Day: November 28, 2011

NY Times acts like it’s the first time any refugee agency was asked to stop bringing refugees and dropping them off

~ Ann Corcoran

Have you seen that commercial for an insurance company where two agents are making pronouncements as their pants are in flames—you know—liar, liar pants on fire!  That is exactly what I thought as I read through this piece in the New York Times  last Friday on Manchester, New Hampshire’s refugee problems.

This article is also an example of one of the primary reason that I had to take a break from writing this blog for awhile—I could spend hours and hours taking each paragraph and expounding on it with facts the NYT doesn’t know (and likely doesn’t want to know) and I simply don’t want to do that.

Just read the article yourself and know that Manchester leaders have been asking for years to give them a break on resettling refugees—any city or town can only take so many destitute people when there is no work and no decent affordable housing.

Also, know that Manchester is not the first in the Nation to scream—stop!  The NYT does mention Ft. Wayne (IN) and that is because that city and Detroit (MI) have gone beyond any capacity to absorb more poverty.  In the case of Ft. Wayne, the health department in Allen County became swamped with cases of HIV and TB.   Then there was Waterbury, CT where another International Institute was shut down because of the poor care refugees were getting.  Then there is Greensboro, NC—same story.  Fredericksburg, VA ditto.  The whole state of Tennessee was so frustrated with the refugee overload that they passed a law that seeks to give some control back to the state in determining how many refugees WILL BE DROPPED OFF BY FEDERAL CONTRACTORS for local taxpayers to care for!

Where I live in Maryland the program shut down almost before it got started in 2007 because the contractor couldn’t say how the refugees would live and find jobs in a rural city in Western Maryland.  All I can say now is thank goodness it didn’t get a foothold here because those industries that supposedly were going to employ them were closed or are closing.

Bottomline, this article makes me tired — maybe I need to take a break again!

Note to New York Times!  Instead of going up to New Hampshire for a story why not stay right at home in New York State and visit the refugee resettlement office run by the same federal contractor that runs the Manchester office.  Visit Peter Huston’s blog post about USCRI-Albany and see if you can spot a similar pattern.

See also our archive on Manchester, here.

Rep. Michele Bachmann cited Somali threat in national security debate

~ Ann Corcoran

Thanks to Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum for tipping me off to this unreported (or at least I couldn’t find mention of it!) answer to a question in last week’s Republican national security debate.

The question was from the American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Teese who wanted to know what threat are we not talking about.  From CNN’s transcript of the debate:

QUESTION: My name is Mark Teese (ph) and I’m a visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute. And my question has to do with the unexpected. During the 200 Presidential debates, Governor George W. Bush was never asked about the threat from Al Qaida, yet the battle with Al Qaida dominated his presidency. What national security issue do you worry about that nobody is asking about, either here or in any of the debates so far?

And, then at the tail end of most of the other candidates weighing in, Bachmann says this:

BACHMANN: Well, I would agree with what my colleagues said up here on the stage. And also, we need to remember, we won the peace in Iraq. And now President Obama is intentionally choosing to give that peace away.

This is a significant issue because we’re taking the terrorist threat away from the Middle East, bringing it to the United States.

We talked about Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab is real. In my home state of Minnesota, we’ve just had two convictions of two women that are financing terror with Al-Shabaab. This threat, I believe, now is in the United States and now the threat has come home and that’s what we have to deal with.

I mentioned this conviction of the two women who are US citizens here.  They showed complete disdain for our system of justice telling the court that all infidels would go to hell.

How did we get so many Somalis in the US?  Please visit one of the most widely read posts (19,065 views) here at RRW.

BTW, on NumbersUSA Presidential candidate score card, Michele Bachmann ranks the highest with a B- score.

Danish playground owner banishes Somalis, relents and then still might get sued

~ Ann Corcoran

The article doesn’t say exactly what the Somalis did to this man’s playground, but under pressure he reversed his decision to exclude Somalis from using his property.

From Ice News:

A group of outraged Somalis say they are considering suing a Danish playground owner after he imposed a blanket ban on them using his property.

Thomas Vestergaard said people of the nationality were not welcome at the Legeland adventure play facility in Århus, northeast Denmark, for six months after a fight broke out at an Islamic festival on 13th November.

In an official statement issued when the news first broke, the AarhuSomali group said, “Somali associations are shocked at the Århus playground Legeland’s decision to exclude law-abiding Danish citizens of Somali origin from patronising their business.”

Human rights experts also condemned the move as illegal. Speaking to the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, lawyer Jonas Christoffersen said, “This clearly violates racism laws, which say you can’t discriminate based on nationality or skin colour, and that’s the case here.”

Changes his mind!  Oh, well, who cares, we still might sue him!

The ban effectively only lasted for one day, however, with Vestergaard relenting after meeting with Somali groups. He told the Århus Stiftstidende local newspaper that, “They are welcome again,” after the Somali community apparently acknowledged that “They needed to treat [his] property with respect.

“But some Somalis are still unhappy with the resolution and are considering legal action against the playground owner.

“AarhuSomali has discussed whether this case should have consequences for Legeland’s owner. In the coming days, we will consult our legal advisers about the next steps,” a spokesperson for the organisation said.

Remember readers that Europe is ‘ahead’ of us in dealing with such matters because they are further along in “welcoming” Somalis than we are.

Egyptian authorities ignore UN on refugee issue

~ Ann Corcoran

No surprise that the wonderful democracy movement of the Arab Spring has not produced what we were led to believe it would.  Ho hum, here Human Rights Watch is complaining about treatment of refugees in Egypt.

From Refworld (a UN publication):

The Egyptian authorities are preparing to deport 118 detained Eritreans to Eritrea, where they risk persecution, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 29, 2011, guards at the al-Shalal prison in Aswan beat the 118 men, including 40 who already have refugee status, to force them to sign papers for their “voluntary” return to Eritrea, according to sources with access to the detainees.

Egypt should stop forcing detained Eritreans to sign repatriation forms and allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to interview all detained Eritreans to identify refugees among them, Human Rights Watch said.

I guess any agreements from 1954 are out the window now!

Under Egypt’s 1954 memorandum of understanding with the UN refugee agency, the agency is supposed to carry out all refugee status determination in Egypt. This means Egyptian officials are obliged to give UNHCR access to all detained migrants to identify those who want to claim their right to seek asylum from persecution.

Break is over…

~ Ann Corcoran

….back to work, too much is happening on refugees and other legal immigration issues for me to keep ignoring the stories.   As many of you know I had to stop posting here daily because too much was happening in Maryland where I live and there are only so many hours in a day.   Things haven’t slowed down here, but I am still very much interested in tracking the news in the refugee field.

I’m going to try to keep posts shorter, so as not to turn them into massive writing/linking projects and I’ll direct you to our archives instead.