Australia Dumb Deal News: Over 600 of Australia’s Rejected Asylum Seekers are Now in the US

I haven’t seen much news lately about the “dumb deal” that Obama made to admit over a thousand asylum seekers that Australia had been holding for years in offshore detention camps, until this story from Saturday.

In 2017 news leaked about a phone call with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull in which Trump called the refugee swap arrangement a “dumb deal.” Gee, don’t you wonder who leaked that call! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/02/australia-deal-not-a-sure-thing-after-word-that-trump-yelled-at-australian-prime-minister/

Of course, even as President Trump described the deal as a “dumb” one, he went along with it supposedly with extreme vetting determining who we would admit and who we would reject.

This story from the Brisbane Times is mostly about how one Rohingya escaped the detention camp and ultimately made it to Canada where he was granted asylum.

There is a bit at the end updating readers on where the number being sent to your US towns and cities stands today.

‘Never heard of anything like this’: Advocates stunned by Manus escape

Toronto, Canada: Refugee advocates have described a Rohingya asylum seeker’s escape from Australia’s offshore processing centre on Manus Island, and successful resettlement in Canada, as unprecedented and extraordinary.

Jaivet Ealom, 27, has spoken publicly for the first time about his high-risk and secretive journey to freedom in a series of interviews with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Canada.

[….]

Political activist who used social media to pressure the Australian government, Iranian Behrouz Boochani, has permission to come to America as a refugee.

The department said 699 refugees have been resettled in America under the deal with the US government while another 26 have been resettled in other countries.

In November, Iranian asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani, author of the award-winning No Friend But the Mountains, travelled from PNG to New Zealand for a literary festival and overstayed his visa.

He said he had been offered resettlement in the US but was also open to resettlement in a third country.

More here.

Feeling guilty, Australia expats set up support group for the mostly Muslim Australian-rejected asylum seekers as they arrive in America.

From Marie Claire:

Meet the Aussie Expats Fighting to Give Asylum Seekers A Fair Go

When entrepreneur and former fashion designer Fleur Wood heard that 1250 asylum seekers from Australia’s off-shore detention centres were being resettled in the US, she was struck with empathy.

Wood (in Chicago) with a Rohingya ‘refugee’ who had been held in detention by the Australian government after trying to illegally enter Australia by boat. He is now on his way to US citizenship. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-05/ads-up-co-founder-fleur-wood-with-rohingya-refugee-rahman-mojub/10775128

It was 2016 and the men, women and children who had spent years languishing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island would now be transferred to a country on the other side of the world as part of a deal between the Australian government and the Obama administration. After so much uncertainty and despair, this was their chance to start over – but not without enormous challenges.

[….]

Wood began building a network of Australians living in the US who were keen to help out, and in 2018 she co-founded the not-for-profit Ads-Up (Aussie Diaspora Steps Up) with fellow Australian Ben Winsor.

Their aim was to do what the Australian government would not: provide a social network and financial assistance to help refugees begin their lives in a new country.

[….]

For volunteers, connecting with refugees provides a chance to make amends in some small way for Australia’s inhumane treatment of asylum seekers. Says Wood, “Regardless of where you stand on the immigration issue, or whether you think these people should be allowed into Australia, you can’t deny the incredible human rights violations that they have suffered.”

The Australian government doesn’t provide regular information about Nauru and Manus Island, but according to the Refugee Council of Australia, 632 people have been resettled in the US.

[….]

Last June, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said the target of resettling 1250 refugees wouldn’t be met, hindering the Coalition’s goal of closing down the detention centres. US President Donald Trump was also famously scathing of the deal.

More here.

But Trump went along with the deal for over 600 detainees (so far) that Australia would not allow on its own soil.  600 plus is just as “dumb” as 1,250 in my view.

The practice of taking another (safe) country’s rejects is outside the normal accepted international resettlement procedure and should never have been encouraged.

See my extensive archive on the ‘Australia dumb deal.

 

North Dakota: County Commissioner Takes Lutheran Resettlement Agency to Task

I reported here in December that Burleigh County commissioners held a couple of contentious meetings on the question of whether the county would continue receiving refugees under the President’s new reform plan.

Although their decision was not exactly overwhelming, the fact that this county commission actually held a hearing to take the pulse of the community is very significant. All across the country governors and local elected officials are deciding behind closed doors. Demand public hearings!

 

Lutheran Social Services recently reported to the commissioners that all was quiet and few refugees were arriving.

The headline from the Bismarck Tribune focuses on that.

However, read on.

Commissioner Brian Bitner does something rarely seen when the subject of the financial impact refugees have on the community comes up—he called out Lutheran Social Services for providing deceptive information.

See who produced that information….

From the Bismarck Tribune:

New refugee family won’t count toward cap; Bitner criticizes provided information

 

http://research.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nae-nd-report.pdf

Commissioner Brian Bitner, who voted against refugee resettlement, on Wednesday criticized Lutheran Social Services for including information that he said wasn’t appropriate in its proposal to continue resettling refugees.

In its application to the county, Lutheran Social Services included a 2017-18 study from the state Legislature’s Human Services Committee that cited a report provided by New American Economy, a New York-based immigration research nonprofit, in a section on the “Benefits of Refugee Resettlement.” Despite the title, the section cited data on “New Americans” — a term that doesn’t mean just refugees.

Bloomberg’s big bucks buy glossy studies and the media falls for it!

This is Michael Bloomberg’s baby! He wants cheap labor for fat cats!

For readers who do not follow my other blog, ‘Frauds and Crooks’ you need to know that the New American Economy is Michael Bloomberg‘s plan for American immigration.

He and his cohorts have been spreading their Open Borders propaganda for ten years, so you can’t trust his numbers to begin with!

This is what the Left (and rich RINO Rs) do, they publish glossy studies and everyone, including the gullible media, never questions it.

It sure looks like one county commissioner isn’t fooled!

The Bismarck Tribune continues….

“Except where otherwise noted, we define an immigrant as anyone born outside the country to non-U.S. citizen parents who is a resident in the United States,” Nan Wu, New American Economy Deputy Director of Qualitative Research, said in an email about her group’s report. “This includes naturalized citizens, green card holders, temporary visa holders, refugees, asylees, and undocumented immigrants, among others. So refugees are included when we refer to “New Americans” or immigrants in the report.”

The section said “New Americans” in North Dakota paid $36.4 million in state and local taxes, $66.9 million in Social Security taxes and $16.2 million in Medicare taxes, and earned $559.6 million of income.

“The information regarding benefits of that was not information that was relative to refugees, it was information that was pertinent to foreign-born individuals,” Bitner said. “And so I (studied) the source of the information to find out it was census data that they used.”

He added: “And in the census data they were clear that it wasn’t possible to separate out any of the categories of immigration from that information. So the refugee information that was provided to us was not refugee information.”

More here.

County Commissioner recall.

I never did get a chance to post on it, but this is interesting news about a recall effort going on in Burleigh County.

 

Leo Hohmann on the Murder of Philip Haney

There are many, many news outlets scrambling to get an answer about how Obama Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Phil Haney died last week.  The local sheriff, in Amador County, California where his body was found, quickly said he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but his friends and family say NO WAY!

https://www.amazon.com/See-Something-Say-Nothing-Governments/dp/1944229205

One of Haney’s friends, Leo Hohmann, posted a masterful piece about his patriot colleague.

As I looked at Hohmann’s post just now and wondered what bit could I snip that would capture how Leo describes his relationship with Haney and what he learned by spending time with him, I settled on this one (below) which is a nugget of wisdom Haney leaves all of you that should give you courage going forward.

However, I urge you to read the entire post at LeoHohmann.com:

Murder of Phil Haney, DHS whistleblower, only strengthens resolve of like-minded patriots

 

If not for Phil, I would have no knowledge of the concept of fitnah, which is key to understanding the whole Islamist strategy to label and shame those of us who understand what they’re up to. Fitnah is a type of stubborn disbelief on the part of non-Muslims who presented a challenge to the spread of Islam from the time of Muhammad up to today.

If the disbelievers persist, they must be dealt with. How do you do that when you don’t have the majority of a population? You play the victim card and use that to slander your enemies. That’s what Islam does so masterfully to gain leverage in non-Muslim countries like America, where gullible, self-loathing liberals fall easy prey to the fitnah strategy. Even the threat of being called an Islamophobe makes them wilt and run for cover. Islamophobia is nothing but the modern-day application of Islamic fitnah. Thank you Phil Haney for this revelation.

Please read it all!

I know many of you met Haney as he traveled the country attempting to wake up America to the threat within and we all mourn his passing.

I’ll update this post when we get some answers we can believe about his death.  I’m seeing some suggestions that the Dept. of Justice should launch an investigation.  But, ahhhh! the way things are going at the DOJ right now can we even trust them to get it right.

Alabama: Iraqi Refugee Ordered Deported, Lied on Refugee Application

So what else is new!  Of course, many of them lie. The only difference is that once in a blue moon one is caught!

I have a couple of stories this morning that could be posted either here or at ‘Frauds and Crooks!’  This one, and then up next Rep. Ilhan Omar story breaks internationally.

From Fox10:

Mobile man who lied about Iraqi military record avoids prison – but loses something more valuable

Holy cow! He had been in Saddam Hussein’s Army for 20 years! So much for the much ballyhooed “robust vetting” of refugees.

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – An Iraq native who lied about his military record to get into the United States avoided prison Friday but lost something more valuable – his American citizenship.

Do you suspect someone is committee refugee/asylum fraud. Here is where you can report it: https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/combating-fraud-and-abuse-in-asylum-program

Saad Taha Ahmed lived a quiet life in southwest Alabama for nearly a decade as a refugee from war-torn Iraq. U.S. officials granted him refugee status in 2010 and placed him in Mobile.

Ahmed, whose full name is Saad Taha Ahmed Yousif Al-Qaysy, became a legal permanent resident in 2011 and got citizenship in 2015.

Then investigators discovered Ahmed’s secret – he was not a victim of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s military; he was a member of it.

On Friday, Chief U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose sentenced Ahmed to three years’ probation for the fraud and ordered that his citizenship be revoked.

“It sounds like you did what you did for your family,” the judge said. “But you still violated the law, and you applied for citizenship under false pretenses.”

After the hearing, a U.S. Border Patrol agent took the defendant into custody and indicated he would be put into deportation proceedings.

[….]

In his written plea agreement, Ahmed admitted that he concealed the full extent of his military service, telling American officials in his refugee application that he was in the army only from 1987 to 1991 to fulfill compulsory military service.

In fact, according to court documents, he entered the army in 1983 and remained for 20 years until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. During those two decades, Ahmed rose to the rank of colonel, the most senior officer position short of general.

More here.

Looking around for additional information, I found this Court document that says the government initially attempted to seal the case against Saad Taha Ahmed Yousif Al-Qaysy.

If someone wants to write a book, I have over 650 posts on Iraqi refugees going back a dozen years archived here at RRW.  Of course, Iraqis represent one of the largest movements of Middle East migrants to the US in the last decade.