districts, where only sharia law is respected; and soon all the Jews will be driven from the city. All this, flecked with varying amounts of spittle, is recounted as fact on the net and in US papers.

Paulina Neuding, a neoliberal Swedish commentator, wrote in Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard, “Too many of the country’s Arab immigrants have brought anti-democratic values from their home countries; values that neither ‘dialogue police’ nor the world’s most generous welfare system has been able to cure. And [Sweden] is also becoming a symbol of a western country that is prepared to compromise with those values.”

To get a much better understanding of how Sweden has come to this point.  See this important history lesson at Gates of Vienna from earlier this month.  Hat tip:  Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum.

We have written many posts about the growing tensions in Sweden over Muslim immigration and this post continues to be one of our most read posts at RRW.  I think it must be the title that brings readers, “Muslim immigration killing Sweden.”   However, I thought this was a much more significant post on Sweden—Jews leaving Sweden—here.

Update September 26th:  More biased reporting from the Guardian on the Swedish vote, here.

Immigrants treated as slaves in Florida

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, they came here under a LEGAL program.   This is one more reason why ALL legal immigration programs must be scrutinized right along with all of the illegal immigration everyone focuses on.

From AFP News:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A Florida couple pleaded guilty to conspiring to hold 39 Filipino employees against their will working in country clubs and hotels, the US Justice Department said Friday.

Sophia Manuel, 41, and Alfonso Baldonado Jr., 45, were owners of a labor contracting service based in the Florida city of Boca Raton. [I would like to know the immigration status of Manuel and Baldonado–ed]

Manuel and Baldonado “conspired to obtain a cheap, compliant and readily available labor pool, by making false promises to entice the victims to incur debts,” read a Department of Justice statement, quoting court documents.

“The defendants then compelled the victims’ labor and services through threats to have the workers arrested and deported, knowing the workers faced serious economic harm and possible incarceration for nonpayment of debts in the Philippines.”

Imagine this, the alleged slave owner lied on his H2B visa application.

Manuel also pleaded guilty to lying in an application filed with the US Labor Department to obtain foreign labor certifications and visas under the federal H2B guest worker program.

We reported a very similar story back in June 2009 in Kansas.  I put some of the blame on these hotel owners as well. 

And, weren’t there some big wig hotel owners working with Republicans Grover Norquist and Tamar Jacoby (along with Leftwing Open Borders advocates) to plan a strategy to get more immigrant labor into the US.  Yes, there were, here.

Even my US Senator, Democrat Barbara Mikulski (up for reelection this November), busied herself in 2006 and got the H2B visas increased to supply labor supposedly needed by big business in Maryland, here.

Pretending to be Rohingya?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a discussion thread  that gives us some more insight on the scams that are occurring in the refugee resettlement program in Canada (and I suspect in the US as well).

They don’t take Bangladeshis?  Then be a Rohingya

Commenter TIslam reports:

I wasn’t aware of people seeking “political asylum” or applying for Canadian immigration under “refugee” status by Bangladeshis, until recently. I came to learn about it because my wife’s cousin’s friend got married to one such hapless character, who is now getting his papers straightened out owing to being married to a Canadian citizen. He was to be deported from Canada as he became illegal. The fellow entered Canada with a student visa but wanted to remain permanently. Apparently he hired an immigration lawyer who advised him to apply under the refugee status. Initially they thought that his application was accepted and the petition granted, however, he was notified that his application has been rejected after a year or so, owing to the backlog of applications. The poor guy met his wife-to-be, in the nick of time, thus saving himself from deportation.

The woman told me that there are many unscrupulous immigration attorneys who dupe many unknowing and helpless people by advising people to seek Canadian immigration under the refugee status or political asylum, when in fact they would not be eligible.

Refugee status for a Bangladeshi is pretty far fetched because by definition, that status is meant for people whose country is at war for which a large number of people have become displaced or for people who belong to a certain segment who are being persecuted like the Rohingyas, or like in Darfur, or those Iraqis who actively assisted the coalition forces, who perceive of being in danger if they continue to live in Iraq. Political asylum is more plausible since it is always possible to show that one was active in politics and that the current regime seeks to persecute him/her, etc.

Samaruf responds:

I have heard of Bangladeshis seeking asylum in Scandinavia and Canada by calling themselves Rohingyas as it is hard to tell the difference.

We have a whole category (94 previous posts!) on Rohingya Muslims.  For the longest time they were not accepted as refugees for resettlement to the US, but all that has changed.  Earlier in the month we reported Rohingya being resettled in Atlanta, here.