Day: December 5, 2012

Magical mystery tour: finding the annual reports to Congress

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of the goals of Refugee Resettlement Watch is to help you, the average taxpaying American, find the information on this program—which “refugees” are coming, from what country, to which states, and how much all this costs us (among other things).  To that end we have a category entitled “where to find information.”

On Monday, I mentioned that I would like to see how many Iraqis we have resettled over the years, first the ones we resettled because of Saddam Hussein the crazy and cruel dictator, and now the ones we are resettling because the crazy, cruel dictator is gone and they have a democracy from which “refugees” wish to escape.  We can always find an excuse to import the masses.

So, I went to the Office of Refugee Resettlement website to see the annual reports to Congress and lo-and-behold some of them were missing (and not just the three recent ones where the ORR is breaking the law by not reporting).

I then wrote to ORR to ask where they are and am told they are at a Georgetown University Law Library website.  I’m sure the average interested citizen should have been able to find that easily (not!).

If you are at all interested in who has come to your state and how much this all costs, please visit these annual reports.  Go to tables at the end to see stats on states, refugee nationalities and numbers of refugees and asylees resettled in your states.

One final thing—drum roll please!  The annual report to Congress for 2009 (three years late) is in the review process and should be out soon we are told!

Rohingya update: Islamic organization finds another way to get into Burma

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We reported, here, in October that thousands of Buddhist monks came out to protest the announcement that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation was planning to set up shop in Burma.  The monks carried signs that said “Get out OIC” and “we are not an Islamic country.”    The monks prevailed and the OIC was banned.

Now I see that the OIC has grabbed onto the coattails of the Indonesian Red Cross in order to get their foothold in the Buddhist country, here in the Jakarta Post.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) are in talks to jointly launch a humanitarian mission for refugees of the deadly conflict between the Rohingya and Rakhine ethnic groups in Myanmar.

OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and PMI chairman usuf Kalla discussed the operation in a closed meeting at PMI headquarters on Monday.

Kalla said after the meeting that the organizations would send food and help rebuild homes in the area.

“The value of the aid is quite big and will be used for various purposes. Currently, the refugees desperately need food, clean water and homes,” he said after the meeting, declining to mention the exact value of the aid or a deadline for the mission.

Obama lectured Burmese leaders in the press afterward!

I’m trying to clear out my backlog of stories and I never reported this one from when Obama did his Asian swing in November.

From BDNews (Bangladesh):

New York, Nov 19 (bdnews24.com)—US President Barak Obama on Tuesday urged Myanmar to give citizenship to hundreds of thousands of stateless Rohingyas in the west of the country where ethnic bloodshed has caused massive displacement.

After Obama’s landmark visit to the reclusive South-East Asian nation, the White House in a press briefing said the Myanmar government responded positively to the issue.

Although the Royingyas in Myanmar claim themselves as aborigines, they are yet to get state recognition.

The operative word there is “claim.”  Others claim that Rohingya Muslims are illegal aliens from Bangladesh.

Now, get this!  Obama must not have told them to their face that they need to give citizenship to Rohingya, but did it from his plane while jetting to Cambodia.

The statement came on board Air Force One, the US President’s private jet, as he was going to Cambodia after the six-hour Myanmar trip.

Want to learn more about the Rohingya that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops wants to bring to America in larger numbers (we have already brought some)?  Check out our previous 126 posts on the Rohingya in our special category, here.