Category: Africa

Going bonkers in Britain over genetic testing of asylum seekers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From the Associated Press:

LONDON — Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.

The United Kingdom Border Agency launched the pilot project in September amid suspicions there might be a large number of asylum applicants lying about their home countries. An agency spokesman said Britain was the only country using genetic tests in this way.

Experts, however, say the tests are based on flawed science and there’s no way genetic swabs can provide meaningful evidence regarding nationality.

[….]

The government argues such tests can provide valuable – although not conclusive – evidence in assessing whether or not asylum seekers are telling the truth about their country of origin.

So far, the tests are being used only on people who claim to be from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, though if successful, officials say the plan could be rolled out further.

Of course they want to find out if the African is from a country where they might be persecuted and in danger or not. 

Last year, nearly 26,000 people applied in Britain; of the more than 19,000 cases where decisions were made, 3,725, or 19 percent, were granted asylum. People from more repressive or chaotic countries, like Sudan or Somalia, often have a better chance of gaining asylum than those from more stable countries like Kenya.

Definitely read the whole story.  It also tells us that there is other testing that may be done and how the tests can be used to track terrorists.

Besides genetic tests, British officials are also performing isotope analysis of asylum seekers’ hair and nail samples. Scientists can look at the composition of certain elements like oxygen or strontium in hair and nails to see where a person has been.

How is this for a brilliant move?  NOT!

In a landmark decision, the European Court of Human Rights recently ordered Britain to destroy nearly 1 million DNA samples and fingerprints on its database – samples taken from children, people who had never been charged or people acquitted of crimes.

This is the most interesting section of the AP story.  Our very own Secretary of Homeland Security hasn’t given any of this any thought!   Doesn’t she know that the State Department suspended all family reunification  from Africa after discovering widespread fraud through DNA testing more than a year ago and that they are in the process of revising the whole program?  Most of us are expecting that DNA testing WILL BE EMPLOYED for at least family reunfication when the so-called P-3 program is reopened.  Napolitano acts like she doesn’t know about all this!

Concerned about potential fraud, the Bush administration launched a pilot DNA testing project in 2007 to vet applicants to a program that allows family members of African refugees already in the United States to join them.

The project, which wrapped up in March 2008, found an extremely high rate of fraud – 87 percent – among applicants claiming to be related to each other, the State Department said, and the resettlement program was suspended until those concerns could be addressed. The U.S. does not use genetic tests to try to prove nationality.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in London on Thursday that the U.S. has other ways of probing a person’s country of origin, such as testing language skills.

“I haven’t thought about it,” she said of the British attempt to match DNA to nationality. “We have a variety of ways we can use when we think someone is not telling the truth.”

Oh, and what might those be?

Obama starving Somalis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve purposefully titled this post ‘Obama starving Somalis’ to make my point that if the Bush Administration were still in control in Washington, this article in Foreign Policy would surely have blamed Bush.  Instead the article about a new policy position that cuts humanitarian aid and warns that a humanitarian crisis is at hand, blames the “United States,” the  “US Treasury Department,” “Washington,” and the “US government”—-but no mention of the fact that the Obama Administration is responsible now!

You can read the article yourself, it begins:

The United States is willfully letting millions of Somalis go hungry in its drive to hunt down terrorists.

A year ago this article would have begun with the sentence:  “The Bush Administration is willfully letting……”

Columbus Somalis complain that anti-terror laws hinder remittance business

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Columbus, Ohio has the second largest Somali refugee population* in the US, but banks there have halted remittance programs that allow Somalis to send money ‘home’  fearing the money will end up in the hands of terrorists.  From the Columbus Dispatch:

For months, Somalis living in Columbus have complained that it has become increasingly difficult to send money home to family members because of banking-industry fears that the funds could end up with terrorists.

Huntington, JPMorgan Chase and Charter One are among the banks that have closed accounts set up by remittance companies, said Omar Tarazi, a local lawyer who has worked with the Somali American Chamber of Commerce and several remittance companies.

Somali leaders said remittances that refugees send home are a lifeline to families and friends struggling in the war-torn African nation. It has few banks, so remittance companies are crucial to sending money home.

The leaders say banks fear being held liable if authorities discover that the money is funding extremists. The Patriot Act requires due diligence of banks in making sure that funds are tracked.

According to the U.S. State Department’s Web site, remittances totaling $1 billion were sent to Somalia from around the world in 2008.

Wow!  That’s a lot of money.

*For new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

African-Americans vs. African immigrants (again!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a theme we have reported on several times in the past.*  Violence is on the rise in traditional African- American communities where numbers of African (largely Muslim) immigrants are on the increase.   The difference here is that it’s the New York Times publishing the politically incorrect news.   Hat tip:  a friend from Tennessee.

Their fear and frustration are shared by many local West African immigrants, whose fast-growing presence in the neighborhood — and in the city over all — has been accompanied by increasing tensions with the local black American residents.

“They think they’re better than black people,” James Carroll, a retired Army specialist standing in front of a busy convenience store, said of the West African immigrants. “We’re supposed to be one community — we’re supposed to be able to get along — but they don’t give it a chance.”

Some of the tension can be attributed to cultural differences that all immigrants face, though the West Africans in Claremont, as conservative Muslims, have the added challenge of adjusting to a post-9/11 New York. But resentment and mistrust has escalated to actual violence, and, they say, left them feeling under siege.

After reports of nearly two dozen attacks on West African immigrants in the last two years, community leaders reached out to the police, who interviewed 17 Africans in the neighborhood and filed 11 criminal complaints. Two of those were deemed hate crimes, including an attack in June that left a Gambian immigrant hospitalized for eight days.

They have made no arrest in either bias case, but a police mobile truck with a video camera now stands outside the mosque.

The reporter tells us that most of these African immigrants are illegally in the US and points out the rapid increase in population in Bronx neighborhoods.

The African population in the Bronx has grown considerably in recent years: the census reported 12,063 sub-Saharan Africans in 1990, while the most recent census estimate was 61,487.

African-Americans feel their communities are being invaded—no kidding!

Zain Abdullah, an assistant professor of religion, race and ethnicity at Temple University in Philadelphia, says it is common for African immigrants to suffer harassment when they settle in traditionally black neighborhoods in big cities, like Detroit, New York and Philadelphia.

“Many African-Americans feel that the influx of Africans coming in represents a kind of invasion,” he said. “Culturally, African-Americans have always imagined themselves as Africans, or at least of African descent, but they might have never encountered Africans from the continent. The actual encounter is shocking.”

Isn’t diversity beautiful!   Incidentally, it is into this neighborhood that the International Rescue Committee is resettling Bhutanese refugees as well.  It almost seems that stirring up racial and ethnic tension is the game plan!

* If you would like to find more locations in the US where American Blacks have come in conflict with immigrants, use our search function.   You might search for African- Americans and immigrants and you will come up with lots of previous posts on the topic.