Month: May 2014

Minneapolis: Somalis want to expand mall, neighbors opposed

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I expect to see David Lubell and his “Welcoming America” gang stepping in here to support the Somali “entrepreneurs” who say business is booming in South Minneapolis and to get the minds right of these clearly “unwelcoming” neighbors.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges donned a hijab to visit business leaders in South Minneapolis! http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/mayor-hodges-dons-the-hijab.php

 

However, here is what I don’t get, how does this notion that business is booming fit with the statistics we reported yesterday from Minnesota that 63% of Somalis in that state live below the poverty level.  Where are they getting the money then to shop and hang around to watch soccer and drink tea?

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Local Somalis had high hopes for the expansion of a Somali mall in south Minneapolis, after the owner proposed adding nearly 9,000 square feet of space and expanding the parking lot.

But one by one, the mall’s neighbors showed up to testify at a Planning Commission meeting late Monday that the mall had already caused many traffic and parking problems in the area.

City planning commissioners voted down the expansion Monday night, calling on the developer to further study how it would affect traffic. City planners had supported the project.

The crowded mall is the latest example of a problem throughout the city: balancing the needs of neighborhood businesses with complaints that their customers overwhelm the streets.  [Do you have “customers” overwhelming the streets where you live?—ed]

Are they just hanging around with not much to do (on the taxpayers’ dime)?

Cars park where there are no designated spaces, often boxing each other in and sometimes even blocking the mall’s entrances as East African immigrants stream in to drink tea, watch soccer, log on to computers, have their hair cut, and buy dresses, scarves and rugs.

Here is what the neighbors say:

Many Somali immigrants stepped up to support the project before planning commissioners on Monday, but opponents said that Village Market, as the mall is known, was never designed to support so many visitors and businesses. It has invited noise, illegal parking, littering, crime, dangerous driving maneuvers and loud music. Some said they had seen ambulances struggle to weave through.

Hey, lucky Cheyenne, Wyoming!  This could be you someday!

Thank Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and World Relief Minnesota for helping make this lovely situation possible in Minneapolis!

US State Department hiding stats on which US cities receive refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Why is that?

For the longest time we were able to access statistics for cities at the US State Department contracted site called WRAPS (Worldwide Refugees Admissions Processing System/Refugee Processing Center (RPC)).

Most of the website is NOT available to the public, but at this public page there had been for years a link for ‘arrivals by destination city by nationality.’    I thought I might be imagining that there had been that statistical category, but noticed just now, when visiting another US State Department contracted site, that indeed it exists (but not for you!).

Here is what the Cultural Orientation Resource Center (gee I wonder when they turned the ‘C’ in their logo into a crescent?) says about the WRAPS/RPC stats:

The Refugee Processing Center (RPC), operated by the U.S Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), coordinates the processing and tracking of the movement of refugees from various countries around the world to the U.S. for resettlement under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Working closely with Resettlement Support Centers, national refugee resettlement agencies, and others, the RPC oversees the use of an interactive computer system called the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS). The RPC uses this data to produce a variety of reports on refugee arrivals per region within a fiscal year, arrivals by state within a fiscal year, arrivals by destination city by nationality, and so on.

To access these reports and more, see the Refugee Processing Center’s Admissions and Arrivals reports page.

What else do they keep from the public?  They keep the stats on the number of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus etc. that are coming in as refugees, but do not release those to the public either.  Only special people can get further into the password-protected site.  It is all part of the secrecy that is a hallmark of the program.

See a list of State Department “preferred communities,” here.  But, we don’t know how many and what nationalities are being resettled. Is your city one of them?

Don’t forget!  Please send a comment to the US State Department by May 29th (one week from today!) on the “size and scope” of refugee admissions for FY 2015!

90,000 Bhutanese from Nepal resettled in the West since 2007…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and they are not done!

The US has taken 75,000 of those and more are on the way.

The UN and the International Organization for Migration say that 21,000 more have expressed interest in coming to your city.

The Bhutanese are really from Nepal originally and were sent packing from Bhutan when that country wanted to keep Bhutan for its own people.  Nepal didn’t want its people back, so what the heck, we lined up to take them.  And, readers, remember! it was the Bush Administration that opened the pipeline.  Bush said 60,000 (of the 100,000) over five years was our limit!

Before we get to the short news story, please look at this map of the camps in Nepal.

When you tally up the number of residents in each camp in 2007 the total number comes to 107,700, yet this article tells us that the total number (resettled 90,000 and waiting 27,000) is closer to 10,000 more.  Either they were cranking out babies or other “refugees” (having heard the good news) have come to the camps since 2007 looking for a ticket out!

http://www.culturalorientation.net/providing-orientation/overseas/programs/rsc-south-asia/images/map-of-bhutanese-refugee-camps-in-eastern-nepal

Here is The Himalayan (90‚000 refugees from Bhutan resettled: IOM)

The resettlement of the Bhutanese refugees began in 2007. So far, over 5,800 refugees from Bhutan have been resettled in several communities across Canada, including Charlottetown, Saint-Jérôme, Quebec City, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, among others. The other resettlement countries are Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The majority of resettled refugees – over 75,000 – have been taken in by the United States, the statement read.

“This is another important step towards resolving one of the most protracted refugee situations in Asia. This has been possible due to the strong support of the Government of Nepal and the excellent cooperation between the resettlement countries, UNHCR and IOM…..   [LOL!  I bet there was strong support from Nepal—they didn’t want their people back.  But, I still wonder why that was our (US) concern? Cheap labor?—ed]

[….]

According to IOM, of the 27,000 refugees remaining in the camps, about 21,000 have already expressed an interest in resettlement and are expected to depart in the coming years.

What is the lesson here?  Don’t believe the US State Department the next time they say we are only taking ____ refugees.  For example, once the doors are opened wide to Syrians there will be no end in sight!

Click here for our extensive Bhutanese refugee archive.

Australia/Cambodia ‘refugee’ deal still in the works

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A heated debate continues over the Australian government’s offer of funding to Cambodia if that country agrees to take some of Australia’s ‘refugee’ overflow.

The Abbott government came into office promising to reduce the illegal migration to Australia and they are working tirelessly to follow up on the pledge.

And, frankly, moves like this one—sending asylum seekers to Cambodia—will surely have a chilling affect on those human traffickers and would-be migrants to not try to get to Australia in the future.

Australian migration minister, Scott Morrison, even had the audacity to suggest that “refugees” are not necessarily entitled to the right to a first world country to escape persecution.  If safety is what they say they want, why not Cambodia?

From ABC News:

The Cambodian government is in the final stages of considering a refugee resettlement agreement with Australia and wants to sign a memorandum of understanding as soon as possible.

[….]

“So far the working group already finished [its] studying on the draft proposed by Australia and I think that maybe soon, maybe a few days, maybe next week … we’ll send our counter-proposal to the Australian side.”

The human rights industrial complex is understandably having a cow over this plan and also blasted Cambodia for returning Muslim Uighurs to China.   So I assume this would also mean that Cambodia wouldn’t want to take too many Muslim potential jihadists from Australia either.

Do these do-gooders really believe that Cambodia could stand up to China which surely must have demanded the Uigur’s return.

Cambodia is a signatory to the refugee convention but in 2009 it forcibly deported 20 ethnic Uighur back to China.

However, Mr Borith said any refugees resettled under a deal struck between Cambodia and Australia would be safe.

“Different story, different from the refugees that we have discussed with our Australian friends to … settle here,” he said.

“The Uighur come here illegally. Far away from China to Cambodia, how many thousand miles is Cambodia?

“They come here illegally. We can say that they [are] all illegal immigrants. That is different from the refugees that we discussed today with Australia.

We will be watching this story because honestly a get-tough strategy is the only thing that could possibly deter the invasion of western countries (do you hear that Europe!  America!).

This is our 137th post in our Australia category, here.

 

Prediction: By 2050 expect 1 billion climate refugees roaming the world

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

So says Smithsonian magazine.

Climate refugees coming to a town near you? I love this illustration! It comes from Diplo (http://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/climate-refugees-new-concept-move)

 

Just when you thought the hysteria had cooled, here we go again!

From Watts up with that?:

Back in 2009, it was 200 million climate refugees according to this article in the NYT:

There could be 200 million of these climate refugees by 2050, according to a new policy paper by the International Organization for Migration, depending on the degree of climate disturbances.

Now the claim is up to 5 times that by 2050 in the space of five years, at this rate of increase, the entire world population will be ‘climate refugees’ by 2050.

The above is ‘Watts up’s’ lead-in to the Smithsonian article.

The International Organization for Migration is another US State Department contractor which presently plays a large role in getting refugees prepped to come to the US.

We have a whole category on ‘climate refugees’ here.