Month: August 2011

Iraqi refugees returning to Iraq in large numbers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Check it out here!   Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who fled Iraq since the 1970s (they were fleeing Saddam Hussein!) are returning to Iraq.  Of course one of the reasons given in this post is that Syria is no longer stable and many had gone to that neighboring country.  BTW, just a reminder none had gone to rich Muslim Saudi Arabia because the Saudis have a border fence and refuse to take in refugees.

So according to this article, things have improved in Iraq and other neighboring countries are more unstable.  But, many are returning because the economic situation elsewhere isn’t so hot.  And, then some are force-ably returned by certain European countries where they have failed to make their case for asylum (that means those governments didn’t believe their story of persecution or they deemed them threats to the country).

It’s a good article with lots of numbers and charts, however it’s missing one thing I’m looking for—how many have returned to Iraq from the US after we have spent boatloads of money resettling them.  We’ve had stories of returnees who are disgusted because they thought they were walking into mansion-like homes and good jobs only to be placed in city slums and offered menial labor which they thought was beneath them.

Just two points I want to make from Musings on Iraq, but be sure to read the whole thing.

Returning for financial reasons:

A third factor is that Iraq has become more stable in the last couple years. There is still daily violence, but it is more targeted and political in nature, meaning that many Iraqis no longer personally face it on a day-to-day basis. That has been a major pull for internally displaced Iraqis to decide to try to go back to their homes, or at least their original provinces. Finally, some Iraqis have been away from home for years, and fled under duress because of the fighting. Many of those have struggled to restart new lives in their host countries, and are now returning to Iraq for financial reasons.

The number of returnees has been huge for the last three years and we didn’t hear boo about this in the mainstream media.  Where is Matthew Lee of AP?*

Earlier in 2011 it looked like the number of Iraqis coming back had stagnated. In the last few months there has been a considerable upsurge however, which makes it look like more people will return this year than last. This is still not up to the numbers seen in 2008 and 2009 when over 200,000 returns were recorded annually, but the figures are encouraging. The problem as ever is what will these people face when they go back. The lack of government and outside support is limited, and the job, housing, and service situation within Iraq is poor.

*  Lee is the Associated Press reporter who like clock work at the end of each month (when the numbers came in from the State Department) in the waning days of the Bush Administration wrote chiding articles throwing the blame to that bad old George Bush that we weren’t bringing Iraqis fast enough (because it was all our fault).  He needs now to write a story about the Iraqi terror suspects who got in, and about those who are thumbing their noses at our generosity and going home after we’ve resettled them at huge taxpayer expense.

All of our extensive coverage on Iraqi refugees can be found in our category by that title (506 previous posts).

Italy: if it weren’t so tragic it would be funny

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I just now wrote a post about why Europe was in deep trouble as it bends over backward to accommodate Shariah Law and along comes this little story from Italy.

From adnkronos:

Treviso, 22 August (AKI) – The second wife of a longterm Muslim immigrant in Italy has reported her husband to police after authorities allowed his first wife to join the household in the northern city of Treviso from Senegal [a largely Muslim country—ed].

The 45-year-old immigrant’s second wife, who has twin daughters of eight with him reportedly cannot countenance living with him, his second wife and their two sons of 15 and 16 with his first wife.

The man, who has lived in Italy for over a decade, runs little risk of prosecution for bigamy, however.

Under Italian law, bigamist long-term immigrants are allowed to bring more than one wife to live with them in their adoptive country provided they are ‘integrated’.

Whatever the hell “integrated” means!

Time running out for Europe: Muslim no-go zones spreading fast

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a good post published at Hudson New York which actually lists the cities and sections of cities either already off limits to non-Muslims or those the Islamists are in the process of pushing toward Shariah Law.

Author Soeren Kern:

Islamic extremists are stepping up the creation of “no-go” areas in European cities that are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Many of the “no-go” zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law. Host-country authorities effectively have lost control in these areas and in many instances are unable to provide even basic public aid such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services.

The “no-go” areas are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated rather than become integrated into their European host nations.

In Britain, for example, a Muslim group called Muslims Against the Crusades has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls “Londonistan” – into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.

The Islamic Emirates Project names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.

Read the whole article and its links.  Author Kern ends with this:

According to the Malmö-based Imam Adly Abu Hajar: “Sweden is the best Islamic state.”

Norway appears to be missing from this recitation.

So, why is this not happening in the US?  We hear a lot of b.s. about how Muslims integrate better into the US, but there are only two simple reasons it’s not happening yet—our Muslim population has not yet increased enough for them to pull this off.  And….we have people willing to protest and speak up against it!   Viva la Tea Party!

Alert! Bhutanese refugee missing in Maryland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I just got an alert that a Bhutanese young woman is missing in Prince George’s County, MD.  She is 24-year-old Abi Sarki, and she has been missing for three weeks.  (Wonder what took so long to figure out she was missing?)

Here is her description from a missing persons poster:

Age: 24 DOB: 10/03/1986
Sex: Female
Race: White
Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown
Height: 501
Weight: 100
Missing From: Riverdale, Prince George’s County,
Maryland
Missing Since: 07/26/2011
Details: Abi Sarki has been missing from
Riverdale, Prince George’s County, Maryland
since July 26, 2011. She has a birthmark in the
upper middle portion of her back.

For readers outside of Maryland, PG County can be a rough place to live.

Immigrants send money back home, prop up world economies…..

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….but what about the US economy?

Every article I see on the subject of remittances casts the practice in glowing terms—isn’t it great we are told, the immigrants work hard to send money to their family members back home.  But, doesn’t that have a negative impact on the US economy?  That money isn’t being spent here when it’s sent to El Salvador or Somalia or wherever, therefore its not generating new jobs, right?  (Remember Obama is supposedly trying to put more money into circulation to stimulate spending!).

Recently, doing research on the Sanctuary Movement, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and the large number of Salvadorans in and around Washington, DC, I came across a piece in the New York Times where Pres. George Bush was positively gleeful to extend TPS for Salvadorans here illegally so they could continue to send money to El Salvador and thus prop up that economy.  Ten years later we are still extending TPS so we can support El Salvador.

Now I see Somalis working abroad are sending a billion dollars a year back to Africa.  But, American banks want nothing to do with making sure the money doesn’t end up in the hands of terrorists.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Thousands of Columbus Somalis send millions of dollars home each year to family members struggling to survive after two decades of bloodshed.

But banks in Ohio want no part of that business.

Banks, including Huntington National Bank, Key Bank and PNC, do not accept accounts from companies that electronically transmit money to Somalia, fearing that the money could end up in the hands of terrorists.

That upsets Hersi Suleiman, the Chicago-based regional manager of Amal USA, a money-transfer company that has outlets in Columbus and electronically transmits $3 million a year from Columbus to Somalia.

Worldwide, the Somali diaspora sends $1 billion home each year, he said.

And, you can bet that much of this money is being sent through illegal money transfer (is that what is going on in the backrooms of all those little Somali shops popping up everywhere?).

Many Somalis pulled their money out of local banks after they stopped dealing with money transmitters, Tiberi said.

Until there is a fix, Levine, the D.C. lawyer, said some people might turn to illicit, unlicensed money transmitters.

“Underground transmitters threaten the security of the United States,” he said.

Read it all and think about it—more immigrants employed and sending money abroad means the money isn’t spent at the local appliance dealer or other local retailers.