I wasn’t planning to post anything this morning because I figured I really needed to catch up on all of my e-mails and other messages on social media. I don’t want to appear rude and not respond to your many inquiries, but it seems that I can never catch up! (LOL! New readers may not know that I have no staff, I just do what I can on my own.)
Anyway, my plan was to do some catching-up this morning until the first article I read in my alerts was this one from the Catholic Standardpeddling the myth I thought had been corrected long ago when Grover Norquist (of all people) was selling the fake news that Ronald Reagan signed the Refugee Act of 1980 into law.
But, alas here it is again!
Revisionist history is not a good look!
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops was testifying along with others in the refugee industry at a House hearing this past week.
Bishop urges Congress to show compassion, solidarity with refugees
WASHINGTON (CNS) — During a Feb. 27 congressional hearing about the status of the nation’s refugee program, Washington Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville quoted someone who is not frequently mentioned on Capitol Hill: Pope Francis.
“Today I am here to echo the Holy Father’s message: to recognize that we must at all times, but particularly at this moment of great global turmoil, recognize the most vulnerable and welcome them to the extent we are able,” he said.
The bishop, chairman of the migration committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pointed out to the members of Congress and others seated in the hearing room that he was there to offer his perspective as a naturalized immigrant to the United States from Colombia.
He was one on a panel of four people addressing the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, looking at the status of the U.S. Refugee Program, a week before 40th anniversary of the bipartisan Refugee Act of 1980, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.
Bipartisan my foot!
The Refugee Act of 1980 was the brainchild of Senator Ted Kennedy; Senator Joe Biden was a chief sponsor; and it was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on March 17,1980 (St. Patrick’s day as a gesture to Kennedy).
Reagan was not elected president until November of that year.
I hate it when Christians lie! The ends do not justify the means!
No bipartisanship here: Warren Magnuson, Tip O’Neill, and Jimmy Carter DEMOCRATS all!
Get ready for all sorts of media hoopla this month as the Refugee Act of 1980 is 40 years old!
If your local media runs any story that mentions Reagan signing the Act into law, you need to take action and force a correction. Watch for it!
For more on the USCCB, don’t miss my postwhere I reported that they are losing millions of taxpayer dollars under Trump.
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According to a report at The New Humanitarian, moving populations of people in conflict zones and where governments are weak are particularly vulnerable to a critical health crisis like the coronavirus.
Pakistan has closed its border with Iran
Of course, The New Humanitarian is most concerned with the refugees themselves and less concerned with the citizens of the countries where the migrants may end up.
Countries that seal their borders may be able to ward off the worst of a potential crisis.
I just told you in my previous post this morning, that Turkey is opening borders to allow ‘refugees’ to move through to Europe.
I wonder, is the US screening refugees and asylum seekers especially those from hotspots like China and Iran?
How the coronavirus outbreak could hit refugees and migrants
A surge in coronavirus cases outside China has raised concerns the outbreak could be particularly devastating for vulnerable refugee and migrant populations in countries hobbled by conflict.
Over the last week, cases of the illness known as Covid-19 have escalated dramatically in Iran, and new infections linked to the cluster have emerged in more than half a dozen other countries in the region including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon.
At least 12 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) live between Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey – countries linked to Iran by either frequent travel, irregular migration routes, shared borders, or all three. Iran itself hosts nearly one million refugees, mostly from neighbouring Afghanistan, and an estimated 1.5 to two million undocumented people.
The effects of armed conflict “fragment the public health system and the infrastructure that enables governments to actively perform surveillance of diseases”, said Dr. Mohammed Jawad, a researcher at Imperial College London who studies the impact of conflict on public health.
Dr. Adam Coutts, a public health specialist at Cambridge University who focuses on the Middle East, said refugees are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus or other diseases, due to ”high geographical mobility, instability, living in overcrowded conditions, lack of sanitation and WASH (waters, sanitation and hygiene) facilities, and lack of access to decent healthcare or vaccination programmes in host communities”.
But refugee populations are often left out of disaster and epidemic preparedness planning at the best of times. And simply reaching marginalised refugees and migrants with information is also a challenge.
Politicians in Italy and Greece have already started using the spectre of asylum seekers and migrants carrying the virus across international borders to drum up support for hardline migration policies. But public health experts believe the real risk is to refugee and migrant communities themselves, who face instability, sporadic access to healthcare, and now the growing threat of stigmatisation.
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If Europe doesn’t have it bad enough already, it looks like a new wave of migrants from Syria is on the way to the west. And, they aren’t all Syrians!
In 2016 the Turkish government, in a deal with the EU, agreed to not permit border crossings into Europe, but it looks like that agreement is now out the window.
At a time when the whole world is focused on the movement of sick people, here is an example of how vulnerable every country that doesn’t seal its borders is to the transmission of deadly pathogens.
Turkey will not stop refugees ‘who want to go to Europe’
No caption to indicate where or when the photo was taken but note the two on the left in face masks.
Hundreds of Europe-bound migrants have begun heading to northwest Turkey towards Bulgaria and Greece. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party said the refugees began their journey after a Syrian attack in Idlib.
Turkey is “no longer able to hold refugees” following a Syrian attack that killed 33 troops in Idlib, Omer Celik, a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, said on Friday.
The announcement comes as some 300 migrants walk through northwest Turkey towards its borders with Greece and Bulgaria on Friday, according to DHA news agency.
“As a result of the attack, the (refugees) in Turkey are heading towards Europe, and those on Syrian territory are heading towards Turkey,” Celik told CNN Türk shortly after midnight Friday morning. “Our refugee policy is the same as before, but we are now in a situation where we can no longer hold them.”
Demiroren news agency said the group of migrants, including women and children, embarked on their journey from Turkey’s Edirne province toward borders with Bulgaria and Greece — two European Union nations — at around midnight. Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Pakistanis and Moroccans were among those in the group.
[….]
According to EU figures, Greece saw more than 60,000 asylum seekers arrive from Turkey on the shores of its Aegean islands in 2019, and it expects more than 100,000 more in 2020.
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And, if the violent attack wasn’t sickening enough, a staff attorney at juvenile court determined that his IQ was so low that he wouldn’t be able to help in his defense. The case was dropped.
‘I’ve been failed by the system’ | Teen walks free after neighbor says he broke her nose, left her in bruises
ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis woman feels like the judicial system failed her, after she said her teenage neighbor attacked her and walked away free.
Alicia Clarke said exactly a week ago she went for a quick run outside her south city home. When she came back, she noticed her shoes had been moved to a different spot and her cell phone was gone.
From there, she used Find My iPhone to search for it. The location said it was on her property grid. She used her work phone to call it.
“I open my back door to call it and I hear it in my neighbor’s backyard behind me,” Clarke said.
Clarke said she hopped the fence to get it and jumped back over to her yard. Another neighbor yelled out to her and said, “Hey, I told him, ‘I know you did this and I’m calling the police!'”
Clarke said that’s when the 6-foot teen jumped the fence and tackled her.
After the initial assault, he came back with a weapon (a screw driver), continue readingto see what happened next.
Clarke thought the fight was over. But when she went to juvenile court a few days later, she learned his case was dismissed.
“The most hurtful thing of all of this, is the dropped charges. That was much more hurtful than the physical assault,” Clarke said.
A juvenile court official said a staff attorney dropped the case before even going to the judge. The courts weren’t able to comment specifically on this incident, since it involves a juvenile. Clarke said she was told her accused attacker was found incompetent to aid in his own defense because he has an IQ of 49.
[….]
Alicia has a broken nose, staples in her head and stitches to the puncture wound under her eye.
Clark’s sister who wants the story told far and wide posted this additional information on her facebook page.
Hassan is a 15 year old refugee from Somalia who lives with his family. He is 6’ and approx 175lbs, much larger than my sister. He has broken into Alicia’s car 3 different times and broken into another neighbors house. The police were involved every single time and reported that nothing could be done since he was a minor. Surely this time would be different, though.
My first thought when I saw this news was, everywhere we are told by the likes of Michael Bloomberg’s New American Economy that refugees are working and bringing economic boom times to dying cities, so why do they need more taxpayer dollars?
And, my second thought was, why can’t a bunch of entertainers like Stiller pool their excess cash and donate the $5 million. Why should the hardworking families of NY state, scrimping and saving for their kids’ college educations, have to pay anything for refugees?
Oh, but it isn’t really for the refugees, it is to keep the phony-baloney non-profit groups afloat.
Actor Ben Stiller joins advocates urging aid for New York refugees
ALBANY — Actor Ben Stiller’s latest role is no laughing matter.
The “Zoolander” star joined lawmakers and advocates Tuesday in the capital in calling for more money for a state-funded refugee program.
Stiller is an ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. How many refugees has he welcomed to his home?
“New York has a great history of doing this,” Stiller said. “These programs need to keep going. There’s institutional memory that needs to stay alive and as the refugee flow is lower right now at some point it’s going to come back up and these institutions need to be up and working when it happens.”
He means that they expect to oust Trump and then go back to full steam ahead with 100,000-200,000 annual refugee admissions (compared to Trump’s 18,000 this year).
And, as for this next bit, in my analysis of six of the nine major federal resettlement contractors, five are doing financially as well or better under Trump as they did under Obama.
Federal funding for refugee resettlement services has dropped significantly in recent years as Trump administration policies restricted the number of people being granted asylum or refugee status each year.
[….]
The New York State Enhanced Services to Refugees Program has received $2 million each year in the budget since it was formed in 2017 in response to the changes at the federal level.
But advocates say the state needs to step up and ensure funds are available to non-profits assisting the thousands of refugees already here.
[….]
The 14 resettlement agencies in the program, the Fiscal Policy Institute, and the New York Immigration Coalition joined Stiller, Ryan, and other lawmakers in calling for at least $5 million set aside for the program. [They have salaries to pay, after all!—ed]
Gov. Cuomo included no funds for the measure in his fiscal proposal earlier this year.
Cuomo trying to balance his budget to slow the bleed of taxpayers leaving the state?
But, heck, a state full of fully employed refugees and immigrants paying taxes should keep the state budget flush, right?
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