Category: Asylum seekers

Australia: The ‘asylum-seeker’ showdown we all need to be watching!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As readers here know, Australia has a new government, a conservative one, which promises to get the ‘boat people’ crisis under control.  But, the human rights industrial complex is punching back hard with a gambit to take the Abbott government before the UN Human Rights Council before it even gets off the ground.

Tony Abbott sworn in September 18th as the new Australian Prime Minister. Immigration policy was on the voters’ minds.

Here is the news from The Guardian (Australia’s refugee stance sets ‘alarming global precedent’).  Precedent is right, alarming is wrong.  Every Western country must get its borders under its control and we will all be watching to see if Australia can stem the tide of mostly economic migrants (most from Muslim countries) arriving by the thousands on their shores.

[Here is another story (Global Post) on the same subject, hat tip:  Joanne]

The Guardian gasping in indignation:

Australia is engaging in “unlawful and increasingly punitive” treatment of asylum seekers, an Australian legal group will tell the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In a scathing statement to be read out to the UN’s premier human rights body on Tuesday night, the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre will call on the council to condemn the “alarming global precedent” set by Australia’s stance towards refugees who arrive by boat.

The HRLC will highlight how asylum seekers are being “subjected to arbitrary, indefinite detention” in inadequate conditions on Nauru and Manus Island based on their mode of arrival, contrary to the Refugee Convention, of which Australia is a signatory.

The statement also criticises the new Coalition government’s policies of towing back boats to their origin, abolishing the right to appeal negative refugee assessments to an independent tribunal and the withdrawal of publicly-funded legal assistance for asylum seekers.

From the Global Post story here is another list of the new measures Abbott proposes in order to discourage those who are invading Australia:

Abbott says he will use the navy to tow rickety people-smuggling boats back to their place of origin — typically Indonesia — and will force those who do arrive or are already here onto a tough new regime.

They will be placed on three-year temporary visas with no chance of permanent residency, denied family reunion, appeal or legal assistance and made to work for government benefits.

The general supposition is that most who are arriving illegally are economic migrants and not truly in need of protection, as is the case for the majority of illegal migrants to the US.  They have all just figured out how to use that magic word—asylum.

Swearing in story and photo are here.

This is our 112th post in our Australia category.

Syrian couple waiting for decision on asylum in Jamaica

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an update of the fishy story we posted on August 13th.

UNHCR coming to the rescue!

This Syrian couple with phony travel documents made it around the world—from Syria, to Lebanon, to Russia, to Cuba, to The Cayman Islands and were finally detained on their way to the US in Jamaica where they quickly asked for asylum.  Until Jamaica, not one country noticed they had the same birth date on both of their passports?  My guess is that this was some sort of a trial run.

Here is the latest news from Kingston’s The Gleaner:

The future of a Syrian couple seeking asylum in Jamaica since August is now under consideration by the Refugee Eligibility Committee and a decision is expected by the end of September, according to the Ministry of National Security.

The couple, identified as Fadi Al Lababidi and Hayat Hejazi, arrived in Jamaica from The Cayman Islands, en route to the United States in early August, but were denied landing permission by immigration authorities after suspicions were raised about travel documents.

[….]

The couple’s itinerary indicated that they “travelled from Syria to Beirut (Lebanon), Moscow (Russia), Havana (Cuba), and Grand Cayman to Kingston. They stated that they did not seek asylum in Lebanon or Russia because they felt these countries were friendly with the Syrian government”.

International asylum law says that legitimate ‘asylum seekers’ must ask for asylum in the first safe country in which they land; it’s not supposed to be a shopping expedition for the country of one’s choice.  So why didn’t they ask in Cuba or The Cayman’s?  And, where did these poor ‘refugees’ get the money necessary for a globe-trotting adventure?

Australia: Thorny asylum issues face new Australian government

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Judy told you the other day, here, that the conservatives are now in control of the government in Australia and that immigration policy differences played a huge role in the election outcome.

“Hardliner” Scott Morrison appointed immigration minister in Abbott government. Photo: . AAP/David Crosling

I’m in no position to analyze the myriad issues facing the new government over its “boat people” policy going forward, but here is a legal writer at SBS.com.au , Alex Reilly, laying out the mine fields ahead for the likely new immigration minister, Scott Morrison.

Reilly:

Asylum seeker policy experienced a rush of activity in the lead-up to the election. Behind the Abbott government’s bold promise to “stop the boats” in its first term of government is a series of specific proposals – some adopted from Labor, and some of the Coalition’s own creation.

The new immigration minister, Scott Morrison, inherits a portfolio that is in disarray. There are tens of thousands of asylum seekers already in Australia who have made an application for a Protection Visa, but who have not had their claim considered at first instance by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC). They are in various forms of detention or in the community on bridging visas with no rights to work.

I couldn’t possibly begin to analyze this, other than to say it sure looks “thorny!”  Read it all.

You might want to see our previous 110 posts on Australia where the public is in a much greater state of agitation over illegal aliens (mostly from Muslim countries) than Americans seem to be.   Or at least the issue is a pivotal election issue there and has not YET reached that level in the US.

Illegal alien “mother ship” captured off coast of Italy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
A day at the beach in Italy: The bodies of the six drowned Eygptians were laid out on a popular beach in Catania, Sicily’s second city. Photograph: Dario Azzaro/AFP/Getty Images

Reuters has reported that Italian authorities have captured the so-called “mother ship” used recently to ferry Syrians (and North Africans) across the Mediterranean to Europe.  Illegal alien crossings (with a loss of life) have increased dramatically since that Obama Administration-applauded “Arab Spring” got underway in Africa.  The captured traffickers are Egyptians.

From Reuters:

 ROME (Reuters) – Italian authorities have seized a “mother ship” used to traffic illegal migrants across the Mediterranean and picked up about 200 Syrians fleeing the civil war in their homeland, officials said on Thursday.

European Union and Italian patrol boats chased down the fishing boat with a crew of 15 that had been used to ferry the immigrants into international waters near the Sicilian coast, prosecutors and police said.

The vessel’s crew had already transfered the refugees into a smaller boat for the final leg of their voyage. Italian police boats collected 199 migrants, including 64 children, all of whom were Syrian.

The fishing boat was towed back to the port of Catania in Sicily. The seizure of the mother ship was a result of an investigation into the drowning of six migrants off Sicily in August, prosecutors said in a statement.

The smugglers are part of an Egyptian crime group, they said. The exact departure point of the fishing boat was still unknown.

The numbers are growing and countries on the Mediterranean are feeling the crunch—most especially Italy and Malta.

 Almost 9,000 migrants reached Italy by boat between July 1 and August 10, the Interior Ministry said.

In the 12 months up to August 10, more than 24,000 came, compared with more than 17,000 in the same period a year earlier, and almost 25,000 in the 12 months before that, the ministry said.

The photo is from this story at The Guardian.

Canada: Chinese “ghost” scammers deported

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The article doesn’t tell us how these Chinese nationals came to be in Canada in the first place, but I’m assuming they were asylum seekers. Here in America the Chinese top the list of asylum-seekers who get across our borders and then ask for protection.   Do you know that Chinese men can be granted asylum in the US just by saying they want to have more than one child (as is the rule in China)?

Chinese “ghost” scammer before Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board. Photo: Arlen Redekop, PNG , The Province

Here is the news from The Province to add to our expanding collection of immigrant scam stories.  With this beautiful multiculturalism we learn something new every day!

All five Chinese nationals accused of taking part in a so-called “blessing scam,” or “ghost scam,” targeting Vancouver seniors were ordered to be deported from Canada this week.

The five deportation orders followed a yearlong police probe, guilty pleas to criminal charges and immigration hearings.

Youjun Huo, 41, appeared in an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing in Vancouver on Thursday.

Huo and four women – Xiao Qiong Lin, Shao Quiong Luo, Jianmei Wu and Ya Jian Yang – were detained at Vancouver airport on July 15 while trying to leave for Hong Kong. Officers with the Canada Border Services Agency found the five were carrying $148,000 in cash, plus a large amount of jewelry.

So what is the ghost scam?

Often referred to as the “ghost scam,” or “blessing scam,” as described by the Vancouver police, the crime involves Cantonesespeaking women targeting elderly Chinese women on the street.

The scammers tell victims they are being followed by a ghost and that one of their children will die unless their money and jewelry is blessed immediately. Once the victims hand over the valuables, the scammers perform a short blessing ritual, during which they steal the goods and replace them with worthless items, police said.

Det. Ivan De Silva of the VPD’s Criminal Intelligence Unit worked on the “ghost-scam” case. He said the crime is particularly heinous because it simultaneously preys on two things: the victims’ beliefs and also their love and desire to protect their families.