Day: June 2, 2017

Canada to expedite asylum claims from Yemen and Egypt

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is what Refugees Deeply is reporting here.  (To learn more about the pro-more-refugees site, go here.)

Trudeau and Trump earlier this year.

Obama junior (Justin Trudeau) is ‘welcoming’ the Muslim world to Canada while President Donald Trump has appealed the so-called travel ban case to the Supreme Court.
One of the countries whose citizens Trump would at least temporarily ban (as Trudeau welcomes them!) is Yemen.

Canada to Expedite Entry of Refugees From Yemen and Egypt

Canada has added war-torn Yemen and repressive Egypt to its fast-track asylum list. The inclusion of the two countries will mean swifter decisions on refugee status for nationals of those countries.

Egyptians and Yemenis seeking asylum will still have to secure a tourist or other visa to reach Canada and apply. It will mean a smaller hearing and quicker decision once they make it there.

Petra Molnar, a migration researcher, told the Middle East Eye that the expedited country list aims to recognize that conditions in certain countries may “require a faster processing.”

Canada’s existing expedited list includes Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, with Burundi and Afghanistan also expected to be added this month. [Yikes!–ed]

A claimant from one of the designated countries still has to prove his or her need for protection.

Yemen is in a state of civil war that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, with 19 million of its 28 million people in need of aid. Egypt under the government of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has locked up hundreds of thousands of people in a crackdown on all forms of opposition.

Readers, most of those al-Sisi is trying to control are the Muslim Brotherhood agitators.  The ‘Brothers’ are banned in Egypt.  At one point Donald Trump talked tough about banning them here as well.
I have 196 previous posts on Canada, go here to learn more about what is happening north of our unsecured border.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees in US to lobby Trump Admin; needs more of your money

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment


There is nothing unexpected about this interview of UNHCR Filippo Grandi during his trip to Washington this week in hopes of getting a commitment by the Trump Administration for more refugees to be sent to your towns and more money for the UNHCR’s ‘vital’ work.
But, what prompted me to bother writing about it, is a strange omission in the subtitles (the original video this morning had subtitles) and text transcript of the PBS youtube clip.
LOL! The title of the interview is: U.N. refugee chief hopes for ‘robust’ resettlement programs in U.S. They love that word “robust” in relation to refugee resettlement. Pay attention going forward and you will see it used everywhere in the Leftwing media.
For new readers, it is the UNHCR which picks the majority of the refugees coming to the US. (BTW, UNHCR refers both to the man and to the agency).
Here is a snip of the text from PBS:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Brutal wars in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have forced the world’s populations of refugees and displaced persons to near record highs.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signaled its intention to substantially change U.S. refugee policy.

Filippo Grandi, who is the United Nations’ top official leading the response to the refugee crisis, is in Washington this week for meetings at the White House and Pentagon.

Our William Brangham sat down with him earlier this evening.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Hi, Commissioner Filippo Grandi. Welcome.

At this point they yak about security screening, blah, blah, blah and Grandi says how excited he is by words Ambassador Nikki Haley recently uttered in favor of more refugee protection by the US.
Then this:

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lastly, a quick question on funding.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees glass-fronted building in posh Geneva. Imagine what this costs to staff and run in Switzerland! American taxpayers pay 37% of it! ($1.5 billion of an annual $4 billion budget).

I know this is obviously an enormous challenge for the U.N. Do you have enough money to do the work you need to do?

FILIPPO GRANDI: Certainly not.

Our budget last year was calculated at 7 billion U.S. dollars, 2016. We got billion U.S. dollars. So about 55 percent of our needs the covered. This means that we do a lot of prioritization. And we prioritize, evidently. With so many refugee crises, with 65 million refugees and displaced people around the world, we have to prioritize lifesaving activities.

What does that mean? Why is the sentence in red missing some facts?  Was his accent so thick that PBS couldn’t accurately transcribe what he said?
In fact, when I checked the video (you can see it here at about 4:58), there is a key word missing.  What is the key word (a number)—he said: We got $4 billion U.S. dollars (and his English is very good).  So why did PBS leave out such an important bit of news?
Are they saying that the US supplies $4 billion?  No, see here.  The $7 billion figure Grandi throws out is just their DREAM budget.  They get about $4 billion from all sources and the US ponies up $1.5 billion (Obama dollars) of that.

My suggestion for trimming the budget! Get rid of that grandiose building in Switzerland!

Endnote: Watch for it—a photo of Grandi with Senator John McCain (and or Lindsey Graham) will show up. Both Senators can be counted on to pressure Trump (the meany) for more refugee spending and for more refugee laborers for your towns and cities.