Month: October 2010

Report: Life stinks for Somalis in Ireland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since I’m on the subject of Europe (see my previous post about Malta, here), I thought I better get this older news story from Ireland posted before it’s way too old.

Some Leftwing activist groups have published a report bemoaning life in Ireland for Somali refugees.  Here is how the article in the Irish Times begins:

LIFE FOR asylum seekers living in direct provision centres in Ireland has come to mirror that found in refugee camps in the developing world, a new report on the experience of Somali refugees claims.

A lack of support when people leave the centres and move into Irish society also makes integration difficult and exposes individuals to high unemployment and troublesome resettlement, it says.

‘From Catastrophe to Marginalisation: the Experiences of Somali Refugees in Ireland’ concludes the difficulties faced by Somali refugees are “emblematic of the limits of Ireland’s integration policies”.

“Fleeing catastrophic war conditions and arriving in Europe, often without linguistic or educational skills, Somali refugees experience high unemployment rates, difficult educational trajectories and troublesome resettlement.

“Race and religious discrimination, coupled with isolation due to the difficulties in securing family reunification, compound their less than smooth resettlement,” says the report, which was compiled by the Trinity Immigration Initiative and Horn of Africa People’s Aid, a refugee advocate organisation.

Some Somalis are doing just fine the report admits, but the ‘hostels’ come in for the most complaints. 

It estimates there are up to 3,000 Somalis living in Ireland, many of whom are refugees. Figures from the Reception and Integration Agency show 282 Somali asylum seekers were living in direct-provision hostels in July.

Wahhhh! It’s cold and the food is lousy!

Now check out this next sob story in the article.  This woman escaped persecution (she says) in Somalia where she had been raped, bought her way out of Africa with the help of someone in the US, ended up in Ireland and complains about the cold and the food!  (This is Ireland!)  And, by the way, how is she producing more children while living in a hostel with no husband? The article says she was pregnant when she arrived, but says nothing about other children at that time.  Did she have triplets?

Safia Sharif, from Somalia, applied for asylum here in January 2005. She has been refused refugee status and is living in Mosney while she awaits a final decision by the Department of Justice on whether she can stay in the country or will be deported.

“I am from Afgooye, a town about 25km west of Mogadishu. I fled my country when I was taken hostage by a militia, who wanted to know the whereabouts of my husband. I was persecuted, harassed and raped by the militia over a four-month period. When my family paid a ransom to the militia I was released, and an aunt living in the US arranged with an agent [trafficker] to get me out of Somalia. The agent got me a Dutch passport and I travelled from Somalia to Dubai and onto England, and finally to Rosslare. When I arrived [there] I was very sick and weak from malnutrition. I spent four days in hospital.

“I applied for asylum and was sent to a direct-provision hostel in Kilmacud [Dublin] for three weeks before I was moved on to the Quiet Man hostel in Cong, Co Mayo. This was a tiny village and there were no other Somalis there, and I began to feel isolated and depressed. As a women who is a victim of female genital mutilation, the doctor who was in that place was not very familiar with my problem. This was an issue because I was pregnant.

“After I gave birth I was moved to a hostel in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, which has to be one of the worst. It was winter and the hostel was cold and the food was bad.

“Then I was moved to Mosney, which is better and made me feel like a human being again. But after almost six years waiting for a decision on my case I am feeling very depressed. I risked my life coming to Europe but I can’t stand it any more. If the Government can’t accept me then send me to another country. It’s a big crime to leave human beings in direct provision for this length of time. I have three children and I’m exhausted. I don’t want to end up in a psychiatric hospital.”

If she’s been kept in a hostel for 6 years there must be more to this case then we know.  Maybe intelligence agencies are trying to find out who in the US  helped her hire traffickers.   Hey, maybe Allahsoldier knows!

Use our search function for ‘Ireland’ to learn more about ‘troubles’ Ireland will have with multiculturalism as their immigrant population grows.  If they thought the Catholic-Protestant conflicts were awful, they have some real trouble coming with immigrants who won’t assimilate.

Update:  A reader his kindly sent us the Irish ‘direct provision’ policy, here.  For someone who has supposedly been raped, tortured and tormented, sure looks good to me!

Moving more of ’em out of Malta…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….to a town near you!

I’ve written ad naseam about the precedent being set by the US State Department and our US ambassadors to Malta of taking Malta’s illegal alien boat people and sending them to the US as full-fledged refugees.   Next will we take other EU countries’ asylum seekers—Italy’s, France’s, Greece’s etc.? 

Here we go again!

From an October 29th story at Malta Media Online:

40 refugees from Eritrea and Somalia left Malta for the United States, the US Ambassador for Malta said.

Since the US Embassy began its permanent refugee resettlement program in May 2008, 540 refugees have been transferred to the US.

Ambassador Douglas Kmiec hosted a reception at his residence to welcome the refugees to their new lives in America.

I told you about former Ambassador ‘Tea Party Molly’ (no not the political tea party, I just called her that when she gave a real tea party to Somalis headed to the US thanks to her efforts) here in 2008.   Kmiec is obviously following in her footsteps with his send-off party.  By the way, we have several posts (here and here are just two) on Kmiec, a controversial figure during the Obama Presidential campaign—he was one of those despised Republicans for Obama.  I suspect he is a far Left activist in the Catholic Church and not really a Republican at all. 

Malta Media goes on:

Once they arrive in the US, refugees will be assigned a sponsor agency that provides assistance and support during a transition period lasting up to 2 years in order to ensure integration and assimilation. [they don’t get 2 years, they get 8 months max to get established and get jobs—ed]

Be sure to watch the film clip even if you can’t understand the language for pictures of the wire enclosed tent city in Malta in which the so-called “refugees” live until they are moved to a first world country (and not back to Africa).

Malta’s illegal aliens going to Germany too!

This is a story from Monsters & Critics I’ve had hanging around for over a week and just didn’t get to.

Valletta, Malta – Around 100 African immigrants will be transferred from Malta to Germany after having been officially recognised as refugees, the Maltese government said on Tuesday.

The immigrants, Somalis, Eritreans and Ethiopians, are due to leave Malta on Thursday.

It is the third time the Berlin government has accepted a number of refugees who have been stranded in Malta for resettlement in Germany on humanitarian grounds.

Another around 750 African immigrants living on the tiny Mediterranean island are expected to be be transferred to the United States and several European Union countries over the coming 12 months, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR recently said.

Wonder how thats going to sit with Germans who are already in a crisis with immigrants not assimilating—see Merkel on her country’s multiculturalism crisis, here.

Refugee gardening projects cost taxpayers a cool million bucks this year!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

I told you about one of the latest trends in the burgeoning refugee business—refugee gardening here, and a reader involved with a project in Ft. Wayne told us about the pitfalls (mostly refugees don’t want to do the work) here.  So when I saw an article about a gardening grant to the International Institute in St. Louis*, I explored a little further.

Here is some of the story at a post at 17th Ward:

The International Institute, a refugee resettlement agency serving clients in St. Louis, recently received a grant [how big was the grant?—ed] that will enable them to start a larger-scale community garden located on the 4000 block of Folsom in Botanical Heights, neighboring the existing (and recently famed) Botanical Heights Community Garden. The garden will serve as a community space for International Institute clients in an effort to provide them opportunity for healthy nutrition, economic sustainability, and integration into American society. The International Institute is working with the Garden District Commission in obtaining space for the garden.

Who awards the grant?

US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement. The grant is called the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program. The goal of the grant is to support rural and urban farming, gardening and food systems projects that use partnerships to create income, have healthier food and better nutrition, and enhance integration into American society on the part of refugee families.

They will be selling their produce? 

By using their past skills as farmers, refugees will enhance their sense of self-sufficiency, community cohesion and a reconnection with their past. Also by selling produce in local markets they will connect with the St. Louis community and earn supplemental income.

Sounds lovely, but did anyone run the numbers on this—-you know how much taxpayer money goes in to produce how much food at what market value?

So how much money are we talking about?

Yikes, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is planning 12 projects for a total taxpayer outlay of $1,000,000.  Each project will cost from $50,000-100,000!   Read all about it here.

Below is a portion of the grant description that gives me pause.  Am I reading this correctly?  Are we going to be expanding the use of food stamps at farmers markets (or have we already)?  We have enough problems with mom and pop convenience stores and food stamp fraud.  Can you imagine if every little farm stand could take food stamps!  So tell me, am I reading this wrong?

…..in addition to having farming and gardening activites, projects may promote the purchase of fresh produce at farmers markets and other outlets from personal earnings and the programs of the USDA Food & Nutrition Service that include SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), WIC (Women Infants & Children) and Seniors Coupons.

Endnote:  Be sure to check out the photo of the raised beds in the 17th Ward post.  I don’t want to sound too cranky but think of the waste of land with that helter skelter layout of the raised beds.  Imagine how hard it will be to keep the grass and weeds under control between beds that cannot easily be mowed around.   I wonder how many low-income Americans would like to have new lumber and trucked-in soil for their own gardens?

* We had a report about refugee neglect by the International Institute of St. Louis way back in 2007, here.

Rise of the European right wing frightens American left wing journalists

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That isn’t really the title of the lengthy article in the Washington Post on Tuesday, but that’s the basic feeling I got when I read the article really entitled, ‘Anti-Muslim feelings propel right wing’ about the rising political power of immigration restrictionist groups in Europe.

The WaPo begins (and note they need to get that “white spremacists” phrase in early so readers know what to think about the rest of the news and opinions that are coming):

STOCKHOLM – On the heels of elections that stunned many in this famously progressive land, Kent Ekeroth and his peers marched through the castle-like parliament doors this month on a mission to combat what they call Sweden’s greatest problem: Muslim immigration.

The 20 Swedish Democrats – the first national lawmakers from a party initially spawned in the 1980s by white supremacists – are working to impose a moratorium on new mosques, ban the shroud-like coverings worn by some conservative Muslim women and largely halt immigration from predominantly Muslim nations.

You can read the rest yourself.  But, a few lines deep in the story says it all:

“It isn’t racist to want to preserve your culture,” said Leif Johansson, a 64-year-old carpenter. “I’m open to immigration, but these people come without a thought to integration, no interest in learning Swedish or being part of Swedish society.”

The 64-year-old carpenter nails the truth of the matter.  Like all cultures, we want to preserve ours and you want to preserve yours (if you are an immigrant to Sweden from say Africa).  Only westerners, however, are made to feel guilty for that wish.  With Africans or Asians or whomever, it is considered colorful and quaint to hold onto one’s culture.  When we want to preserve ours we are called “white supremacists.” 

We are all trying to hold onto our culture because it is natural and part of our human nature.  So the argument really is about—on what soil (on what piece of the earth) are we going to stake our claim as home to our culture and preserve that culture.  But, the whole notion of that truth scares the living daylights out of the left wing media where most journalists have grown up with the ‘la-la land’ idea that we should be one big happy world.  We aren’t and we never will be—just have a peak at world history.

By the way, I am reminded of the Somali immigrant who wrote to RRW here earlier this year and said we have a lot of open land in America and they plan to fill it up.

For more on Sweden, use our search function because we have written quite a bit about the problems there with uncontrolled immigration mostly from Muslim countries.

“Shabaabers” shoot two teenage girls in Somalia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I’m short on time to post (as I am today), I can be sure to quickly check my alerts and find some new and shocking story involving Somalis.  Here the New York Times reports on the execution of two teens, one only 14 years old, accused of spying for Ethiopia.   You can read all the gory details yourself at the Times.

Also reporting on the news is Brenda Walker at Limits to Growth who puts the latest barbarism in the Horn of Africa into more colorful (and politically incorrect!) terms. 

Civilization has had little effect in the Horn of Africa, where Islamist soldiers executed two girls apparently out of pique or boredom or too much khat. Or perhaps the Shabaabers wanted to demonstrate their power over the locals.　

[…..]

Nevertheless, Washington continues to welcome thousands of Somalis every year as both immigrants and refugees, despite their disinclination for assimilation as shown by terrorism and gang crime. 

[…..]

The question is why the feds continue to admit many thousands of arguably the most inappropriate, undesirable immigrants on earth. The correct number of Somalis allowed to enter the US should be zero.