Catholic Charities placing Somalis from Uganda refugee camp in Minnesota

The other day when I wrote about the large number of Somalis entering the US from refugee camps in Kenya, I wondered who were all the refugees coming from Uganda and here we learn they are Somalis too!
We have written so many posts about Somalis/Catholic Charities in Minnesota, I have lost track. But, I do remember when I first learned that it was three ostensibly Christian federal refugee contractors who first placed Muslim Somalis in Minnesota decades ago,and they are still at it.  See that 2011 post here.
It was the generous welfare that made Minnesota so attractive to these resettlement contracting agencies.
 

nakivale-refugee-camp-uganda
Somali Muslims are being placed in Minnesota from Nakivale Refugee Camp in Uganda.

 
Here is the story that caught my eye just now, from CNS news:

A Somali couple with three children is seeking a new life in Minnesota thanks to a Catholic Charities’ resettlement program that cites a Christian imperative for its work.

“Now the family is together and thankful for their new home. While they are learning about Minnesota and adjusting to the cold weather, they have a place to live and food in the cupboards,” Julia Jenson, Catholic Charities St. Paul-Minneapolis director of external affairs and communications, told CNA.

The family comes from the Nakivale refugee camp in Uganda, which hosts 100,000 Somalis who have fled conflict at home.

[….]

laurie-ohmann
Laurie Ohmann: the Pope tells us to work with the “poor and the vulnerable in our community.” So why not help the American poor before bringing in third world poor? Photo: https://www.cctwincities.org/our-organization/our-people/leadership/

For Ohmann [Laurie Ohmann, senior vice president of client services and community partnerships at Catholic Charities of St. Paul-Minneapolis], the agency’s motive for refugee resettlement is clear.

“It’s an issue of human dignity and supporting their participation in our economic and cultural life,” she said. [Refugee resettlement is about protecting people from persecution, not about economic and cultural opportunities we can give them. See recent report about a Minnesota Somali safely going home to Somalia!—ed]

She cited the principles of Catholic social teaching and Pope Francis’ prominence in “welcoming the stranger and working with the poor and the vulnerable in our community.”

[….]

Ohmann acknowledged some Americans’ safety concerns about refugees.

Ohmann then goes through the usual talking points about security screening, which we have learned is pretty much useless with nomadic Somalis who have no records and whose children have grown up to become jihadists right here in America!  See my answer, here, to their talking points about their assertion that refugees are harmless.
And, much to the reporter’s credit for bringing up another of Catholic Charities placement—the Ohio State stabber! So much for vetting!

Among those aided by Catholic Charities affiliates was Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the 20-year-old who in November drove a car into a crowd at Ohio State University then started to stab passersby before he was shot and killed by a campus police officer. The attacker hurt 11 people, one critically.

Artan had come to Dallas as a refugee from Somalia in June 2014 and stayed in Dallas with his six siblings and his mother for about three weeks before moving to Columbus, Ohio. They had been aided by Catholic Charities of Dallas after vetting by the U.S. State Department.

Dave Woodyard, the Dallas agency’s president and CEO, said there was nothing that stood out about Artan during his brief stay there. [There are many questions still unanswered about this family’s short stay in Dallas and their abrupt move to Ohio—ed]

More here.
See my HUGE archive on Minnesota by clicking here.
Warning to Trump transition… remember we are bringing in certain potentially dangerous ethnic groups from safe places in the world. So it is important not to say something like: “We will stop refugees from Somalia (the country).” We don’t take refugees from Somalia, we take Somalis who have spread out all over the world!

More news blaming Trump for Africans crossing in to Canada from US and asking for asylum

Expect to see a spike around the time when Trump takes office until refugees get a sense of the direction in which the new president may take immigration policy.

(Canadian Immigration lawyer Bashir Khan)

Readers might want to first check out a post from a few days ago where we reported that ‘refugees’ from Ghana were found freezing after a long walk across the US/Manitoba border, click here.
For new readers, just a reminder, we have a Canada category, here, with 186 previous posts going back nearly 10 years.
Canadian immigration lawyers are saying there is an increase in the number of mostly Somalis leaving the US and heading north and they predict that when Trump is inaugurated (in 9 days) the numbers will tick up even higher.
What concerned me most about this news is that if these Somalis were legally admitted to the US, they have nothing to fear.  Why bother risking their lives traveling to Canada?  So, that can only mean that they were in the US illegally and were possibly waiting on asylum claims to be processed and simply disappeared. How many more illegal Somalis are wandering around America?
Editor: I had previously posted a photo here that I now believe came from a fake news site. I apologize and have removed it.
From CBC Manitoba (hat tip: Joanne). Emphasis is mine:

The number of asylum seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border into Manitoba on foot instead of through official ports of entry has risen fivefold in the past three years. [Keep in mind that the numbers were going up before Trump even came on the scene!—ed]

In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, 68 people illegally crossed the international border near the small, southern Manitoba community of Emerson and claimed refugee status, according to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). That jumped to 340 in 2015-2016.

This fiscal year’s numbers have already surpassed that, with 410 asylum seekers making the journey between April and December 2016.

screenshot-131
Emerson is just north of the United States border at the point where the province of Manitoba and states of Minnesota and North Dakota meet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson,_Manitoba

According to Jacquie Callin, a CBSA spokeswoman, most of those crossing near Emerson are from Somalia, which has been wracked by civil war and political instability since the overthrow of military dictator Siad Barre in 1991.

Canada has the reputation of being a land of liberty and appeals to the unprecedented number of refugees displaced by the world’s various conflicts and crises, said immigration lawyer Bashir Khan. [Business must be booming for Mr. Khan!—ed]

[….]

CBSA reports 119 asylum seekers came to Manitoba in the coldest winter months between December 2015 and March 2016 without passing through a port of entry or border checkpoint.

Pay attention to this next line! Legitimate asylum seekers are to ask for asylum in the country in which they first arrive. If this international understanding was enforced everywhere then many of the problems the world is experiencing with migrants would be solved.  Instead migrants now believe they can wander around the world looking for the best deal! It is called asylum shopping.

Under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement signed in 2002, individuals must seek asylum in the country in which they first arrive, with a few exceptions. For instance, if a Somali refugee who arrived in the United States presented themselves at the Canadian border seeking asylum, they would be sent back to the U.S. unless they had family in Canada.  [But were the illegal border-crossers sent back, there is no mention!—ed]

[….]

People entering the country without visas or proper immigration papers have been spotted walking through fields and gravel roads near the border in Emerson, whose southern boundary borders the states of North Dakota and Minnesota.

[….]

RCMP D Division patrols 520 kilometres of the Canada-U.S. border, the world’s longest undefended border. When officers find a person trying to illegally cross, they bring them to the nearest port of entry to be assessed by a CBSA official.

If there’s no admissibility concerns and the person’s refugee claim is legitimate, they are released and a date is set for the claim to be heard.  [How many ever show up?—ed]

[….]

Khan said he expects to see a spike around the time when Trump takes office until refugees get a sense of the direction in which the new president may take immigration policy.

LOL! I bet some of you are wondering if you could hire buses to take loads to the border of Justin Trudeau’s ‘welcoming’ Canada.

Rep. Brian Babin says Donald Trump will stop that insane refugee deal with Australia

babin-victory-photo
Rep. Brian Babin called the Australia deal, where we would take ‘refugees’ who failed in their asylum claims to Australia, and place them instead into your American towns, “madness.”

If you don’t know what deal I’m talking about, click here.
From The Sydney Morning Herald (hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum):

Donald Trump “will do everything in his power” to halt the refugee deal between Australia and the US, according to a hardline Texan congressman who is confident no resettlements will ever take place from Manus Island or Nauru.

More than two months after the agreement between outgoing President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was announced, slow progress on applications and lengthy security vetting by the US Department of Homeland Security is raising fear among those held in the Australian offshore immigration detention centres, ahead of Mr Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

More here.
By the way, it was this news that sent me to the ‘Processing Country’ maps that I wrote about earlier to see if we processed anyone in from Australia lately. I didn’t see any.

Progressives take lessons from the Tea Party movement to try to beat Trump agenda

screenshot-128
I wonder if the ‘Hill’ youngsters know that Lincoln was a Republican?

This isn’t about refugees per se, but as you get geared up to go to battle with Congress to push them to get tough on immigration and to reform/trash the US Refugee Admissions Program, this might be a helpful guide to what the other side is going to do!
They know, as you should, that the battle will ultimately be in Congress!
Sent to me by a reader, click here to learn more, and go here to access the document.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Right!

If you’ve been a longtime Tea Party activist and weren’t sure you were getting things accomplished, you will be happy to see that the other side thinks you were highly successful!
I admit I didn’t read the whole thing yet, I just thought I should get it out quickly. Let me know if  you see anything that we should make particular note of!
 
screenshot-129
 

Don't miss James Simpson's prescription for what must be done about the UN/US Refugee Admissions program

Investigative journalist, author and popular speaker James Simpson has penned an excellent overview of the Refugee Admissions Program published at The Federalist a few days ago.
Full of facts and figures with many links to more information, it is entitled:

Shut Down America’s Refugee Programs Before They Turn Us Into Germany

Simpson concludes with this prescription for the incoming Trump administration reflecting my views as well:

The resettlement program is dangerous, expensive, and unfair to Americans. Its structure encourages endless growth, systemic corruption, cronyism, secrecy, and duplicity. The refugee program must be put on hold. Members of Congress have called for a moratorium, and such legislation is circulating. H.R. 3314, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act, has 86 co-sponsors.

simpson
James Simpson

But legislation isn’t needed. On his first day in office, Trump can pause the entire program by simply resetting the annual refugee targets to whatever number has already been reached this fiscal year. The 1980 Refugee Act gives him authority to do this, and subsequent court decisions have declared Congress’s refugee resettlement oversight authority as advisory only.

Trump has stated his desire to halt resettlement from nations of terrorism concern. It would be wiser to pause the entire program.

Once paused, the entire system must be either trashed or completely reformed. Congress must do that, and by pausing the program it puts the hammer over reluctant Congressional leaders’ heads! If they want to admit refugees to the US, they can reform it or completely scrap the present law and start all over. But, that fight must be fought.

Trump could easily do what George Bush did in the wake of 9/11!

There is precedent for pausing the program.  George Bush partially paused it in the two years following 9/11.  I just had a look at the ORR Annual Report to Congress for 2003 and entry tables*** are telling.  We went from admitting 94,226 refugees in FY2000, and 87,110 in FY2001 to the following numbers for FY02 and FY03: 45,850 and 39,177 respectively.
Going back to my previous  post where I reported that we have admitted 25,671 refugees in the first 90 days of this fiscal year, if that rate continues until January 20th (adding another 5,704) that means by inauguration day the number for this fiscal year will be 31,375.   And, if Trump doesn’t pause it until January 30th, then we are looking at 34,228 having entered by then (not far off of the Bush numbers).

Your work is not over because Trump must take the initiative to change the law, not just halt or slow the flow during his term in office.
So, pausing, or giving the program a ‘time-out,’ when Trump enters office will not be unprecedented or unreasonable to help assure our safety and will throw the ball to Congress where the law must be changed or in 4-8 years we will be back to square one.

***BTW, I was  interested to see the dramatic drop in Somali numbers from 2001 (4,940) to 2002 (242!). Worried about Somalis weren’t they!