UK Mirror: Turkish gangs smuggling Syrians into UK and other European countries

10/27/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Mirror graphic showing one smuggling route.

The invasion of Europe continues!

The UK Mirror has an incredibly detailed story today about how human trafficking gangs are moving Syrians into Europe and making millions doing it. No surprise! Turkey is one of their transit points and the leader of the gang profiled here is a Palestinian.

The amount of money these “refugees” have in their personal bank accounts again raises questions for me about who these people really are and I’ve become a cynic about the beatings, rapes, and imprisonment stories the “asylum seekers” tell.

Here is how the Mirror story begins, but you must read the whole report, they have done a lot of work on this. Emphasis is mine:

A people-trafficking gang raking in millions of pounds by bringing hundreds of Syrian refugees into the UK is today exposed by the Sunday Mirror.

The gang in Istanbul, Turkey, told our undercover investigators that for £34,000 they would smuggle three men here from Syria using false passports and minders. [One British pound is equal to $1.62 US dollars at the moment.—ed]

We had earlier met a Syrian woman who used her life savings to pay the gang to help her flee after being tortured in her home country.

The teacher, who we are calling Ishtar to protect her identity, is now living in southern England.

She told how traffickers got her from Turkey to Britain after handing her a false passport.

She was flown to Austrian capital Vienna, driven to Sweden, then caught a BA flight to the UK.

The gang’s activities raise serious concerns that terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda could use similar tactics to sneak jihadists into Europe.

We were alerted to the criminal organisation by an anonymous phone call to our London offices.

Our investigator was warned: “This trade is making millions for Turkish gangs.

“They have fixers around Europe and in the UK flying people across Europe. They have people working in airports who look the other way.

“They are taking Syrians to Italy, Holland and the Scandinavian countries, but Britain is the most expensive. On landing, the Syrian asks for asylum.

Read it all! The graphic is further explained. Imagine having a ticket in Istanbul for Lebanon, but airport personnel allow the Syrian to get on a plane to Austria instead!

Our ever-expanding archive on Syrian refugees is here.

Bulgaria again and an example of a border fence success story (for Greece)!

10/26/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update! What do you know, Bulgaria is building a fence, check it out here.

As I scoured my alerts this morning I see there are several about Bulgaria struggling to cope with the Syrian refugee flow coming across their border from Turkey. Previously I speculated that the flow out of Turkey toward Bulgaria instead of Greece was due to Greece’s strengthened border security. This article confirms that.

See all of our recent coverage of poor Bulgaria’s predicament, here.

From Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (emphasis mine):

About 100 people are arriving at Bulgaria’s border with Turkey daily, and the numbers are rapidly increasing. In the past, Bulgaria received, on average, 1,000 migrants and asylum seekers per year. This year, more than 6,500 have arrived, leaving officials scrambling to find housing and funds to accommodate them.

Arrivals have increased steadily since August, and at the current rate, the ministry of the interior estimates it will have received 11,000 to 15,000 by year’s end – the vast majority Syrian.

“We see that the government is overwhelmed, and that the reception capacity has been depleted,” said Cheshirkov.

Smugglers who used to lead migrants from Turkey into Greece are increasingly moving them to Bulgaria instead, in part due to the construction of a 10.5km fence at one of the most popular crossing points along the Turkish-Greek border.

Bulgaria, a country of just 7.5 million people, is one of the poorest in the European Union.

“We are just at the beginning of this crisis,” Vasil Marinov, deputy minister of the interior, told IRIN.

Of course no one ever says a word about how Turkey, which is financially and militarily in a better situation, should be stopping them on their side of the border!

More than 23,000 Mexicans sought asylum in US this year (so far)

10/25/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an update of a story we posted here, here, and here in August.

Skipping through the horror stories and dreadful photos to soften you up toward Mexican illegal aliens, here are some of the important bits of the article in the New York Daily News (hat tip: Ed).

We do have a heart—this situation is horrific for those caught in the trap of Mexican drug cartels.

But, the bottomline is that asylum protection was never intended to protect people from crimes that their own government should be protecting them from. Can you imagine how much worse our border would become (yes it could be worse!) if fleeing from drug cartels (or other such criminal activity) became a legitimate reason to grant asylum in the US.

Six paragraphs after the opening horror story we learn (emphasis mine):

According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security figures, more than 23,000 Mexicans sought political asylum in the first nine months of this year, quadruple the number of requests made in 2009. The spiraling number of pleas for entry is driven by the exponential growth of cartel terrorism against everyday villagers and townspeople, say immigrants and human rights groups.

Another horror story then this:

More than 90 percent of Mexican asylum requests are denied by immigration judges who must adhere to a strict legal standard in a process that may drag out for months and years. Applicants must show “credible fear” of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, nationality or membership in a social group.

A pitch to fix our “dysfunctional immigration system?” Are we to find a way to bring this group of aliens to the US? To create some new category of protection? Is that what Nunez is saying? Or, has the New York Daily News reporter used Nunez’s words to imply that is what we should conclude?

Despite the extremely low percentage of approved asylum petitions, the issue has nonetheless become part of America’s divisive political discord on immigration issues.

“It’s another symptom of the dysfunctional immigration system we have,” said Peter Nunez, a former U.S. Attorney in San Diego and a high-ranking member of the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush.

“These people don’t have a legitimate claim,” he told The News. “They’re not being persecuted by their government. They should seek the help of authorities for public safety claims.”

What about claims that the government and law enforcement are corrupted by powerful, billion-dollar cartels?

“That doesn’t qualify them for refugee status,” Nunez said. “It’s not the American government’s role to do what the Mexican government cannot do.”

These reportedly high detention figures need to be investigated (especially as they are being quoted by Soros’s/Norquist’s pal Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum. I’m guessing the largest numbers are because the aliens have been determined to be a safety risk or are on their way to deportation.

After requesting asylum, most Mexicans are locked up in federal detention centers, where they wait for a court hearing in the backlogged system.

Some are held because they have criminal backgrounds ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. Others have no one to vouch for them in the U.S., and so remain in custody.

On any given day, there are 31,800 detainees in more than 257 federal centers across the country, held for a variety of immigration issues, according to recent figures from the National Immigration Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit group.

Read it all.

Funny that the NY Daily News doesn’t mention that Nunez is chairman of the board at the Center for Immigration Studies, a leading immigration control group, and is thus on our side of the great divide.

Bulgarians protest Syrian ‘refugee’ invasion from Turkey at historic Shipka Pass

10/21/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is so interesting, I wish I had time to really get into the history of Bulgaria and how it threw off Ottoman (Muslim) rule in the Russo-Turkish war for the liberation of Bulgaria in 1877-78.

Are the Turks once again moving in on their Christian neighbors and using Syrian refugees as the invading army?

I think so!

Here is the news story (yesterday) from Novinite (Sofia) that prompts my inquiry (emphasis and links added are mine):

About 200 people have blockaded Sunday the Shipka Pass in the Stara Planina Range in central Bulgaria in protest against opening a new refugee shelter in the town of Kazanlak.

The rally comes on the heels of news that the Bulgarian government plans to transform the unused building the police school into a refugee camp.

Last evening, an initiative committee was formed in the town with the participation of heads of large local enterprises, representatives of business, politicians from the municipality, NGOs and youth organizations to support the declaration of the local government, opposing the opening of the shelter.

The committee has decided to start a petition for a local referendum on the preservation of the school building as is and against making it a refugee camp. The second decision was to stage protest rallies and blockades of the Shipka Pass Sunday and Monday until the end of the emergency sitting of the central government.

Locals say they have nothing against the refugees and understand their plight, but stress the shelter will be detrimental to the beautiful nearby town park and will threaten national security as Arsenal Kazanlak, one of the largest military plants and weapons producers in Bulgaria, is located in the town.

[….]

Bulgaria is the gateway to the European Union for refugees fleeing Syria via Turkey, many crossing the border illegally to seek asylum.

Readers, it is up to Turkey to stop Syrians at their border (just like it’s up to Mexico to stop Central Americans from crossing into Mexico!). Turkey is obviously permitting the Syrians to move across Turkey and into Bulgaria. President Erdogan (Obama’s pal) is capable of stopping the flow into Bulgaria if he chose to!

For further reading, I see that Andrew Bostom has references to Bulgaria in his history of Jihad: The Legacy of Jihad, Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. Will let you know later what I find.

We have been writing about Bulgaria and Syrians (click here) in recent weeks. I think the BBC needs to update its migration map—add in the Turkey to Bulgaria leg!

UN wants to move 30,000 Syrians out of their “cultural zones” to yours in the West

10/20/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There is really nothing new, except maybe the number, in this piece about how the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is begging the West to get the Middle Easterners out of the Middle East.

Syrian refugees: Here we come!
Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP

Note that they mention Western countries which “have the means,” can afford an influx of poverty, but no mention of the RICH Islamic countries, most notably Saudi Arabia which has the money and the land to accommodate a couple hundred thousand or so of their fellow Muslims.

See first Daniel Pipes’ brilliant idea of keeping Muslims in their own cultural zones, here!

From World Bulletin:

The U.N. refugee agency on Friday appealed to European and other states to grant asylum to more Syrians as increasing numbers flee their country in perilous journeys across the Mediterranean.

Naturally there is crisis-mongering about how people are dying trying to get across the Mediterranean from Libya, but not one word to suggest that the West clamp down on the now lawless Libya which allows the boats to launch from its shores. How about stationing some warships along the coast of Africa and sending some of the boat people back, or load them up and take them to the EMPTY UN state-of-the-art refugee camp Al-Azraq! The flow will quickly subside!

The U.N. agency has proposed that Western countries admit up to 30,000 Syrian refugees on resettlement, humanitarian admission, or other admission programmes by the end of 2014.

So far this year, 16 Western countries have pledged to resettle 10,240 Syrian refugees, including 500 announced by France this week, the UNHCR says. Germany accounts for 5,000.

“UNHCR is calling on countries that have the means to do so, in Europe or beyond, to offer solidarity through not only financing and other contributions, but through measures that would mean third-country resettlement and family reunifications,” Fleming said.

This civil war will end sooner or later, so why is it imperative to permanently move the ‘migrants’ to a third country, unless of course this is really about UN-facilitated Al Hijra!

US readers should make it clear to your elected officials in Washington that we can’t afford more imported poverty!