The single biggest worldwide public health threat!
A mystery disease centered in Saudi Arabia (at this time) is giving world health officials something to be frightened about. With a 60% mortality rate and no clues yet about what causes it, doctors, researchers and other health experts from many countries convened in Cairo to make plans for the largest movement of people each year in that part of the world (besides refugees flowing from country to country), the Hajj.
Health experts have started an emergency international meeting to devise ways of combating a mysterious virus that has been described as the single biggest worldwide public health threat after claiming 38 lives, mostly in Saudi Arabia.
Amid fears of a new pandemic more deadly than Sars, 80 officials and doctors, including two from Britain, gathered in Cairo yesterday to examine ways of tackling Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, dubbed MERS.
The coronavirus is casting a shadow over the annual Muslim pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia, where four new deaths were announced on Monday.
The three-day meeting called by the World Health Organisation will look at developing guidelines for Ramadan. In October, more than two million people are expected to attend the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
[…..]
Cases have also been found in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Jordan. Most were patients transferred home from the Middle East for treatment or people who had travelled to the region and became ill after they returned.
Dr Jon Bible, a clinical scientist, who treated one of the three British cases last year, said: “You don’t want to have this.”
I’ve said this before, but if the general public in the West doesn’t scare easily about terrorism entering the US with the immigrant population, diseases will eventually get their attention (scare them to death). We have 157 previous posts in our ‘health issues’category.
According to Northern Voices Online(a publication from Northern India), 2,000 Syrians have already been approved to come to the US in 2013, along with 30,000-40,000 additional Iraqis! I guess this is another bit of new information for the Republican immigration wizards, those boys in a bubble—Rubio and Graham.
Taking names? Angelina Jolie meeting with Syrian ‘refugees’ this week. Demotix / Splash News
WASHINGTON, Up to 2,000 Syrian refugees pre-approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would start new lives in America in 2013, US officials said late on Wednesday Kelly Gauger, a senior official with the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration responded to reporters at a briefing, marking World Refugee Day on June 20 (today), where she explained that DHS has not been able to gain access to Syria since March 2011, when demonstrations leading to the current conflict began.
The 2,000 Syrians coming to the US were interviewed in person and adjudicated more than two years ago, but would be subject to further US government screening.
As for Iraq refugees, Gauger noted there were also between 30,000-40,000 Iraqi refugees with pending applications. Since 2007, 86,000 Iraqis have been admitted into the US. [Someone tell Senator Rand Paul!—ed]
According to Simon Henshaw, also a senior official with the bureau, 70,000 refugees from around the world will be admitted to the US this year.
Refugees considered for resettlement by the US must have already fled their home country, and were referred by UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency.
The US typically accepts half of all UNHCR referrals.[I bet its a lot higher percentage than that!—ed]
Also, the Obama Administration has just extended Temporary Protected Status for Syrians already in the US, but I’ll post separately on that.
Immigration reporter Elise Foley seems to sneer at Senator Paul and may have purposefully left a few facts out of this article on Paul at HuffPo yesterday— ‘They Bring ‘Em In,’ Sign Them Up For Welfare.
Huffington Post immigration reporter Elise Foley
Perhaps we should direct Ms. Foley (and her editors!) to our new Fact Sheet here at RRW!
Paul is exactly correct in paragraph one:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Wednesday that the U.S. should be skeptical of accepting refugees, from Iraq in particular, because they take welfare and could plan attacks on American soil.
She continued, in paragraph two, with a glaring error (one I feel sure Paul did not make and if he did should have been given the opportunity to correct). And, yes, Ms. Foley we did have refugees attack us here (have you forgotten about the Tsarnaevs in Boston?). But, that isn’t the error I’m focused on here. It’s not 95 people of 70,000 on food stamps, it is 95% of 70,000.* By leaving it uncorrected she clearly is happy to make Paul look ridiculous because who would quibble with 95 refugees out of 70,000 getting help with food.
Foley continued quoting Paul:
“We have had refugees attack us here.Ninety-five [percent!–ed] of our 70,000 Iraqi refugees are on food stamps, majority are in government housing, 46 percent are unemployed,” he said on “The Simon Conway Show” — incidentally a day before World Refugee Day [reporter snark!—ed]. “It’s one thing to have a big heart and invite people to our country, and if you do it in a small fashion, the churches and the people take care of them, that’s one thing. But like in my town in particular, they bring ’em in and there is someone whose job and expertise is to sign them up for welfare as soon as they get here.”
Paul has it exactly right, a taxpayer funded refugee resettlement contractor in Bowling Green gets the refugees signed up for welfare benefits and then this idea, that Paul throws out of churches and people taking care of refugees (privately!), is the solution to our entire refugee mess! It has been my view from day one that if refugee families were PRIVATELY sponsored by churches or civic organizations (no contractors!) for a year or two we wouldn’t have the huge drain on the federal treasury; tensions between refugees and the community would be lessened; and we would have a better chance that refugees would ASSIMILATE!
Paul questioned previouslywhy we should be taking Iraqis to America in the first place since we gave them a democratically elected government and their internal Islamic (Sunni v. Shia) squabbles are not our problem. But, here Ms. Foley wants the reader to believe that Iraq is still our problem because we went to war there. There is the legitimate Christian persecution issue, but we (US State Department or even the Catholic Bishops) are not going out of their way to rescue Iraqi Christians anyway.
The U.S. has a long tradition of accepting refugees and has resettled more than 3 million since 1975, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Since 2007, the country has admitted nearly 85,000 Iraqi refugees, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, with more people fleeing the country due to escalated violence stemming from the Iraq War. [Or stemming from their Islamic internal conflicts—ed]
***Update*** State Department said yesterday that 30,000-40,000 Iraqi refugee applications are pending, here.
Senator Paul’s amendment to beef up security measures in the Gang of Eight bill was defeated:
Paul proposed an amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate, which he called “Trust but Verify,” that would increase the already intensive screening of those refugees and asylum-seekers.
Opponents of the amendment, which failed 37 to 61, argued that among other things, it painted foreign students, refugees and asylum-seekers as potential terrorists. The amendment would also hold up a path to citizenship in the “gang of eight” immigration bill until Congress had voted that the border was adequately secure.
Paul did the unthinkable according to Ms. Foley! He used the word refugees in proximity to the word terrorist! So, Ms. Foley what about the Iraqi refugees sentenced to prison in KY or the Tsarnaev carnage in Boston? We have nothing to fear from refugees that would warrant a little extra screening?
In a statement ahead of the vote on his amendment, Paul referred to refugees in one sentence, and then terrorists in the next.
“Individuals here under asylum or refugee status must register in a program providing increased screening and a means to make sure that the federal government has an idea where people in these programs reside,” he said. “We should remember that most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on visa overstays.”
Paul also said, if Iraqi refugees aren’t finding work, maybe they should just go back to Iraq! Funny thing is, disgusted with America after finding life is tough here, some have gone back to Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East, but the State Department isn’t telling you that!
* Readers, this statistic 95% of Iraqi refugees are receiving food stamps comes from the 2009 ORR Annual Report to Congress. The figure may have improved since then, but we don’t know because every day the ORR is breaking the lawby not supplying Congress with the reports for 2010, 2011 and 2012. There are only two possible reasons for failing to submit those reports—incompetent management or they don’t want Congress and the public to know how horrible the stats are for refugee employment and welfare use (or how much largesse the contractors are receiving!).
Maybe Senator Paul should look into the missing reports problem. Hint! Contact Ken Tota, Deputy Director ORR, 202-401-4858.
Just in time for World Refugee Day today, we have posted a newly updated Fact Sheet on the Refugee Resettlement Program in the US. The Fact Sheet is posted just below our header, or you canclick here and check it out! Written in collaboration with experts, our Fact Sheet has been visited by over 31,000 readers in recent years.
And, in almost every case it’s Islamic-generated chaos and violence they are escaping.
UNHCR Guterres, a longtime Socialist who never lets a good crisis go to waste!
Actually the High Commissioner, Antonio Guterres didn’t say that. He never would say something so politically incorrect.
Do you know who did say something taboo?Sarah Palin. In a speech in Washington, DC last weekend, Palin said, referencing the conflict in Syria, these are all Muslims squabbling, so maybe we should just let Allah sort it out.
Here is the obligatory World Refugee Day story from the UN:
GENEVA, Switzerland – War and other crises drove one person from their home every 4.1 seconds in 2012, the UN’s refugee agency said Wednesday, June 19, pushing the number of people forcibly displaced to a two-decade high of 45.2 million.
All told, the UNCHR’s annual figures showed 1.1 million people fled across international borders in 2012, while 6.5 million were displaced within their homelands.
“This means one in each 4.1 seconds. So each time you blink, another person is forced to flee,” Antonio Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, told reporters.
The total figure of 45.2 million included 28.8 million internally displaced people, 15.4 million border-crossing refugees, and 937,000 asylum seekers.
Muslim countries, Muslim countries and more Muslim countries creating refugees!
“War is the main reason for this very high number of refugees and people internally displaced. Fifty-five percent of them correspond to the well-known situations of Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, and Syria,” Guterres said.
Overall, Afghanistan remained the world’s top producer of refugees, a position it has held for 32 years. Worldwide, one refugee in four is Afghan.
Guterres also blamed conflicts in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.
Guterres then discussed the latest Muslim vs. Muslim conflict in Syria and reported that they aren’t ready yet to send Syrians to your towns!
“We witness a multiplication of new conflicts, and it seems that old conflicts never die,” he said.
Guterres pointed out that the number of people who had fled the spiraling violence in Syria had soared from 650,000 at the end of 2012 to around 1.6 million now, surpassing last year’s total from all conflicts.
The UNHCR has warned that Syrian refugee numbers could hit 3.5 million by the end of this year, while there are also fears that the number currently displaced within the country, 4.25 million, will also climb.
Syrian refugees have flooded into neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, stretching those nations’ ability to cope.
Guterres urged the international community to help shoulder the load, although he said UNHCR-brokered resettlement programs for Syrians in rich countries were not yet on the cards.
NOT YET, but they sure are sending out feelers as we learned recently, here. Although that news came as a big surprise to the Senate Republican brain trust of Rubio and Graham, here.
The single biggest worldwide public health threat!
