RRW weekly round-up for week ending March 21st; best day ever last week!

We haven’t posted a round-up for a few weeks because we have been busy, but so has RRW.  Last week we set our biggest one day record with our post on Spartanburg, SC.  That post was clicked on by over 20,000 readers which we think is great for a small narrowly-focused blog like this one.

We hope a number of you let Rep. Trey Gowdy (chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for the refugee program) know how you feel!

This week Spartanburg still tops the list of most-read posts for the week.  See our daily top posts in the right hand sidebar.

Top three posts for the week are:

1) Breaking News: Spartanburg, South Carolina targeted to be colonized as next refugee ‘seed’ community

2) A reader from Malta gives us a look at what the illegal aliens are doing to the tiny island nation

3) Our fact sheet

Top countries (besides the US) from which readers came to visit RRW:

Canada

UK

Australia

Thailand

Germany

European Union (still don’t know why this is here when we have individual country stats)

Netherlands

India

France

Ireland

As we mentioned previously, the primary purpose of our occasional weekly updates is to help new readers get oriented and to help you all find useful information among our 6,000 plus posts!

For new readers!

Since we get new readers every day, here is my usual spiel with two points I need to continue to make:

First, we do screen our comments and don’t post any that threaten any kind of violence and we don’t post ones filled with foul language.  An occasional expletive might slip in if the comment is otherwise a good one.  You are always free to disagree with our point of view if you follow those two simple rules.

And the other thing I want to mention is about e-mails that come to you every time we post.  They come directly from wordpress to subscribers.  We don’t send out e-mails.  So, if we are posting too much for your e-mail inbox, then just unsubscribe and visit RRW when you have the time I understand completely about too many e-mails!  You might want to simply follow us on twitter or on facebook (below).

This is where you can find information (in addition to our fact sheet). We have over 6,000 posts.

*  See our categories (left hand sidebar)

*  See the tag clouds (right hand sidebar)

*  Also, we have a great search function and since neither the categories nor the tags go all the way back to our first posts more than seven years ago, use the search window with a few key words.  You might want to first try your city, state, or country to see what we have reported from there over the years.

Readers from Europe should search for key words ‘Invasion of Europe’ for all of our many posts on the migration crisis on the Continent.

By the way, our category entitled ‘where to find information’ is filled with reports and documents, but with 330 posts archived there, it is pretty unwieldy now.

Past weekly roundups can be found in our category entitled ‘blogging.’

If you wish to be notified when we post, consider subscribing or follow us on twitter (@refugeewatcher) or facebook (RefugeeInfoResource).  ‘Like us’ on facebook!

And apologies to all who e-mail and comment, sorry if I don’t respond much, there are just not enough hours in my day!

It occurs to me that I do see everyone’s comments to posts because we do screen them (no foul language, no threats), so if you have something you want me to see, I don’t at all mind if you send the link as a comment to a post, even if it’s off-topic.

To regular readers, thank you for your continued concern for this very important issue.

P.S.  In case you are wondering, this blog is a charitable enterprise on the part of its writers!

Ireland turns down some Syrian refugees due to enormous anticipated medical costs

As theInvasion of Europe continues, Irish hospitals seem to have some common sense.

From the Irish Times:

At the time of this report, Germany said they will take 20,000 Syrians and the US said we will take an “open-ended number.” Now we know the US State Department is shooting for 2,000 before Sept. 30th of this year. Chart here: http://www.thejournal.ie/syrian-refugees-ireland-2-1565934-Jul2014/

A number of refugees due for resettlement in Ireland have been diverted to other countries after the Health Service Executive said they would not be offered medical treatment here.

In five cases involving programme refugees since 2011, the HSE when asked to provide treatment in the Irish health service did not do so, it has confirmed. “The HSE reviews the medical details of these people before they travel. In cases where treatment was not offered in Ireland, it was felt that it was not in the best interest of the applicant. These cases are then referred to another country for consideration,” a spokeswoman said.

Over the same period, it has treated 15 programme refugees with medical needs and it hopes to treat five more this year.

Remember!  It is the UN that is calling the shots and putting pressure on western countries to take refugees.

Programme refugees have been invited to live here by the State under the auspices of the UN Refugee Agency’s Resettlement Programme.

Almost 280 programme refugees from various countries were received by Ireland between 2011 and 2014.

According to the HSE, 90 Syrian refugees were resettled in this country since October 2014. A further 220 refugees are expected to arrive in 2015 and in 2016.

Go here to learn more about Ireland and refugee problems.

Syrian Muslim refugees headed to Indianapolis: to build Obama seed community?

This is a really informative news report from reporter Gretchen Frazee at Indiana Public Media.  The story begins with a warm introduction to a Syrian family which has just arrived in Indianapolis with the help of federal resettlement contractor Exodus Refugee Immigration which is a subcontractor of both Church World Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries (two of the big nine contractors).

You can read the warm and fuzzy part yourselves, then this (emphasis is mine):

The U.S. began bringing in Syrian refugees in October and expects to allow in a total of 2,000 by the end of the fiscal year.  [This fiscal year ends September 30th, 2015. Yesterday we learned that the contractors are pushing Obama to raise the ceiling for Syrians.—ed]

One of the pressing questions we have (and most readers concerned for their towns have) is how is a town or city chosen to be the next resettlement site for a group of new refugees.

We are told that one reason Indianapolis was chosen is that the Islamic Society of North America is nearby (ahhhhh!).

Carleen Miller, Executive Director Exodus Refugee Immigration: “This year the number will be small…then their relatives will come and then their relatives will come.”

The State Department normally sends refugees to cities where they have friends or family. But Lababidi and Alhamoud didn’t know anyone in the U.S., so the government used a kind of formula to determine which location had the resources to best meet their needs.  The department determined that place was Indiana.  [I sure would like to see this formula!—ed]

“The main thing is that refugees go to a place that’s welcoming, that has a cost of living they can survive in, that has employment and opportunities,” says Carleen Miller, the executive director of Exodus Refugee Immigration, which is handling Syrian families’ resettlement in Indianapolis.

She points out that the Islamic Society of North America is based just outside of Indianapolis in Plainfield. There is also a mosque which many Syrians attend in Fishers and a group of Christian Syrians at a nearby church.

“There are people who are interested in Syrians in our city, so it makes for a good environment for them to be successful,” Miller says.

Then there is a very long section on security concerns.

Regular readers know that the FBI testified in Congress a few weeks ago that it was virtually impossible to properly screen the Syrians.

Exodus Refugee Immigration has resettled three Syrian refugee families in Indianapolis so far.

Miller calls the process long and arduous.

“The U.S. has the most rigorous screening process where they do at least five security checks on refugees coming into the country,” she says.

Syrians are also receiving additional scrutiny, although State Department officials aren’t saying exactly what that is.

“It’s a hard balance to strike,” says former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana, who served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran.

“You want to welcome these people into this country and into the state, but at the same time you want to be careful about it. You want to trust, but you want to verify,” Hamilton says.

The cause for concern and an extra watchful eye is the threat of radicals who might try to enter the U.S. as refugees. Even while most people acknowledge the vast majority of people applying for refugee status are harmless and are in a real need of help, the small possibility of extremists trying to get into the U.S. via refugee status is raising questions.

[….]

“If it’s a very young person, a child, you probably don’t need to follow that person closely,” he says. “An elderly person, likewise. The people you really have to keep your eye on, to be blunt about it, are young men. They’re not exclusively the problem, but they’re the overwhelming part of the problem.”

Oh, yeh, I bet the Islamic Society of North America and CAIR aren’t going to like this!

Hamilton says that’s why police must keep tabs on refugees after they enter the country — often through random checks of the places they frequent, such as the churches or mosques they attend — but he is quick to reiterate that in the overwhelming majority of cases, refugees are hard working people who simply want to make a better life for themselves and their families.  [Definitely keep an eye on those Christian terrorists!—ed]

Spartanburg, SC and every town in America faced with “welcoming” refugees pay attention to this.  Never truer words were said:  Obama seed community will grow!

The U.S. cannot say how many more Syrians might come to Indiana specifically, but service providers are doing their best to prepare because refugee populations tend to build on each other.

“This year the number will be small and it may grow as we get a few families, and then their relatives will come and then their relatives will come,” Miller says.

Read this whole article I’ve only snipped some of the news that interested me.  There is a discussion about refugee mental health and about how the Burmese have overwhelmed Fort Wayne, Indiana—from refugee resettlement and from secondary migration.

Several years ago former Indiana Senator Richard Lugar obtained a GAO Report on the problem of refugee overload to towns and cities and it appears to have been just an exercise in futility as it appears to have been simply thrown down a rat hole.

Go here for our archive on Indiana.  We have published many posts on problems in the state.  We first became aware of those problems when the Health Department in Fort Wayne was overwhelmed with refugee TB cases in 2007.

An afterthought:  Check out the contractors most recent Form 990 here.  They took in $2,120,954 and only $237,255 might have come from non-taxpayer funds (p. 9).  Remember this is a business, it is not funded by passing the plate at church on Sunday!