Month: February 2018

UN: Western countries not 'welcoming' enough 'refugees' now residing in Indonesia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Let’s be clear right off the bat.  Indonesia is a Muslim country and most of those attempting to pass through Indonesia (arriving there illegally), with a goal of being resettled in the US, Australia, Canada, or Europe, are Muslims.
What happened to the supposedly humanitarianism of Islam and governments ruled by it?  Why are these people our problem in the first place?  
The truth is that Indonesia doesn’t want them either!
For years the UN has been processing illegal aliens arriving in Indonesia from Somalia etc. in to your US towns via the US State Department.  Frankly it needs to stop and it looks like it is slowing.
I just checked Wrapsnet for processing through Indonesia to the US and found that we admitted 18 cases (21 individuals indicating most are single (men?) people, hmmm) in the first three months of FY18 (beginning Oct. 1, 2017).

Indonesia waiting
Waiting in Indonesia for a ticket to America, Australia, Canada, Europe…..

Here is Gulf News (NY Times story):
(Journalism 101 requires that every refugee story begins with a sob story!)

JAKARTA: Ebrahim Adam fled armed conflict in his home region of Darfur, Sudan, in 2011, and ended up seeking asylum in Indonesia, hoping to be eventually resettled in Australia or another Western country so he could resume his dream of being an economist. [Usually they want to be doctors, so they say!—ed]

But after languishing for nearly seven years in Indonesia — where he cannot legally work, access public services or obtain citizenship — Ebrahim recently received bad news: His resettlement is unlikely to ever happen. The UN Refugee Agency’s office in Indonesia has begun informing the nearly 14,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia that they should not expect to be welcomed by another country. Instead, they should prepare to assimilate into Indonesian society as best they can, or consider returning to their strife-torn countries.

 

[….]

Analysts said Ebrahim faces additional obstacles: He is single, Muslim and of military age, which could make countries worried about terrorism less likely to take him in.

[….]

Globally, there are more than 24 million certified refugees and asylum seekers, the highest levels since the Second World War, according to the United Nations.

Historically, the chances of refugees ever being resettled are only around 1 per cent.

Those refugees residing in Indonesia face the additional obstacle that the United States and Australia, the two main resettlement destinations for refugees here, have put in place more stringent immigration policies, further decreasing their already long odds.

Mark Getchell
“Mark Getchell, the IOM’s chief of mission in Indonesia, said the policy changes in Australia and the United States, combined with a reluctance by Canada, New Zealand and European nations to take in additional refugees, means the number of resettlements are only about 400 people a year now in Indonesia.” (IOM is a branch of the UN)

[….]

The situation of refugees hoping for resettlement in the West became more dire after President Donald Trump took office last January. His administration’s travel ban blocks people from eight countries from entering the US, including Somalia, the country with the second-highest number of refugees and asylum seekers stuck in Indonesia.

400 too many!

Last year, only about 400 refugees living in Indonesia were resettled in the United States, according to the United Nations. Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN refugee convention, which prohibits governments from returning people fleeing persecution to areas where they face serious threats, but the country has allowed certified refugees to remain here as they await resettlement in a third country.

[….]

For years, asylum-seekers from the Middle East and South Asia have used Indonesia as a transit point to reach Australia, boarding rickety wooden boats run by human smugglers for the perilous voyage across the Indian Ocean.

In 2013, however, the Australian government adopted strict new measures to discourage future arrivals by immediately transferring those who made it to its shores to spartan detention centers in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and refusing to ever consider them for resettlement.

But, golly gee, now we get the booby prize!  We admit to America those same lawbreakers who attempted to get to Australia and were detained. And, we pay for it thanks to the Obama “dumb” deal that Trump agreed to!
More from Gulf News here.

It would make enormous sense if the UN spent more time persuading Indonesia to keep their coreligionists, and promote a PR campaign through Africa and the Middle East that there is no ticket to the West through Indonesia!

Kansas: Refugee office to close in "slaughterhouse" city

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From time to time I’ve posted stories on refugee resettlement offices closing due to the fact that fewer refugees (aka paying clients) are now arriving in the US (see post yesterday with latest numbers), but I don’t post all of them.

david Miliband manahattan
Moneybags Miliband (here in Manhattan) makes nearly $700,000 annually as CEO of the IRC, but they can’t afford to keep this Kansas office open.  Fine by me, but do any of you humanitarians out there find this a bit disconcerting?

This one caught my eye because I have written many times over the years about Garden City, Kansas and its Tyson Foods plant that has attracted cheap immigrant labor for years.
Rarely do you see such a direct connection drawn between “slaughterhouse” jobs and the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).
This time it is the giant International Rescue Committee closing its doors in GC, while its CEO (a British national based in Manhattan) pulls down a salary in excess of $600,000 a year (here).
Changing the heartland, one meatpacker at a time should be the USRAP’s motto!
From KCUR 89.3:

A humanitarian [ha!ha!—ed] group that helps refugees settle in western Kansas among plentiful slaughterhouse jobs is shutting down its office in the region amid changing rules that welcome fewer newcomers to the country and the state.

The International Rescue Committee, or IRC, says a falling number of refugees prompted the agency’s plans to shutter its Garden City office at the end of September.

Kansas took in 580 refugees in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, compared to 914 the year before. IRC officials said they expect the drop-off to look even more dramatic this year.

That trend reflects tightening U.S. State Department guidelines that make it harder for refugees to seek sanctuary in the United States.

 

In addition, a State Department spokeswoman said that in December the department told resettlement agencies it would withdraw funding from sites that take on fewer than one hundred refugees each year. The federal government gives those local agencies about $2,100 for each refugee.

This next bit was news to me.  I had no idea local hospitals were carrying some of the refugee care load jointly with a federal resettlement contractor! Why isn’t Tyson Foods taking care of the needs of its workers?

Many refugees in western Kansas turn to Kearny County Hospital in Lakin, Kansas, for health and social services. The hospital, in turn, depends on the IRC to take care of essential services such as food, housing, education and job placement, said hospital CEO Benjamin Anderson.

Garden City USA: Immigration to the Heartland
Orientation for Somali workers at Garden City Tyson Foods plant.

[….]

Anderson said the IRC plays the primary role for helping refugees in the area, and when the organization’s Garden City office closes, his hospital may have to take over some of its services.

Garden City is home to many refugees, including a large Somali community, which was the target of an alleged bomb plot last year. That incident and it’s upcoming trial in March have brought renewed attention to the city’s wide range of immigrants — a portion of whom are refugees — from Mexico, South America and Africa. In the local school district, for example, English is a second language for nearly half the students.

So who is paying for refugee support services so that Tyson Foods has a ready supply of cheap labor—local taxpayers!
But, don’t get too excited about a possible slowdown of needy people arriving in Garden City because we expect to hear that Tyson Foods will bus in migrants from other places to satisfy their desire for “slaughterhouse” workers.
Hey, I’ve been referring to them in a more sanitized way—meatpackers—I like this more descriptive word—slaughterhouse!
See my previous posts on Garden City, KS by clicking here.

One third of fiscal year ends, refugee arrival numbers still low

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The refugee arrival numbers would have to really take off in the next few months for the Trump Administration to get anywhere near the CEILING they proposed last September of 45,000 for FY18 which ends on September 30th.
So far, in 4 months, 6,704 refugees have been placed with almost every state seeing a few at least. Only Hawaii, Delaware, Mississippi and Wyoming have seen none.  However, as regular readers know, Wyoming is the only state that has never had a program.

Trump and GW Bush
Which will hold the record?

Will Trump break George Bush’s record?

At this rate, we could see around 20,000 admitted for the whole year which would give President Trump the distinction of the Prez admitting the lowest numbers in the history of the Refugee Act of 1980. (Kennedy, Biden, Jimmy Carter)
George W. Bush holds the present record of two years in the 20,000’s.
In the immediate wake of 9/11, Bush admitted 27,070 in 2002 and 28,117 in 2003.
Here is where the 6,704 for FY18 have been distributed so far:
 

Screenshot (183)
From WRAPSNET, the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center. I know numbers are hard to read.   http://www.wrapsnet.org/admissions-and-arrivals/

 
Top Ten ‘welcoming’ states so far this year are:

Ohio

Texas

Washington

 New York

California

Pennsylvania

North Carolina

Illinois

Georgia

Michigan

Broken record alert!  Reducing numbers for a few years is good because it gives some overloaded communities a reprieve, however, unless the law is reformed nothing will be permanent and the post-Trump era could see a huge push to make up for what the Open Borders Left would see as lost time.
This post is archived in my ‘refugee statistics’ category, here.

Billions of dollars are lost to US economy each year as migrants send money back home

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Neil Munro tells us about the losses at Breitbart yesterday:

Immigrants Sent $140 Billion From U.S. Back To Homelands in 2016

In fact, we have written many times about how these dollars sent back to Central American countries, like El Salvador, from people here on Temporary Protected Status literally prop up the economy of the country.
When you look at the newly released numbers, think about how Mexico and other south of the border countries (that regularly storm our border) could make a decent contribution to the price tag of The Wall if the Administration taxed remittance dollars flowing to those countries!
Here is Breitbart:

Legal and illegal immigrants wired almost $140 billion from the United States back to their home countries and foreign relatives in 2016.

The huge loss of domestic spending by of immigrants’ remittances is spotlighted in a new report by the Pew Research Center, which also noted that $6.5 billion was sent back to the United States by foreign-based U.S. workers. That is a 21-fold difference and is enough money to support 2.6 million additional $50,000 jobs in the United States.

The remittance number is based on calculations by the World Bank.

remittances
 
Now here are the top receiving countries.  For the full list go to the Pew report by clicking here.
remittance countries
 
Continue reading as Munro discusses the impact of the immigrant cheap labor supply entering the US.
I wonder if there is any way to determine how many of these dollars are taxpayer-supplied welfare dollars as opposed to those earned through gainful employment.

'Temporary' status to be continued for Syrians says Homeland Security chief

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As regular readers know, there has been nothing temporary about this LEGAL immigration program called Temporary Protected Status (until now!).
In a long overdue process, President Trump’s Homeland Security Department has been ending TPS for nationals of many countries who have been here for over a decade in some cases.
However, TPS for Syrians will be continued for another 18 months and is only available for those Syrians who got in to the US (somehow?) before August 2016. (See my recent accounting of who was behind the push for Syrian TPS, here.)
Here is the snippy Trump-bashing news from HuffPo reporter Elise Foley:

WASHINGTON ― The Trump administration will leave some Syrians in the U.S. at risk of being deported while their country is still mired in war, but extend temporary protections for several thousand others, the Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday.

Meredith Owen
HuffPo quotes Meredith Owen a lawyer at Church World Service.  CWS is paid millions of dollars annually (71% of its budget) from the US Treasury to take care of refugees admitted to the US, yet they seemingly spend all of their time politically agitating for more immigrants of all stripes, not just legitimate refugees.

The agency will extend temporary protected status, or TPS, for Syrians for another 18 months, which will allow an estimated 5,800 Syrians to legally continue living and working in the U.S. But Syrians who came to the U.S. after August 2016 will be shut out of the TPS program — despite the ongoing war in Syria and against the urging of human rights organizations, faith leaders and national security experts.

“After carefully considering conditions on the ground, I have determined that it is necessary to extend the Temporary Protected Status designation for Syria, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement. “It is clear that the conditions upon which Syria’s designation was based continue to exist, therefore an extension is warranted under the statute. We will continue to determine each country’s TPS status on a country-by-country basis.”

[….]

The president has also resisted extending TPS, which is granted to immigrants from countries hit by armed conflict, natural disasters or other urgent problems. Under Trump, DHS already ended TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan and gave at least 250,000 nationals of those countries notice they needed to leave the United States. Trump also rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which puts 700,000 young undocumented immigrants who came as children at risk of deportation. All told, that’s nearly a million people who are set to lose work permits and protections under Trump.

[….]

Deportations to Syria are relatively uncommon, but they do happen. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported two Syrian nationals in the 2017 fiscal year and nine the year before, according to the agency.

LOL! That last line made me laugh. So intent are reporters like Foley to show Trump as the evil one, she can’t even mention the inconvenient fact that the nine Syrians deported in FY16 were deported under their Dear Leader—Barack Hussein Obama!
Don’t miss my posts this past week about Church World Service’s political agitation activities against the President, here and here.  Mr. President, Cut them loose from the federal teat!