Month: August 2017

Haitians (fearing Trump) heading to Canada found in possession of child porn

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Hey, Justin! You are welcome to them!

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been saying, even before Trump was actually elected, that Canada would take ‘refugees’ the US didn’t want.  So gosh, what did those darn refugee rejects (the Somalis and now the Haitians) do?  They took his word for it and are heading en masse to the land of maple syrup.

From Canada24News (hat tip: Joanne):

Multiple refugee claimants have been found in possession of child pornography at or near the Quebec border crossing where an influx of hundreds of asylum seekers crossing from New York state has led the Canadian government to set up a border camp, Global News has learned.

The reference is to the expiring ‘Temporary Protected Status’ for Haitians who were allowed to stay in the US TEMPORARILY after the Earthquake there in 2010. They are not legitimate refugees escaping persecution.  Go here to see the video of the Haitians arriving in Canada. https://eblnews.com/video/canada-haitian-asylum-seekers-arrive-canada-us-180842

 

In a memorandum to officers of the Canadian Border Services Agency this week, acting CBSA assistant director Daniel St-Arnaud outlines a set of guidelines for officers at and near the St-Bernard-de-Lacolle crossing to deal with the illicit material. The guidelines will “come into effect immediately” and remain until national guidelines are put in place.

According to a source, officials in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle have in recent months found “four or five” refugee claimants from Haiti in possession of child pornography, which prompted the memorandum.

A spokesperson for Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Ralph Goodale confirmed two cases have resulted in criminal proceedings. “We can confirm that, following an investigation, two people have been charged by the Quebec Direction des Poursuites Criminelles et Pénales with possession and importation of child pornography,” said Dan Brien. “The matter remains under adjudication.”

[….]

Last week, the Canadian government deployed soldiers to set up tents near St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, which sits across the border from Champlain, New York, in order to temporarily house hundreds of asylum seekers, most of which are Haitians who fear deportation by the United States government. The city of Montreal, which is 60 kilometres from the border point, last week said it is receiving between 250 and 300 asylum claimants who crossed the Canada-U.S. border every day — the number is up from 50 per day in the first half of July.

[….]

Birds of a feather? Canadian immigration critic: Trudeau has been “irresponsible in his language.”

Rempel [Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel], said the border arrests comprised one part of broader concerns that the opposition has about the government’s management of Canada’s refugee system. Earlier this month, Global News reported on a CBSA document which suggested that Somalis with criminal records, deported by the U.S., have crossed illegally into Canada and made refugee claims under false identities.

“This is a troubling pattern where we’re seeing people with criminal records or involved in criminal activity come across the border,” added Rempel. “I think that Justin Trudeau has been irresponsible in his language around how Canada’s asylum system should be accessed. I think he needs to be much more clear that you shouldn’t be entering Canada illegally and he should be more clear about the expectations that our system has in terms of legitimate claims so that our asylum system can be focused on helping the world’s most vulnerable.”

More here.

See my Canada archive here.

Trump Admin reining-in Obama plan to get more Central American children to US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Barack Obama illegally expanded the US Refugee Admissions Program a few years ago with his Central American Minors Program (CAM) which allowed Central American parents (from 3 countries) already in the US to get their kids to America by claiming they are refugees.  Obama said it would stem the illegal border invasion by ‘children.’  (Begging the question—so how could these parents simply leave their kids behind in the first place!)

Technically to be a refugee one must prove that one is persecuted for one of several reasons (religion, race, political persuasion, etc.) and that the person (the wannabe refugee) has left his country and would be harmed if returned. This is a very large hurdle for kids who are still in their country of origin and who are mostly economically challenged and not truly persecuted. So Obama bent the law further by allowing them to be paroled in to the US.

Trump has now dumped the parole option. If the kid can meet the refugee standards, presumably he/she can still get here.

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

I was looking for an illustration for this story, and although not what the story is about, I found this incredible graph showing the cost to taxpayers for the surge in so-called “unaccompanied children” arriving illegally. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) is responsible for them. Funny, the number of children crossing has declined while the cost keeps going up!

The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday it plans to shut down a program that offered some children and young adults from three Central Amercian countries a chance to lawfully immigrate to the U.S. to join their parents.

The decision will close down a portion of the Central American Minors program, established in 2014 under President Obama as a way to slow the stream of minors from strife-torn Central American countries.

The program allows unmarried youths under 21 years old from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala who had one parent who had lawful status in the U.S. to apply for refugee status, from their home country.

If the refugee status was denied. they could still be allowed into the U.S. under humanitarian parole, a way to legally be in the country that is not permanent but must be renewed periodically.

In an announcement to be published in the Federal Register today DHS said that it was terminating the humanitarian parole part of the CAM program.

Children and young adults can still seek refugee status , but if that is denied the parole option will no longer be available.

Lisa Frydman, Kids in Need of Defense, is Angelina Jolies organization. https://supportkind.org/about/leadership/

No reason was given for the change to the program, though the administration of President Donald Trump has made both choking off the flow of youths and families from Central America and tightening the legal immigration avenues a priority as part of its overall crackdown on immigration.

[….]

The program began in 2014, and in late 2016 it was expanded to allow additional family members to apply. But that expansion came late in the Obama presidency and because of the length of time it takes to review, investigate and approve an application no one has been admitted under the expanded rules.

Earlier this year the State Department said 11,000 people had applied to the program and 2,400 had been admitted. Another 2,700 individuals had been granted conditional parole but had not yet traveled to the U.S., according to Lisa Frydman with the Kids In Need Of Defense, an advocacy group in San Francisco.

The announcement said that those conditional approvals are now rescinded.

More here.

What might you do today?  Contact the White House and thank the president for doing this, and tell him to dump the whole program.  It is Congress’s job to write laws about who is and who isn’t a refugee.

By the way, much of the cost of the UACs in that graph above is because some of our usual contractors are being paid to care for the kids!

Kennewick, WA: Can’t ID man who attempted to kill police officer with sword?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….First, the authorities and the media should call the local refugee resettlement contractor and see if he is one of theirs.  In this case the contractor World Relief Tri-Cities is the primary contractor for Richland/Kennewick/Pasco.  See one story here from 2013.

***Update*** Yup! Somali refugee, but the resettlement agency didn’t return phone calls. See here.

They will know if Hussain Hassan is one of the refugees they were paid to resettle in Kennewick or nearby.

Here is the story at World Net Daily by Leo Hohmann.  The police killed Hassan, but amazing no national news on this story from Sunday?

A 46-year-old man identified as Hussein Hassan attacked a police officer in Kennewick, Washington, over the weekend with a large sword, striking at the officer’s head before he was shot and killed.

The resettlement contractor, World Relief, for the Tri-Cities is located in Richland. See national list and find out if you have a refugee contractor nearby. Should be the first stop for police and media when trying to determine immigration status of someone involved in a crime that sounds like it is related to Islam. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/acb67-publicaffiliatedirectory1-6-17.pdf

A spokesman for the police said two officers responded to a 9-1-1 call at 6:38 p.m. Sunday about a man walking down Olympia Street near 10th Avenue armed with a sword.

The two officers arrived on the scene at the same time in separate cars at about 6:40 p.m. One officer got out of his car to confront Hassan and police say the man started swinging the sword, striking the officer at least once in the head with the blade.

Both officers opened fire on the suspect and put him down.

The officer was treated and released from an area hospital after receiving 17 staples to close the head wound.

Almost 24 hours later, on Monday evening, police identified the dead man as Hassan, but gave only scant details – his age and current city of residence.

[….]

Kennewick, a small city of about 73,000 population, has been a hotbed of refugee resettlement over the years. The U.S. State Department, in cooperation with the United Nations, has distributed more than 475 refugees into Kennewick since 9/11 from Muslim-majority nations, according to the State Department’s online database. That includes 206 from Iraq, 99 from Somalia, 69 from Sudan, 31 from Afghanistan and nine just in the past 10 months from Syria.

More here.

Other than Seattle, where there are thousands of Somali refugees, we have said little over the years about ‘welcoming’ Washington state, but go here for what we do have in the archives.

Good luck getting data on refugee welfare usage when Congress can’t get it!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There have been many efforts in recent years to press local and state governments to cough up data on the cost of refugees placed in communities—most recently in North Dakota and Minnesota.

This Congressional Research Memo to Congress from 2015 gives you a glimpse in to why they aren’t able to do it (assuming they were willing!).

Refugees are not identified (separately from other immigrants) at the local level when they go to the local social service agency to get their “benefits.” Indeed, immigrants may not even be designated as such on welfare applications.

Of course, this could easily be remedied by writing a few laws that direct local welfare agencies/school systems getting federal funds to require immigration status at the time one signs up for benefits or enrollment.  Is the recipient a ‘refugee’ or one of many other categories of legal immigrant (or illegal!)?

In 2015, unknown Senators attempted to get some answers and this is what they got. (Hat tip: Joanne)

So, has the recipient of the report done anything about it?

From Congressional Research Service:

 

 

So the Senate requester is directed to this table (below) from the 2013 ORR Annual Report to Congress. You might wish to see some of those yourself by clicking here.

You will find, as I have (see here in 2014), that data like this below is completely extrapolated from self-reporting by refugees who are called on the phone (who can be found and who answer the phone!) and are WILLING to tell a stranger (a contract worker) what ‘benefits’ they are getting.

You can then imagine how useless this data really is!

 

 

As much as I want to encourage efforts to get the true costs for refugees to the American taxpayer, it won’t be possible until local and state agencies are forced to get the information on immigration status of someone coming in for benefits.  And, if it is required to divulge one’s legal status (refugees are legal of course), then, in the process, the local agency will necessarily have to admit the illegal status of some beneficiaries of your taxpayer-funded kindness. They do not want to do that!

And, one more thing!  If you think you can get a true study where you live, you must make sure that included in the cost side of the ledger are costs to the criminal justice system (how much is a life sentence in prison costing some states?), interpreter costs, emergency room costs, monitoring and medicines for those with TB, and the cost to the US economy of remittances (money sent out of the US economy to the refugee’s home country).  Other costs I’m not thinking of?