Day: February 21, 2018

He was headed to Malaysia, now he is happily settled in Arizona (on your dime!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….and plans to bring his wife and daughter to live here too! (He left them behind at least 5 years ago in ‘dangerous’ Iran).
Australia’s SBS News appears to be doing a series on those lucky, mostly Muslim, ‘refugees’ who attempted to get to Australia illegally and were then detained for nearly 5 years in offshore detention facilities with the Australian government refusing to consider their asylum claims.hit-the-jackpot3
Many are hitting the jackpot and although Australia isn’t letting them in they are now free in America.  And, every few weeks a new batch arrives.
Here is a story about one of those that Australia didn’t want, but Obama did and arranged for many to come just as he was walking out of the White House.
Trump is now honoring a deal he once called “dumb.”
(See my yuuuge archive on the Australia deal by clicking here.)
You can read the entire gushing story yourself, but what got me is that the star of the story was initially headed for Malaysia, a Muslim country, and only at the urging of a friend got on a people smuggling boat headed for Australia.

As many of my readers have commented over the years—so if it was so dangerous back home, why did these men leave their wives and children behind? 

From SBS News:

[Phoenix, Arizona] is home to Reza Mohammad Nezhad, an Iranian refugee who in 2013 fled his homeland amid fears of persecution, and would eventually try to reach Australia.  [They never tell us exactly why these Muslim men were persecuted. We are expected to take their word for it.—ed]

The 43-year-old left behind his wife and young child, hoping one day they could join him.

He travelled to Malaysia, then Christmas Island, but he was detained in Australia’s Manus Island holding facilities in Papua New Guinea, where he would spend almost four-and-a-half years.

[….]

Reza intended to settle in Malaysia after he fled Iran, but changed his mind after a friend there recommended Australia. People in Australia did not harass refugees, his friend said; they had freedom and a strong democracy. It would be a journey he would soon regret.

From Indonesia, Reza boarded a people-smuggling boat headed for Christmas Island. [Indonesia is a Muslim country too—ed]

[….]

“I was chosen to be resettled in Arizona,” he told SBS News through a translator. “I don’t know their reasoning, but they chose Arizona for me.”

[US State Department is building ethnic enclaves where people of certain cultures/religions get to live with their own kind of people and they have contractors facilitating the project! Never mind that you are a racist if you want to live with your people!—ed]

[….]

He has also got involved with the Iranian American Society of Arizona, which holds several cultural events in the city each week.

“There are many Iranians living here,” he said. “It’s a good city. I’m happy here.”

It’s warm too, which he likes, and he doesn’t feel out of place in a city packed with minority groups. More than 40 per cent of people in Phoenix are Hispanic; Mexico is just 200km to the city’s south.

[….]

In one year Reza will be eligible for permanent residency in the US. In five years, he will be able to apply for citizenship. He hopes he will be able to bring his wife and daughter to be with him soon. [Chain migration!—ed]

Continue here and note the anti-Trump tone of the SBS story even as it was Trump who is making all of this possible for these lucky jackpot winners!

Only a few states where anyone is willing to stand up to Washington, South Dakota is one

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A bill being discussed in the South Dakota legislature today represents a rare case where a legislator is willing to stare down the US State Department with a demand that those who live in the state have a right to say “NO” about who is resettled in the state as their tax dollars are gobbled up in the process.

neil tapio
SD Senator Neal Tapio

 

State Senator Neal Tapio, a candidate for Congress, is sending a message.

Here is the AP story at The Seattle Times.   AP obviously assumes the story is big enough to free it from local South Dakota media where it would normally be hidden from national view (so as not to give other states any ideas!).

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota would suspend refugee resettlements from countries on “any federal travel ban list” under a measure awaiting a legislative hearing that critics argue would be struck down by the courts if it ever becomes law.

The bill is set to have its first hearing Wednesday before the Senate State Affairs Committee. Republican Sen. Neal Tapio’s legislation would also direct the state to refuse “chain migration” from citizens of countries on such a list. That system gives advantages to the relatives of legal immigrants.

Tapio, a congressional candidate, said a potential legal challenge would be worth fighting if the bill becomes law. He said the federal government doesn’t have the right to “make your neighborhood less safe.”

“We should fight for our wives and our daughters and our kids and our grandkids,” Tapio said. “This is about the future of our communities and the citizens that live within them.”

 

taneeza islam
The media’s go-to-gal on Islam in South Dakota is back.  Since she thinks she is an expert on the Constitution she needs a refresher course on the 10th Amendment.

[….]

Taneeza Islam, an immigration lawyer and executive director of South Dakota Voices for Justice, said the bill’s sponsors don’t understand the “fundamental rights that we have in our U.S. Constitution” and didn’t think through how the proposal would be implemented.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s chief of staff, Tony Venhuizen, told the Argus Leader that the Republican executive opposes the bill.

More here.
We will be back tomorrow with news about the hearing.
We have written on many previous occasions about South Dakota, a rare pocket of resistance, where business (meatpackers!) and community leaders have often been out front in saying they want the steady supply of (cheap) labor that refugees and other immigrants represent in the state.
Go here for my South Dakota archive, and here for other posts on Taneeza Islam, a former CAIR Minnesota lawyer who has moved (been moved?) to South Dakota to stir up action there.