Update from Calais (France): It is not the UK’s problem

Thanks again to ‘pungentpeppers’ here is an update from the stalemate in Calais where hundreds of Middle Easterners and Africans have congregated for months demanding they be let into the UK.  (See our previous Calais posts here).

Camping in Calais where camps are divided by ethnic groups (by their own choosing!)

In a clear ploy to tug at heartstrings, The Independent begins and ends with sob-stories about the poor men who scratched together thousands of dollars to get this far in order to break into what they call “The House” (the UK).

But the British government again lays out the cold hard truth—in the European Union, legitimate asylum seekers are to ask for asylum in the first safe country in which they land.  For these men was it Italy, Malta, Greece, Bulgaria—any of the border countries?  And, indeed if they were legit, they could ask for asylum in France.

Going one step further, the UK says the condition of French “camps” is France’s problem! Yup!

The French government has asked Britain to consider a renegotiation of the agreement which led to the closure of Sangatte and share more of the financial and policing “burden” caused by the migrants. The French interior minister, Manuel Valls, said last month that the situation in Calais had reached an “impasse”. The response from his British opposite, Home Secretary Theresa May, has been a polite restatement of the status quo.

A Home Office spokeswoman said tonight: “The conditions of any camps in France and the policing of them is the responsibility of the French authorities. If individuals have a genuine need of protection they should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.”

Indeed, the real passion and anger is among those with the least power and the most to lose.

For two consecutive weeks, the streets of Calais have been the scene of demonstrations by angry migrants waving placards proclaiming “Freedom to move”, “Liberté” and “No border, no nation – stop deportation”

The  list of grievances of the marchers – Afghans, Kurds, Sudanese, Eritreans, Egyptians, Syrians – is long and multifarious, from an unrealistic demand for Britain to open its border to a plea for the “basic dignity” afforded by washing facilities and an end to what they say is harassment by French police.

Read it all.

Hmong migrate to Oklahoma, bring crime

Let’s make this focus-on-the-Hmong day at RRW.  See previous post.

Note that in this criminal case, the court could not find an impartial interpreter.  From ABC 8 Tulsa:

Products of the US State Department (and contractors)!

Two men appeared before a Tulsa courtroom for their reported roles in a shooting at a Hmong New Year’s festival.

Boonmlee Lee and Meng Lee made their appearance before the judge for their scheduled preliminary hearings. Both are accused of opening fire at the festival in east Tulsa last fall.

Court records indicate that both men have pleaded not guilty to the counts of shooting with intent to kill and assault and battery with a deadly weapon.

According to a report from the Associated Press, an Oklahoma judge delayed the preliminary hearings last month because attorneys were having problems finding a local interpreter who didn’t know the victims or defendants.

The Lees and the five people hurt in the October shooting are all ethnic Hmong, who hail from Asian countries including Laos, China, Vietnam and Thailand. Thousands of Hmong live in Tulsa, many arriving in recent years in search of work.  [But wait! We are constantly told that there aren’t enough immigrant laborers in America!—Hey Grover! Hmong over here looking for work—ed]

We know that tens of thousands of Hmong refugees were resettled in Minnesota, Wisconsin and California, but did you know that criminal gangs were forming in Minnesota in the mid-1980’s?  See this 2003 report on Hmong gangs in America.

Hmong murder trial in California: Defense tries the religious diversity ploy

The charming Tou Vang Xiong. Taxpayers paid for his upbringing and now the taxpayers will care for him in prison—probably for life!

Diversity is an excuse alert!

We need to understand that killing tigers is big, really big! in the Hmong spiritual world!  ‘Poor’ fellow just thought he was killing tiger spirits when he shot his girlfriend and her friend at point blank range after a methamphetamine party.

The jury didn’t buy it and on February 7th he was convicted on two counts of first degree murder, here.  Hat tip: Investigator par excellence ‘pungentpeppers.’  Emphasis is mine:

 After fewer than three hours of deliberation, a jury on Friday found an Atwater man guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in connection with a 2009 shooting in west Modesto.

Tou Vang Xiong shot his girlfriend, Gao Sheng Her, and friends Nhia Yang and Lee Pao Yang at close range after the four had smoked methamphetamine in a detached room behind Nhia Yang’s family home in west Modesto. Gao Sheng Her and Nhia Yang died quickly from multiple gunshot wounds, but Lee Pao Yang managed to escape and survived.

Defense attorney Ruben Villalobos argued that his client was under the influence of methamphetamine and was experiencing hallucinations when he fired an automatic rifle at the victims. For those reasons, he told the jury Xiong should be found guilty of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, he said.

Hmong Shaman was called to testify:

Here is the report on how Tou Vang Xiong’s attorney brought in a Hmong Shaman to help explain that the slaughter was all the result of the religion he brought to America as a refugee at work in a drug-addled mind.  Note that the Shaman needed an interpreter (at taxpayer expense no doubt!).

 A Hmong shaman testified about his faith’s rituals and beliefs Tuesday in a trial for a man charged in the killings of two people shot at close range with an automatic rifle in west Modesto.

Atwater resident Tou Vang Xiong spoke of “killing two tigers” after shooting his girlfriend, Gao Sheng Her of Merced, and his friend Nhia Yang of Modesto, according to previous testimony from Yang’s sister. Xay Yang testified that “tiger” is commonly used in Hmong culture as a derogatory term for people they dislike.

Neng Yee Lee has been a shaman for nearly 40 years and began as a shaman in his native country of Laos. He has lived in the U.S. for eight years. He told the jury that shamans in the Hmong faith are able to help people solve problems in the spiritual world.

These spiritual world problems can manifest themselves as visions of wild spirits or warrior spirits, he said in court, and those spirits can harm people by creating illness, for example.

Lee testified that spirits can appear as animals, typically tigers, and even ordinary people can sometimes see these visions of spirits. “It’s not real tigers but spirits,” Lee said with the help of a court-appointed interpreter.

Shamans perform rituals to scare off these threatening spirits. They also perform rituals when people are born and when they die. Lee said he has not seen a spirit since he moved to this country, but others, even children, have said they have seen spirits.

“If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you,” Lee testified.

The Hmong shaman was called to the witness stand by defense attorney Ruben Villalobos. He has told the jury that his client didn’t think he was attacking his girlfriend and his friends that early morning.

Villalobos has argued that Xiong and those shot had smoked a lot of methamphetamine in the hours before the shooting. He plans to call an expert to testify about “methamphetamine psychosis” and the effects of the highly addictive drug on the brain. He is seeking a verdict that results in a charge less serious than murder.

Thanks to the US State Department, there are over 100,000 foreign-born Hmong in the US.  Most are from Laos.

Add one more refugee criminal trial to our list (from this post on Sunday):

***Just for fun I went to our ‘crimes’ category with its 1,396 posts to see how many criminal court cases we wrote about just since the beginning of the year (specifically involving refugees).  Too lazy to link them (you can find them in the crimes category by clicking here).

We had the Colorado Iraqi rapists, the Utah Burmese rape/murder trial, the Iowa Bosnian sex abuse case, the Illinois Sudanese murder retrial, Washington Somali rapist, New York Afghan welfare cheats, Florida Sri Lankan illegal alien trafficking case, California Somalis sentencing in terror funding case, Minnesota Somali woman sentencing delayed (terror funding), and the Nevada Chinese refugee ripping off the casinos!  All within the last seven weeks!

Australian academic: the public is against asylum seekers arriving by boat!

Warns refugee activists that they are out of touch and have little chance of winning over the public!

Taking action! Fully-equipped Australian lifeboat reportedly used to ferry intercepted boat people back to where they came from!
By Timur Matahari/AFP/Getty Images

Meanwhile, in touch with public opinion, the government has proposed a significant decrease in the number of refugees permitted to stay in Australia annually.

From SBS.com (emphasis mine):

An academic says refugee advocates are out of touch with popular opinion, which is overwhelmingly against asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

Professor Andrew Markus is a member of the Scanlon Foundation which has been mapping public opinion on this issue since 2007.

He says asylum seeker advocates need to take notice of the fact that their opinions about asylum seekers are not shared by the majority of Australians.

Professor Andrew Markus from Monash University in Melbourne has researched widely in the areas of immigration and social cohesion.

Public concern for border protection second only to the economy!

He says in one recent survey of around 1000 people, border protection was rated as the second most important issue facing Australia after the economy.

Professor Markus adds that his own analysis suggests border protection is a growing public concern.

Young or old, educated or not so well-educated, less than 20% of those surveyed support boat people being allowed to stay in Australia.

“I’ve done all sorts of analysis by every different demographic you care to find. And one of the very unusual features on the asylum issue, it’s that normally by level of education or by age, there’s a big division. If you’re better educated you’re much more likely to be receptive to cultural diversity. But on the asylum issue you don’t get that just a marginal difference. Similarly young people are much more accepting and again we don’t get that normal split that we would normally get.”

The Scanlon Foundation has released a yearly report on immigration and social cohesion since 2007, based on surveys of around 2000 people.

Its most recent survey found that less than 20 per cent of Australians think asylum seekers arriving by boat should be given permanent residency.

Professor Markus says that’s a reality that refugee advocates can’t ignore.

But, of course they do, just yesterday the Refugee Council of Australia decried the plans by the  government to reduce the number of refugees permitted in Australia from 20,000 to 13,750 annually.  Imagine the furor in the US (from the resettlement contractors) if Congress said NO! to the President and cut US refugee admission by the same percentage!

Reports of asylum seekers rioting on Manus Island surely don’t help the Refugee Council’s public relations campaign!  Nor does news, like that we reported yesterday from multi-culti Blacktown, help their cause.  *Update: Asylum seeker dies in Manus Island escape attempt, here.

About the photo!  Read all about the “alien-looking” alien transport vessels reportedly purchased by the Australian government, here.  It sure looks like they mean business!

A reminder: check those “Top Posts” daily!

We’ve had a lot of new readers and more interest lately in Refugee Resettlement issues facing first world countries.   In some cases a story catches fire on facebook and our numbers soar.  If you check the “Top Posts” (right hand sidebar) every day, you can get an idea of what stories are interesting our readers around the world.

Yesterday, the Lewiston, Maine post from last week took off.    And, our fact sheet (US), is a hit every day!

Although the majority of our readers are from the US, we have thousands upon thousands visiting from around the world.  Looking back over the last two years (when wordpress began giving us stats from other countries), these are the top ten countries from which we host visitors to RRW (the order switches around slightly from month to month but the list below is the approximate order) with the UK topping the list:

UK
Australia
Canada
Germany
S. Africa
Thailand
India
Sweden
Netherlands
France

Not far behind France is Malta!

We bring you stories from around the world just so you know that the refugee/asylum issue is plaguing industrialized countries everywhere and your concern here in America, that excessively high numbers of migrants are attempting to get into America, is shared by others who fear for their country, their culture, and the potentially disastrous impact on Western civilization as a result of demographic change.

Some countries are taking action to stem the tide—front and center right now is Australia!