State Dept: Surge of Syrians to arrive in 2015-2016

08/11/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In light of the fact that Syrians have arrived in Georgia and that news is by far our most-read post of the last week, I went out scouting for more news on the Syrian refugee plans of the US State Department and found a story I missed in June (at the time of World Refugee Day) where a State Department honcho told a group in Florida that the big crush of Syrians would begin arriving late in 2015.

Simon Henshaw: significant amount of Syrian refugees to enter the US next year! http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/bureau/213334.htm

From WMNF 88.5:

Nearly 30,000 refugees come into Florida every year from countries all over the world.

With ongoing violence in Syria, Simon Henshaw from the State Department says very few Syrian refugees have arrived in the U.S., but that’s about to change.

“We have pledged to take a significant number and we will start interviewing Syrian refugees soon. But it takes about 18-24 months for someone to run through our system. So, we will not, as a country, see a significant amount of Syrian refugees come into the U.S. until the end of next year and then into 2016.”

Henshaw works in the bureau of population, refugees and migration. He’s visiting Tampa on World Refugee Day to see how Tampa is integrating refugees. Most are from places like Haiti and Cuba where refugees have been displaced for years.

The number of Syrians being bandied about (for resettlement to the US) is 12,000-15,000 per year.

I don’t know if this is great timing—if the feds start pouring Syrian Muslims into the US in a Presidential election year, the voting public will not be thrilled (just saying!).

Expect the time table to be sped up as surely the UN is losing patience with the US on the issue.

Chinese, pretending to be persecuted Christians, caught at the US border

08/11/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Cheat sheet! Where was Jesus born? Name his apostles! When is Christmas?

It isn’t just the “children” from Central America streaming across the wide open US southern border as this ABC News team discovered. Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers.’

Sign at the US border. http://patdollard.com/2014/08/usmexico-border-signs-posted-for-illegals-increasingly-written-in-chinese/

From ABC-13 Eyewitness News (emphasis is mine):

But children are only part of the story.

And ABC-13 saw first hand why. As the Ted Oberg Investigates team was walking with Border Patrol agents along the trees and scrub brush about 500 feet from the Rio Grande, a group of nine men wandered out of a thicket.

The nine were from China.

With the help of ABC-13 colleague Miya Shay translating on the phone ABC-13 learned the men said that they are from various provinces in China. They first flew to France, they said — it was unclear if they were smuggled — and then to Mexico.

They were then taken across the Rio Grande in a boat to the shores of Texas near where ABC-13 was walking.

“China? They will pay somewhere from 30 to 40 thousand dollars to be smuggled,” Bidegain said. “They came through the same network in Mexico as everyone else.”

Unlike the children who swim across, these men were dry. They carried water in plastic soda bottles.

They also were prepared in another way.

ABC-13 found a document one of the men had dropped in the brush. It was a Christian checklist, with answers to questions such as, “Where was Jesus born, where did he grow up,” “Jesus had how many apostles.. what are their names,” and “When is Christmas.”

There are also hand-written scribbles on the bottom of the note. The name the founder of a local church. A reference to 1922, the year the church was founded. And the location of the church, Fuzhou, China.

Border Patrol agents said this makes it appear they were likely coached to tell agents that they wanted to seek asylum in the US because they were Christian with credible fear of persecution in their home province of China.

“A lot will claim to be Christian,” Bidegain said. “They are coached on the story.”

And it’s not just the Chinese.

There is more, read it all.

As we have previously reported, Chinese “asylum seekers” are the most fortunate of all would-be political refugees reaching our shores on their own—-the largest number of successful asylum seekers in the US are Chinese. See Homeland Security’s ‘Annual Flow Report’ (page 6) for stats, here. As far as I can tell this 2012 report is the most recent one available. Where is 2013???

Minneapolis/St.Paul: Catholic Church and school have become Muslim Somali Center

08/11/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and the Lutherans are helping make it happen!

Maybe you’ve seen this news, it all happened earlier this summer.

Just last Friday, we gave you an update from Syracuse where another Catholic Church became a mosque and it makes me wonder—in how many cities is this happening?

Former St. Johns Catholic Church with crosses now removed.

From the Twin Cities Daily Planet:

On Saturday, July 12, I sat down to talk with Feisal Elmi, a representative of the Darul Uloom Islamic Center, the new owner of the buildings on East 5th Street previously occupied by St. John’s Catholic Church and school.

As a former Catholic, I didn’t know much about Islam, so Feisal began with the basics.

After the basics of Islam are discussed:

The center’s goal is to be a catalyst for the growth of small business in the community, and its leaders see East 7th Street as a prime location for Somali stores and restaurants, akin to the Karmel Mall in South Minneapolis.

Somali refugees are still arriving from that war-torn country. Feisal told me that the first wave of Somali immigrants to Minnesota were refugees, but tended to be from the wealthier strata of Somali society, while the most recent ones are in more desperate circumstances. A couple of generations ago, many of them were Ethiopians who fled to Somalia; now, they are seeking to escape the strife in Somalia. The former rectory at St. John’s is housing some of these new arrivals, and the center will provide assistance in finding them permanent housing***. As with many mass inflows of refugees, they are sponsored by religious agencies (in this case, Lutheran Social Services), and must qualify for refugee status under federal law.

[….]

An Islamic center is something new in our neighborhood, but it wasn’t all that long ago that the St. John’s campus was the religious home of newly-arrived Irish immigrants, and Sacred Heart Catholic Church that of the German Catholics. If there’s one constant about the East Side, it’s that it’s always changing.

***It sounds like this Somali Center has become a refugee subcontractor, if the reporter has this right.

Be sure to see this good blog post from a Catholic priest.

How did we get so many Somalis in Minnesota?—thank Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and World Relief Minnesota (Evangelicals). Read all about it at one of our most read posts (from 2011).