Day: March 25, 2014

First Syrian refugees arrived in the UK today

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For the longest time the Brits held out, but finally succumbed to the pressure from the humanitarian industrial complex.

Women and children will come first, the men will follow. Photo: http://www.wunrn.com/news/2012/08_12/08_06/080612_syria.htm

Supposedly the first group is made up of “vulnerable” women and children, but this will just be the beginning.  The open borders crowd and the UN will never be satisfied.  And, if the conflict should end tomorrow, the flow westward will not.

From The Guardian:

The first group of Syrian refugees has arrived in the UK under the government’s scheme to take in some of the most vulnerable victims of the conflict.

Several hundred Syrian arrivals are expected to come to the UK over the next three years under the vulnerable persons relocation (VPR) scheme.

Home Office officials refused to confirm how many refugees had arrived in the UK but the first group is reportedly about 10 to 20 individuals.

Following pressure from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and some Tory backbenchers, the government dropped its previous opposition to admitting refugees directly from the region.

Immigration minister James Brokenshire said: “I am pleased to confirm that the first group of Syrians have now arrived in the UK. We believe this VPR scheme will make a real difference to the lives of some of the most vulnerable Syrians by giving them protection and support in the UK.”

The first arrivals come eight weeks after the home secretary announced details of the VPR scheme, which is operating in conjunction with the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).

Syrian refugees admitted under the scheme will have all the rights and benefits that go with “humanitarian protection” status, including access to public funds, access to the labour market and possibility of family reunion.

Family reunion=hubbies to follow!

The man who started the Wyoming refugee controversy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Last week Planet Jackson Hole published this lengthy story filled with lots and lots of pro-refugee propaganda from resettlement contractors, but nothing from knowledgeable critics (other than a Wyoming legislator and a primary gubernatorial candidate).    The story is long and, as I said, so filled with fluff about refugees that I just couldn’t bring myself to tackle it, but for the sake of keeping our Wyoming archives complete, here it is.

[Photo of the Bahige family removed at their request—ed]

Since its publication, Don Barnett, an expert on how the program works, writing at the Casper Star Tribune has attempted to set the record straight on some of the realities of the refugee resettlement program where the US State Department (at the UN’s direction) picks the refugees to be resettled in each state and awards contracts to the federal contractors.  It is after that that the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement starts divvying out the tax dollars to the contractors.

Someone please tell Mr. Bahige that he doesn’t need a refugee office in Wyoming in order to apply to bring his Congolese family members to the US!

From Planet Jackson Hole:

JACKSON, WYO – Debate ensues over refugee resettlement in Cowboy State

When Bertine Bahige arrived in Baltimore, MD, after spending two years as a child soldier and the rest of his teenage years alone in a dark and dusty refugee camp in Mozambique, he began earning money to pay off his airfare washing dishes at Burger King. He didn’t know what became of his mother and nine siblings who were tortured in the Democratic Republic of Congo by rebel groups fleeing Rwanda in 1994.

Now a high school math teacher and father to two young children, Bahige graduated from University of Wyoming and married a Gillette native. He coaches soccer and volunteers his time to help kids get college scholarships, like the one that brought him to Wyoming.

And he has begun a controversial campaign to see if he can bring his four siblings, that he recently located at a refugee camp in Uganda, to Wyoming.

“I would love to have them resettled here,” Bahige said, stressing that his 17-year-old sister has been “fighting for her survival” as a victim of sexual abuse. “But that’s not the sole reason I am doing this. Wyoming would benefit greatly from a program. People have to be educated that refugees are not illegal. We are not just going someplace and packing people into trucks.”

Wyoming is the only state in the nation that does not have a refugee resettlement program. But that may change, despite widespread objections about what it will cost and heightened fears about who might be relocated to the Equality State.

In fall 2013, Gov. Matt Mead opened the door to discussion about creating a safe haven for refugees, defined as men, women and children fleeing war, persecution and political upheaval. Ever since, his office has been working with University of Wyoming Law Professor Suzan Pritchett, whose partner, Noah Novogrodsky, discussed the advocacy program with Jackson Hole students when he visited the valley this winter.

“The Governor’s office and the State of Wyoming have authority on whether or not the program is created,” Pritchett wrote in an email. “Right now they are moving in that direction, but nothing is certain. We were motivated to advocate that Wyoming become a refugee resettlement state, and to work with the Governor’s office on the program, because we were approached by Bertine Bahige.

I assume it is Bahige that the wannabe contractor, Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains, was critical of here because he went public before they, the contractor wannabe, was ready for the general public to learn what was happening.

By the way, the primary federal contractor will be (if this goes through  in Wyoming), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, one of the exclusive top nine contractors who then subcontract to hundreds of smaller contractors making the financial machinations of these supposed-non-profits hard to follow.

Last summer, the US State Department announced that we were going to take 50,000 Congolese refugees soon, but there is no guarantee that Wyoming will get all Congolese refugees, but in fact will get a smattering of many ethnic groups making it even harder to provide state and local funding for ESL in schools and translation services for myriad languages spoken by refugees from African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries.  Arabic is the number one language!

Canada has refugee overload too! Vancouver school system struggling

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s not just the US where ‘do-gooder-itis’ is overwhelming common sense.  Obviously Canada is taking more refugees than it can adequately care for too!  And, a school system is attempting to fill the gaps.   (See Amarillo and Buffalo).

And, when Somali kids grow up like those described here (in poverty, no father), does anyone really believe that they will contribute to Canadian society in any significant way when they grow up!

Indeed! is importing poverty wise?

Somali women learning English in Surrey (Vancouver suburb). Have you noticed we rarely see photos of Somali men bothering to learn English.

From The Vancouver Sun thanks again to ‘pungentpeppers’ (emphasis is mine):

It was only reluctantly that Batula Ali Ekow tells her story, prompted by Somali interpreter Deqa Mohamed who had a part to play in what, unfortunately, appears to be a commonplace drama of poverty overwhelming a refugee family in North Surrey.

Ekow, along with other Somali women — all clothed in the flowing robes and headdresses of their homeland — attend the Surrey school district’s English Language Learner Welcome Centre at 7525 King George Blvd., which offers services to help integrate immigrant and refugee families into Canadian society.

It was here — with Mohamed acting as interpreter — that Ekow and other Somali mothers were interviewed.

Her friend, Hawo Hussein Adbi, spoke of the sense of hopelessness as her older children, still at school, apply for jobs each week but never hear back, and of the struggle to feed them all while living on social assistance.

At first, Ekow will only speak generally about how she and her three school-aged children have fared.

Like the other women, she is saying how overwhelmingly grateful she is to be in Canada when Mohamed interrupts and says, “Let me speak to her in the Somali language” and a conversation ensues, at the end of which a different story emerges:

Ekow, her husband and children arrived in Canada in June 2010 as refugees, and began living on $1,600 a month. Her husband left shortly after their arrival, and so her benefits were cut to $1,025.

Rent was $900, so for seven months, until she began receiving the federal child tax credit, she had $125 a month with which to feed, clothe and care for herself and three children — what a middle-class couple might spend on dinner out without really trying.

She spoke no English, had no idea of Canadian customs, and asked no one for help. The children’s teachers, however, realized something was wrong and called Mohamed.

[….]

Surrey counsellor Judy Villeneuve agrees it is a crisis and that services available for the poor in the area and refugees who arrive there destitute are inadequate. But the city does all it can to help, she says.

It is a long article but well worth reading especially if you are one of our many Canadian readers.

New York boosts school budget $1.1 billion to cope with refugee overload

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From Amarillo, TX to New York State one of the first places a refugee overload becomes evident is in the social and economic impact on school systems.

Assemblyman Sean Ryan (right). http://news.wbfo.org/post/high-percentage-lafayette-students-struggle-language

Yesterday we told you about how the school system in Amarillo has become the place where poverty at home is being addressed (at a cost to taxpayers and to the student body).

Thanks to reader ‘Joanne’ here is another story—this one from New York.   Wyoming take note!

From Buffalo Rising (emphasis is mine):

NYS Assemblyman Sean Ryan, 149th Assembly District [Buffalo—ed], recently visited Lafayette High School to announce his push to have an increase in state education funding, to be set aside for schools with high refugee populations.

The Assembly budget proposal, passed Wednesday, March 12, increased aid to schools by $1.1 billion for the NYS fiscal year of 2014 -2015. This is the largest increase in 6 years and $402 million more than the executive budget proposed for a total of $22.2 billion in state aid.

“Schools with high refugee populations need extra help because they are classified as failing schools because of low graduation rates. That is in direct reflection of their high refugee and English as Second Language (ESL) populations,” said Cody Meyers, Ryan’s communication director.

Ryan’s plan would give a higher percentage of funding based on a formula to schools with a more than 50% increase of ESL students within the past 5 years.

Holy cow!

Nearly 70% of students at Lafayette High School are ESL students, and 40% of those students are classified as Students with Interrupted Formal Education, who are often refugees who had little formal education before doing to the United States.

Lafayette is in the process of implementing an English language immersion programs for these students and Ryan hopes the final state budget will make funding for that type of program a “top priority.”

“At Lafayette upwards of 40 languages are spoken…the immersion program would make English a more hands on language for these students, working with family life and exposing kids to English at all times,” said Meyers.

We have written a lot about Buffalo over the years.  Type ‘Buffalo’ into our search function and see what I mean!  But, here is one post you must see—as Muslim population of Buffalo area increases, Jewish and Christian population declines.