Month: January 2014

Syrian refugee smorgasbord

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Every day our news alerts are jam-packed with the latest stories on the SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS.   Here is a little round-up of the latest news.

MP Yvette Cooper, leader of the revolt: Bring in the Syrians!

Great Britain:  ‘MP’s revolt over failure to admit Syrian refugees’:

The Coalition is under mounting pressure from Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs to perform a U-turn to allow some Syrian refugees to come to Britain.

Mark Harper, the immigration minister, angered some MPs yesterday by saying the United Nations plan for Western countries to accept 30,000 of the 2.3 million Syrian refugees would have only a “token impact”.  [Then the you-know-what hit the fan—ed]

Lebanon:  ‘U.N.: Syrian refugee’s murder of son highlights desperation’:

BEIRUT: The case of a Syrian man who was arrested Tuesday for strangling his 8-month-old son because he was crying reflects the desperate plight of refugees, UNICEF’s spokesperson said.

According to security sources refugee Hasan Ayesh strangled his son late Monday in his home in Minyara, in the northern province of Akkar, reportedly because the boy wouldn’t stop crying.

Mind you, it’s all about his status as a refugee, not the possibility that he might be a brute or mentally unstable to begin with.  Sheesh!

U.S.:  ‘Aid Agency Chief: Syrian Refugees Creating ‘Regional Crisis”:

David Miliband head honcho of the International Rescue Committee told Morning Joe that the international community must “massively scale up” its response.  But, surprisingly he never mentioned his organization’s testimony in the Senate recently to resettle 12,000 Syrians here this year.  I’m wondering if they have done polling that tells them not to mention bringing them here!

In light of upcoming international peace talks between the opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the numbers of refugees resulting from the war has created a “regional crisis” that demands attention.

“This is a regional crisis that demands a big international engagement,” Miliband, who is president and CEO of aid agency International Rescue Committee, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday.

The conflict in Syria has resulted in a “scale of brutality … that hasn’t been seen for a very long time,” Miliband said.

As a result, millions of people are taking refuge in neighboring countries. He called for the international response to be “massively scaled up.”

You can watch Morning Joe’s interview, here.  Joe doesn’t look too worked up.

Russia:  ‘Russia grants asylum to almost 500 Syrian refugees – FMS’:

This is a surprise, I wonder if they are taking mostly Christians since they don’t have a burning desire for more Muslims.

The number of Syrian refugees seeking asylum in Russia is on the rise, head of the Federal Migration Service Moscow department Olga Kirillova said.

“Due to the exacerbation of the sociopolitical situation in Syria, the number of citizens seeking asylum on the territory of Russia has grown significantly,” she said.

More than 1,000 Syrian citizens filed refuge requests with the Federal Migration Service Moscow department in 2013 and 478 were granted temporary asylum, she added.

Bulgaria:  ‘Bulgaria Begins Construction of Border Fence with Turkey’:

The construction of the wire fence at the Bulgarian – Turkish border will begin on January 20, Minister of Defense Angel Naydenov announced.

“The site preparatory work and the construction of the facility will start Monday,” Naydenov said, cited by Focus News Agency.

The construction period will stretch over 45-60 days depending on the weather conditions.

Border fences can be built pretty quickly if a country is motivated.

Sweden:  ‘Syria crisis: Influx of refugees into Swedish town’:

Some Swedish towns are struggling to cope with an influx of Syrian refugees, after the government there guaranteed asylum to fugitives from the civil war.

The right-wing Swedish Democrat party claims ethnic Swedes are angry at the cost of social benefits and rising pressures on schools, housing and health care.

In the past eight years, the town of Sodertalje has accepted three times more refugees than Sweden’s biggest cities.

Ah, Sweden, our canary in a coal mine.

From Bangladesh to Brooklyn, but not as refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Several readers sent me this important article by Daniel Greenfield at Frontpage magazine, published last week, entitled, ‘Beheadings, Bombings and New York’s Little Bangladesh.’  They wanted to know if most of these Bangladeshis taking over neighborhoods in NYC are “refugees.”

Well, no, not technically.  We have only taken a handful of Bangladeshis directly from Bangladesh through the Refugee Program in the ten years reported in the most recent Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) report to Congress.  If you have never looked at these reports, which the ORR is notoriously late on producing, then check this one out.  Tables near the end, have stats on who we admitted in the previous ten years.  I also went back to the years 1983-2000 and we did not bring any Bangladeshi “refugees.”

Rasel Siddiquee (left) is charged with beheading landlord. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Arrest-Made-Brooklyn-Building-Beheading-Kensingon-239213971.html

Here is Greenfield:

Bangladesh is more than 90 percent Muslim. Hindus are being attacked in the streets of its cities by Islamist mobs because Islam does not co-exist. The other religions of the city do not demand that everyone join them or acknowledge their supremacy and pay them protection money for the right to exist.

Islam does.

Its immigration is also a Jihad, a form of supremacist manifest destiny to colonize the Dar al-Harb and subdue it to the will of a dead prophet with sheer numbers or sheer force. [Al-Hijra!—ed]

The number of Bangladeshis in New York has increased by 20 percent in only four years to an estimated 74,000. And those numbers don’t take into account the unofficial Mohammeds living in basements while nursing their murderous grudges.

Diversity Visa Lottery!

So, not refugees as such!  However, one absolutely insane immigration program we have is the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery’ (sometimes called the green card lottery) to allow immigrants into the US from countries that have not sent us 50,000 in the past.   Bangladeshis took so much interest and won so many lotteries over 5 years that they are now banned from participating.  By the way, there are US lawyers who help the hopeful lottery participants craft their applications to get them just right, thus enhancing their chances of ‘winning.’

Here is what we learned at the Bangladesh US Embassy website:

The Diversity Visa Program in Bangladesh ended in October 2012. The DV program no longer exists in Bangladesh since Bangladesh has sent more than 50,000 new permanent resident visa holders to the United States over the past five years.

Once they have a foot in the door, then through family reunification (chain migration!) they bring in the extended family!

It is possible that some Bangladeshis came as asylum seekers, but I don’t know that.  And, surely, some are here illegally.  As is the case this time, rarely does the mainstream media give us any information about the immigration status of alleged murderers and criminals like Siddiquee.

Endnote:  It should be mentioned that some experts believe that the Burmese Rohingya Muslims are actually from Bangladesh.  We are bringing in some Rohingya Muslims who may be attracted to the Bangladeshi neighborhoods since they speak a dialect similar to the Bangladeshis and not so similar to the Burmese dialects.  I believe that Esar Met, the recently convicted child rapist and murderer, is a Rohingya, but he is only described generically as a Burmese Muslim tragically placed in a Burmese Christian apartment building.

More on refugee mental health issues from Pittsburgh

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Translation services are going to cost your “welcoming” community a bundle going forward (not to mention the cost itself of mental health treatment for immigrants).

This is another in a series of articles written by reporter Erika Beras and published here at the local NPR station.  We have mentioned previously two of Ms. Beras’s excellent investigative reports, here and here.

From WESA (Pittsburgh’s NPR station).  Emphasis below is mine:

Barbara Murock, Immigrants and International Initiative Manager for Allegheny County’s Department of Human Services. Does your county have such a position?

Pittsburgh was once an immigrant foothold. European and Middle Eastern immigrants and black migrants from the Jim Crow American South built the city into what it is. But when industry began to shutter in the ’70s, people started moving away in droves. And for a long time, people didn’t move in.

It’s only been in the last few years that census numbers have ticked upward. Some of that is young people moving to Pittsburgh from other cities, but it’s also refugees. Several thousand have been resettled here in the last few years by four resettlement agencies, and others move here after being resettled elsewhere.

In some ways it’s a perfect fit: There is ample employment and affordable housing stock. But in some critical ways, it’s not a good fit at all.  [What is the ample employment in Pittsburgh?—ed]

“Pittsburgh is about 20 years behind the rest of the country when it comes to immigrants,” said Barbara Murock, the Immigrants and International Initiative Manager for Allegheny County’s Department of Human Services, a relatively new initiative. “We’re still learning and we’re at a tipping point in terms of having enough immigrants that we need to start developing systems and programs and pathways for people to obtain services that they need.”  [What is that going to cost the taxpayers of the county?—ed]

Those services include everything from having interpreters in a slew of languages in the courts and schools and drug and alcohol treatment centers.

However, making services available is more than just language. For refugees, a lot of what they don’t understand is cultural.

What follows is a section worth reading about how in some cultures it is taboo to seek any mental health treatment.  Note one star of the story has “situational depression.”  I guess that means he has become disenchanted with life in America.  One proposal for reform I’ve mentioned previously is for the resettlement contractors to set aside money (preferably theirs!) for an airfare fund to send refugees back to their home country who are not cutting-it in the US.  Some want to go home but are trapped here in nasty jobs at low wages and can’t afford the airfare.

Federally mandated translation services could bust your city or county budget!

Those services are expensive and not always easily accessible. The cost of an interpreter, even on the phone, can be high. The translation services the center uses averages $5,000 a month. They also use in-person interpreters, staff who speak a variety of languages.

[….]

By law, health care providers that receive federal monies such as UPMC have to provide interpreter services, and they do in more than 200 languages. That number is only expected to grow as the number of refugees in the community grows and changes.

Readers should try to find out what translation services are costing your local government.  It isn’t just health care services that must provide an interpreter, but the court system as well.   Even when some refugee has a minor traffic problem and ends up in local court—he or she must have a translator!

Kudos to the US State Department for holding up some questionable Somali visas

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Normally we are critical of the US State Department for its open-door policy to large segments of the Muslim world, but it seems they are now holding up some questionable visa applications of Somalis who can’t prove who they are.

Perhaps they have learned a lesson. 

State Department is holding up the visa for a Somali man in Kenya who can’t prove who he is. ‘Wife’ Amina Awnur has Rep. Keith Ellison going to bat for her.

Of course keep this in perspective and your enthusiasm in check—we admitted over 100,000 Somalis to the US over the last few decades and in 2008 we learned that the US State Department had admitted tens of thousands of Somalis to the US who had fraudulently claimed a family relationship to someone who got in ahead of them.  Family reunification for Somalis was closed for years, but the fraudulent “family members” got to stay!

Not one peep in this latest news about the fraud that shut down family reunification for Somalis for YEARS!

And, before you read the latest news about how the State Department is holding up some visas for Somalis, much to the consternation of Rep. Keith Ellison and the two Senators from Minnesota who want to get more Somali voters, keep this in mind:   We are bringing in Somalis at near record levels (almost as high as the Bush Administration!).

7,608 new Somali refugees were resettled in the US in FY2013, click here.

From Hiiraan Online (reprinted from the Star Tribune) hat tip: Creeping Sharia.  Emphasis is mine:

Hundreds of Somalis are struggling to get their families reunited in the United States.

Amina Awnur is in Willmar. Her ­husband is in limbo.

For four years, Awnur has been trying to get U.S. authorities to allow her husband to come to Minnesota from Kenya. He has repeatedly gone to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi with documents, but officials tell him they need more. [The reporter should make it clear that family re-unification for Somalis, the so-called P-3 program, was only re-opened in 2013. So she may have applied four years ago, but applications like hers weren’t going anywhere.—ed]

“I am really frustrated and very tired, because it has taken so long,” she said through an interpreter. [What, no English after being in the US for over 8 years!—ed]

The 30-year-old Somali-born woman, who now is a U.S. citizen, is among ­hundreds of refugees whose family ­members are hung up in Africa, struggling to prove to the State Department that they are who they say they are.

Waiting sometimes for years to have their visas approved, they are children, parents, siblings and spouses displaced by the continuing upheaval in Somalia. Stuck in Kenya, they have been unable to provide satisfactory paperwork establishing their identity, according to immigration lawyers in the Twin Cities. [DNA testing is available for blood relatives, that should easily prove who they are.—ed]

“It’s a huge problem,” says Leslie Karam, whose firm recently filed a lawsuit against a State Department official in Nairobi on behalf of a Minnesota man who is trying to get his wife out of Kenya. “The U.S. consulate in Nairobi has indicated their administrative processing can take several months,” the lawsuit says. “It has been almost two years.”

Again, this reference (below) to 1,000 visas being given to Somalis only pertains to those applying for family reunification.  We let in 7,608 Somalis in FY2013 who we sure hope were all able to prove who they are!

She [State Dept. Spokeswoman] said that Somalis are treated the same as applicants from other countries, and more than 1,000 visas were issued to Somalis in the 2013 federal ­fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30.

“At the same time, we must ensure that applicants do not pose a security risk to the United States and otherwise are eligible for a visa” she said in an e-mail. “Applicants sometimes require additional screening to determine whether they are eligible.”

Toward the end of the piece we learn a little about the star of the story—Amina Awnur.   How much do you want to bet this is a case of immigration marriage fraud?

Awnur came to Minnesota in 2005 with her mother, three brothers and one sister. Two sisters were killed in the civil war.

She works as a meat cutter on the production line of a Jennie-O Turkey Store processing plant, and sends her husband money to help pay his $200-a-month rent in Nairobi. She became a U.S. citizen in 2011.

In 2008, she said, she flew to Kenya and married Hassan Noor, 31, whom she’d met in Kenya in 2002. She returned to Minnesota and applied for a visa for him in January 2009. Her application was approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in March 2010. [but, not by the State Department—ed]

There is probably a very good reason the State Department is holding up Noor’s visa!

An afterthought:  This post is one of our most visited posts of all time and it explains how Catholics, Lutherans and Evangelicals brought the Somalis to Minnesota (and are still bringing them) as contractors to the US State Department.  The initial big attraction was Minnesota’s generous welfare system (and meatpacker employers).

Colorado: Iraqi refugee rape trial underway

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The arrest of five Iraqi refugees in Colorado Springs in 2012 is a story we reported at the time (here, and here I was looking for an update).  I had wondered what happened to the five accused of raping an unconscious woman they somehow got to their apartment.

Jasim Mohammed Hasin Ramadon is on trial now in Colorado.

Perhaps the most stunning thing about the case is that an American military man helped at least one of the accused get into the US and wrote a book about it!  The Special Immigrant Visa program, designed to help those who ‘helped’ Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan get into the US more easily, may well have been the vehicle for Jasim Mohammed Hasin Ramadon to become a “new American.”

Now thanks to reader Jewell, here is an update on the case from The Gazette:

Is he responsible for a horrific rape that nearly killed a Colorado Springs woman – or a patsy tapped by his co-defendants to shoulder the blame?

An El Paso County jury on Wednesday heard clashing portrayals of Jasim Mohammed Hasin Ramadon, a 21-year-old Iraqi immigrant accused of “shoving” his hand into the rectum of a semiconscious woman, causing severe internal bleeding.

Charged with multiple counts of sexual assault, Ramadon – also known as Jay Hendrix – could face up to the rest of his life in prison if convicted.

Sarmad Fadhi “Levi” Mohammed is already serving 16 years for shoving his penis in the woman’s mouth.

His trial, which is expected to last two weeks, comes after an 11-month delay during which the case was held up as the Colorado Supreme Court considered an evidentiary dispute between prosecutors and defense attorneys.

Charged in the July 2012 assault at a west Colorado Springs apartment complex were Ramadon and four other Iraqi immigrants, all of whom were brought to the United States with the help of military members after assisting troops in Iraq.

One co-defendant, Sarmad Fadhi “Levi” Mohammed, 26, is serving 16 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him last year of placing his penis in the woman’s mouth. Three others were accused of lying to police about what they knew of the rape and ended up with misdemeanor convictions.

Read on.

As we suggested with the Utah refugee rape/murder trial that just concluded, maybe lawmakers in Washington should be insisting that the US State Department help defray the enormous cost to local tax payers when “refugees” they admit to the US commit crimes.  These trials and decades of incarceration cost the “welcoming” state a lot of money in the end.

And, also like the Utah case, this dreadful story will not reach the mainstream media outside the state especially as that same media is now working hard to get those Syrian Muslims into the US.

Just as an endnote if you didn’t have time to revisit our first post on the arrest, here is what we learned:

Ramadon was featured in “A Soldier’s Promise,” a combat memoir by Army First Sgt. Daniel Hendrex  published in 2009 . Hendrex met the 14-year-old Ramadon  while deployed to Husaybah, a town in Al Anbar Province in Iraq , according to book reviews on  Amazon. According to reviews, Ramadon encountered Hendrex’s soldiers in December 2003, and pleaded with them to arrest him in exchange for key information about local insurgents. The book chronicles Ramadon’s relationship with Hendrex’s unit, of which he became an intricate part, ultimately earning the nickname Steve-O, the review reads.  Later, in exchange for his services, Hendrex helped Ramadon immigrate to the United States.