Haitian 'temporary' refugees to test Trump's resolve on immigration

I’ve written about ‘Temporary Protected Status’ over the years as a side issue here at RRW.  But, like the Diversity Visa Lottery, it begs for more attention from some intrepid wannabe blogger who should take on the issue as a sole priority and really do it justice.

TPS is basically a scam, it is rarely temporary!
The US, in its humanitarian zeal (supposedly), allows certain nationals who got in to the US in some other way (usually illegally) to stay if their home country cannot take them back for some extenuating reason (big storm, earthquake, civil war). Under TPS, these nationals become temporary refugees allowed to stay and work in America.
Then every 18 months, a TPS designation is extended for another 18 months and this can go on for years.
Click here to learn more and see the countries eligible for this special deal right now.  Note that Hondurans have had their special status extended ever since 1999.  El Salvador since 2001.
And, since we have such a huge refugee program from Somalia, I have never understood why Somalis have TPS.
At one point, during the Bush presidency (when he was extending again some TPS designation), I came to understand that those countries, like El Salvador, loved this program because their people working legally in the US were propping up the Salvadoran economy with their remittances (money sent out of the US economy to the third world country).
Here is the latest from the Miami Herald.  You see what happens, after years and years in the US, these people have jobs, houses, kids in school and they use that argument—you can’t possibly be so mean to send us back now—against us!
BTW, all of those on TPS had their hopes dashed when the ‘Gang of Eight’ legislation failed in Congress a few years ago. They were hoping for amnesty so they would never have to leave.
Miami Herald:

Immigration attorney Little calls the proposal to not extend TEMPORARY status to Haitians “heartless and stupid.”

The Trump administration is recommending sending tens of thousands of Haitians back to their homeland because it believes conditions have significantly improved in the disaster-prone, poverty-stricken nation.

[….]

James McCament, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Temporary Protected Status, the immigration relief that has allowed Haitians to live and work freely in the United States, should be terminated. The Obama administration granted the status following the earthquake, which left more than 300,000 dead, 1.5 million injured and an equal number homeless.

“Conditions in Haiti no longer support its designation for TPS,” McCament said in a memo to U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary John F. Kelly obtained by the Miami Herald.

McCament’s recommendations came as a surprise to many, including Haitian and immigration advocates who have been pushing for the extension of TPS before July 22, when it is up for renewal.

Help OUR economy?  Someone should do a study about how much of our money leaves our economy through remittances!

“TPS beneficiaries contribute greatly to our economy,” said attorney Cheryl Little, whose Americans for Immigrant Justice organization also represents some of the estimated 300,000 Central Americans who have been enjoying the special status since 1999. “They are growing our economy and to suddenly say, ‘There is a new sheriff in town, pack your bags,’ it’s heartless and it’s stupid.”

The Center for American Progress had been closely monitoring the decision on Haiti because it’s the “first test of this administration’s commitment to handle TPS determinations in an apolitical manner that respects human rights and the letter of the law,” said Tom Jawetz, the center’s vice president for immigration policy.

It is a test for CAP and a test for those of us who supported Trump’s campaign promises!
Continue here for lots more at the Miami Herald clearly advocating for Haitians to stay!
One last thing! TPS allows those so designated to live and work here as if they were legal immigrants. And, it allows them to get drivers’ licenses.  It does not allow them to vote, but with drivers’ licenses, who is going to stop them?

Pence in Australia: Sure! We will be taking over 1,000 illegal aliens now held in Australian detention

Donald Trump called it a “dumb deal,” but your American town may soon see some of the 1,250 illegal aliens, who attempted to get to Australia by boat and have been housed in detention centers, flown in and given apartments and homes where you live.  They won’t be living next door to Vice President Pence for sure!
 

Some of these men will be coming to your town!

 
Here is what AP is reporting at the Japan Times (emphasis is mine) about a deal the Obama State Department left for Trump:

SYDNEY – Vice President Mike Pence and Australia’s prime minister brushed off any lingering hostility over a contentious refugee deal and joined forces on Saturday to urge China to take a greater role in pressuring North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons program.

Pence and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull repeatedly praised the decades-long American-Australian alliance following a meeting in Sydney, with the vice president thanking Turnbull for calling on Beijing to play a more active part in the international effort to de-escalate Pyongyang’s nuclear threat.

Pence kissing up to Turnbull!

The two leaders appeared at pains to present a united front following an unusual period of tension between the longtime allies that was sparked by a spat between Turnbull and President Donald Trump over a refugee resettlement deal struck by the Obama administration.

Pence said Saturday that the U.S. would honor the agreement even if it didn’t agree with it. Under the deal, the U.S. would take up to 1,250 refugees that Australia houses in detention camps on the Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Trump’s anger over the agreement led to a tense phone call with Turnbull in January and an angry tweet in which the president called the deal “dumb.”

“President Trump has made it clear that we’ll honor the agreement — that doesn’t mean we admire the agreement,” Pence said during a joint news conference with Turnbull.

So some small American towns and cities are going to get illegal aliens (mostly Muslim men) who failed to be approved for asylum in Australia! Disgusting!
Here is a portion of a letter from the chairmen of both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees sent to the Obama Administration in November identifying which countries the illegal aliens are from (the “stateless” are most likely Rohingya from Bangladesh or Burma).
 

 
All of our posts on the Australian “dumb deal” are here.
And, by the way, beginning in 2012, I testified at US Dept. of State hearings that there were ten reasons a moratorium on refugee admissions should be put in place.  One thing I said must be done is to stop using the refugee program to move people around the world just to address some other foreign policy objective.
Only people who are truly refugees, in need of humanitarian assistance, should be considered for resettlement.  This Australia deal is exactly what I had in mind when I presented my testimony.  This deal is only to help the Turnbull government out of a sticky situation. Here is my #7:

7)   Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government,especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.

Let the White House know how you feel by clicking here (do it even if you have done it before!). 

And, Chairmen Grassley and Goodlatte are not off the hook either, they could pressure this White House (they were all too happy to pressure the Obama White House) on the subject!
All of my posts about Trump’s refugee policies are archived in Trump Watch!

Trump Admin comes in at just short of 900 refugees in past week; Syrian numbers way down

206 Refugees from DR Congo came in this past week. In 2013, Obama told the UN that we would take 50,000 from the DR Congo over 5 years. We are up to 38,490 right now. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2013/06/05/state-department-refugee-program-head-honcho-made-some-news-last-month/

We were shocked to learn here that, although Donald Trump said he wanted a 120-day moratorium on refugee resettlement so as to evaluate whether we are doing “extreme vetting,” the US State Department would be admitting 900 refugees a week.
I just checked the numbers at Wrapsnet and from last Friday (4/14) to yesterday, we admitted 882. So, they are sticking with that goal which we believe will put them on target for an average number of refugees for the fiscal year—somewhere just over 60,000.
Trump also had said he was lowering the ceiling for FY17 to 50,000.
Yesterday it was at 41,553. 
We will be watching to see if he continues to bring them in when that number is reached, at this rate, in about 10 weeks. (The fiscal year ends on September 30th.)

The big winners this past week were refugees from the DR Congo (206), Iraq (149) and Burma (114). Syrians were way down at 27 and 66 Somalis came in over those seven days.

Minnesota Somali legislator thinks Islamic terrorists can collect on their life insurance policies

By voting against a bill that would block life insurance payments to terrorists killed while killing Americans, Minnesota legislator Ilhan Omar shows her allegiance to her people.
From Leo Hohmann at WND:

She burst on the scene last August when she upset a 44-year incumbent Democrat in the Minnesota state primary elections to become the nation’s first female Muslim state legislator.

Omar as the inspiration for a Somali Muslim Barbie! Yuk!

Ilhan Omar, the 34-year-old community organizer who came to America as a refugee from Somalia, was touted by Democrats as a model success story.

“From a refugee camp to the State Capitol with intelligence and insight,” beamed former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who endorsed Omar. “This is a wonderful story to tell as Americans, and a great source of pride for the state of Minnesota’s open arms.”

But on Thursday Omar made her mark in another way.

She was one of only two members of the Minnesota State House to vote against a bill that would allow life insurance companies to deny payouts to the beneficiaries of terrorists who die in violent attacks on Americans.

The House voted 127-2 to pass the bill, which now moves on to a vote in the State Senate.

Omar, who represents the heavily immigrant Cedar Riverside area of Minneapolis, was joined by fellow Democratic Rep. John Lesch of St. Paul in voting against the bill.

Omar’s vote sticks out because at least 42 Somali refugees have been confirmed by the FBI to have left the U.S. to join overseas terrorist organizations, including al-Shabab, the al-Qaida affiliate in Somalia, and ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

[….]

The Minnesota insurance bill was introduced by Rep. Joe Hoppe, R-Chaska, in response to Syed Farook’s jihadist rampage in San Bernardino, California, in December 2015 in which he shot and killed 14 people and injured 22 at an office Christmas party. Farook made sure his life insurance policies worth $275,000 were valid before conducting the deadly shooting with help from his wife, Tashfeen Malik.

After Farook died in a shootout with police, his mother fought to remain the beneficiary of the life insurance policies. The insurance company balked and the case has gone to court.

There is much, much more including an interview with our friend Debra Anderson, continue here.
See our previous posts on Omar by clicking here.
Why can’t someone in Congress introduce (and get passed!) a federal bill to bar life insurance payouts in cases like the San Bernardino slaughter.  There will surely be more as the US Muslim population increases!
Endnote: There will be many more Muslim legislators like Omar as well if this group has it’s way:  See Jetpac Inc.

Measles outbreak in Minnesota Somali community; Muslim parents refuse to vaccinate children

This article at Mic Daily makes it sound like it is all about a fear that vaccines cause autism in vaccinated children.  However not mentioned is the Islamic prohibition on the use of vaccines.
Here is the story at Mic Network Inc.  Golly gee, why can’t we get our message heard, say health officials.

Minneapolis Doctor Madlon-Kay: We aren’t making any headway in convincing them that vaccines are safe.

Minnesota’s Hennepin County is in the midst of the state’s largest measles outbreak since 2011. Nine cases have been reported since last week, and officials expect the number to rise.

So far, all of the cases are among unvaccinated children. They have something else in common too: The affected children are all part of Minneapolis and St. Paul’s Somali-American community. According to a health department official, Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community has been a particular target of the anti-vaccination movement, colloquially known as “anti-vaxxers.”

“They’re very much engaged with and targeting this community,” Kris Ehresmann, infectious disease division director at the Minnesota Health Department, said in a phone call Wednesday.

According to Ehresmann, anti-vaccine groups began to target the Somali community around 2008, amid concerns about autism among Somali-American children. Anti-vaccine groups started reaching out to the Somali community and showing up at community health meetings, she said, disseminating misinformation linking autism to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or MMR.

Since then, the population has seen a “steady decline in MMR vaccine rates.”

[….]

She [Dr. Diane Madlon-Kay, a practicing physician who has studied the low vaccine rates among Minnesota’s Somali community] and other doctors who serve that population have had little luck dispelling myths about autism and vaccines that travel quickly though the community via word-of-mouth, she said.

“We don’t seem to be making any headway with that at all,” Madlon-Kay said.

Despite countless studies indicating there’s no connection between vaccines and autism, Madlon-Kay doesn’t have much hope that science will change the minds of scared parents within the Somali community anytime soon.

Continue reading here.

What about Islam?

Not a word in the story about Islam and vaccines which is likely the bigger reason why health officials can’t educate the Somalis.  In only a few minutes search, here is one of many articles about “religious” prohibitions in Islam.

Islam and Medical Science Must Oppose Vaccination

The case against vaccination is first an Islamic one, based on Islamic ethos regarding the perfection of the natural human body’s immune defence system, empowered by great and prophetic guidance to avoid most infections. The case against vaccination is also a medical and health-related one. Incredible evidence, unbeknownst to most, has emerged in the West regarding the many serious health hazards that affect those who have been vaccinated.

For inquisitive minds, we have hundreds of articles about refugees and health issues (including mental health issues) in our ‘Health Issues’ category, here.  Measles is not the worst illness you will find there.