Month: April 2011

Those poor oppressed Palestinian refugees in Gaza execute peace activist

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is something for the American Left to ponder as they protest in support of the oppressed Gazan refugees.

A kafir is a kafir no matter if he is a Leftist or not.  Our friend Jerry Gordon has the story here at the Iconoclast.

Italian peace activist killed in Gaza.

The abduction and execution of hapless Italian ISM [International Solidarity Movement] advocate Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza illustrates the dangers of misguided liberals, academics and Jewish communal leaders in Orange County, California and elsewhere in the US who believe that dialoging with the enemy will hone your skills in combating hate. As illustrated in the Arrigoni case, it will make you dead. His shaved head bearded Salafist abductors had their kafir to kill, regardless of whether he was pro-Palestinian or not.

Read it all.  Makes me think about Obama’s friends Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn and their role in last year’s Gaza Flotilla (coming up again in mid-May).   Hey, Palestinians!  Heads up!  More kafirs on the way!

Remember the climate refugees?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For a while we heard a lot about climate refugees. Ann put up 18 posts on the subject — see the category in the list to the left.  Here’s a recent post from Gavin Atkins at Asian Correspondent.com, What happened to the climate refugees? He begins:

In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production.

He links to a map that shows the places said to be at risk for producing climate refugees. Then he goes down a list of at-risk places that have had censuses since 2005 and shows that their populations have grown since then. Some are islands — the Bahamas, the Seychelles etc.  And —

Meanwhile, far from being places where people are fleeing, no fewer than the top six of the very fastest growing cities in China, Shenzzen, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhuhai, Puning and Jinjiang, are absolutely smack bang within the shaded areas identified as being likely sources of climate refugees.

Similarly, many of the fastest growing cities in the United States also appear within or close to the areas identified by the UNEP as at risk of having climate refugees.

In fact, in general those places identified as at-risk for producing climate refugees are growing fast.

The first comment is from the Spokesperson for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), who says it wasn’t his agency that projected the 50 million figure. But —

That does not mean there are not environmental refugees including climate ones. But we do not have any projections ourselves.  There are however quite a lot of universities/research centres around the world trying to unravel this complex issue.

The second comment is more entertaining:

Fortunately, in January 2009, the oceans began to recede and the planet to heal.
 
Actually it’s more than entertaining; it’s pretty perceptive. It’s amazing how many problems became non-problems as soon as Barack Obama took office.
 
Hat tip: James Taranto
 

Still no sign of those missing ORR Annual Reports to Congress

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is required by law to send an annual REPORT TO CONGRESS by January 31st of the year following the previous fiscal year (fiscal years end on September 30th).  So, by my calculation the Office of Refugee Resettlement (that is in the Department of Health and Human Services) is now three years behind!

Christopher Coen at Friends of Refugees is reporting (based on correspondence with a US Senator) that there is still no sign that that 2008 Annual Report is anywhere near being ready to release to the public!

Readers not familiar with these reports should visit the 2007 Report (here) and see how valuable these are to taxpayers wishing to see how their money is being spent (it’s filled with lists of grants and handy charts on such things as refugee employment and welfare usage).  

The ORR obviously doesn’t want Congress (or us) to know the truth about how much money is going into the program through contractors over the last three years!

And, apparently Congress doesn’t care if ORR is breaking the law!  What else can we conclude?


To new readers:  please visit our category ‘where to find information’ —-it includes links to reports, documents and other places to find useful information on immigration.

Comment worth noting: you are inflicted with chronic cynicism

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Mary posted this comment to my post yesterday on the immigrant court system in the US.

You appear to have fallen off the cliff to chronic cynicism. People are desperate and are forced to leave children behind. Who are we to judge? I, for one, have never been faced with these decisions.

Yes, I admit, the more I learn about the worldwide refugee industry, the more cynical I get.  But, Mary, please answer my questions, and the questions in the minds of many who read the story about the poor woman from Cameroon who spent 5 years wrangling with our court system before being granted asylum.

First and foremost, how does a poor third worlder (not just this woman, but all of them!) with virtually no English manage to acquire the tens of thousands of dollars required to make a trip halfway (or more!) around the world, through several countries that you and I couldn’t easily get into to arrive on the US border and know to ask for asylum?

Who is paying the trafficker, the airlines, the passport forgers, the lawyers?

And, I suppose I shouldn’t make a cultural judgment, but I will!   What mother leaves her children alone in a country she now claims is dangerous for her family to take a risky trip halfway around the world on the off chance she will be granted asylum in the US?  Was she just trying to save her own skin?  Who told her that asylum might be possible; who put her up to it?

Mary, you suggest I’m a chronic cynic.  Tell me how can you be so chronically gullible?

P.S.  Mary, I am sure you are a decent well-meaning and good-hearted person, but it’s time to see that “humanitarianism” is merely a smokescreen for, in my view, a devious political plan that uses poor people (and people with good hearts) to accomplish its goals.

Italy threatens to leave EU over refugees, Ireland says it may take some

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I need to get some other writing done at my other blog, but this morning refugee stories keep coming.  I’ve been reporting the problems front-line nations like Italy and Malta are having with all those North African men leaving that continent on boats and trying to reach Europe.  Now here is a story from the Irish Times about how Italian leaders are saying if we can’t get help with the refugee crisis then why bother being in the European Union.

“Italy has been left alone,” its interior minister Roberto Maroni said. “I wonder if it makes sense to continue to be part of the European Union in this situation.”

Yes Italy!  Save yourselves, get out of the EU!

Meanwhile Ireland says it might take some political refugees:

The EU authorities are pressing other member states to help Malta deal with 1,000 Libyans who have arrived there since the uprising began against Muammar Gadafy.

“They’re political refugees from Libya,” Mr Shatter [Ireland’s Minister for Justice] said.

“In the context of Malta, the issue is: are there a small number of people that we can accommodate in solidarity with Malta bearing in mind that other European countries are willing to do so?”

He declined to say how many people the Government might take in but noted that Germany, whose population is 20 times greater than Ireland’s, has pledged to take 100 individuals and said an offer from a small country would be proportionate to the German offer.

Oh well, say good-bye to Ireland too—a little country that has already taken too many Somali and Rohingya Muslims.  What’s a few more Muslims, eh.

And US readers, be watchful of any news about the US airlifting Libyans to America, here.