Category: Asylum seekers

New Zealand to take some of Australia’s asylum seekers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But, only legitimate “refugees” and only 150 per year.

I haven’t said much about Australia’s problem of  illegal aliens coming by the boatload lately—mostly because it was the same old boring hunger-striking and political wrangling—but there are a couple of interesting bits of news from Down Under today.

The first is that New Zealand, that wisely takes only a whopping 750 refugees a year, is going to take some of Australia’s boat arrivals.  To put that into perspective, the US in recent years has resettled on average 50,000-60,000, Canada around 7,000, Australia 6,000 and the entire European Union maybe around 5,000.

This business of taking some of the so-called “refugees” from Muslim countries or regions of the world arriving illegally on another country’s shores is a relatively new thing.  According to international law, legitimate refugees are supposed to ask for asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive—they aren’t supposed to be on a shopping expedition (think Malta!).  Nor, is the country under siege supposed to be pawning them off on other countries.

Here is the latest from Australia (ABC News).  Critics in New Zealand say this will ultimately lead to boats arriving there as well.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has struck a deal that will see New Zealand resettle 150 refugees from Australia’s system each year.

Ms Gillard and her New Zealand counterpart announced the deal after holding leaders talks in Queenstown.

Ms Gillard says the deal could affect asylum seekers currently being held in processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru.

“The aim here is to have it start in 2014 and be ongoing,” she said.

“The 150 could be drawn from people who are in Australia now and we would want to work with PNG and Nauru so it is possible that some of the 150 could come from who are processed on PNG and Nauru.”

Mr Key says New Zealand will not increase its overall intake of asylum seekers from its present level of 750 a year, but that number will now include those from Australia.

“Australia is grappling with the huge challenge of illegal arrivals by sea and is at the forefront of the efforts to disrupt people smuggling across the region,” Mr Key said.  [So how is people smuggling going to stop if those arriving illegally are granted asylum?—ed]

“As part of our support for a regional approach, New Zealand will resettle 150 genuine refugees annually from the Australian system … as part of the 750 refugees that we annually take.

“So it’s not an increase in the number of refugees New Zealand takes but a different sourcing of the location of those refugees.”

He says taking refugees from Australia makes sense and will not encourage asylum seekers to get on boats bound for New Zealand.

Mr Key has previously said he believes it is inevitable that New Zealand will be facing similar policy quandaries to Australia.

“It’s my view a boat will turn up in New Zealand, I think it’s a matter of time,” he said earlier this week.

The opposition:  border security first!  (LOL! where have I heard that before?)

But Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison is not convinced.

“What this arrangement has the risk of doing is putting a bit of Kiwi sugar on the table for people smugglers,” he said.

“What we should have been talking about is how New Zealand and Australia can be working together, through the Bali process, to beef up natural deterrents.”

He says the talks should have focused on things like improved training of immigration and customs officers, better border protection technology and regional border patrols.

Meanwhile Muslim refugee wife murdered by refugee hubby for becoming too Australian

So much for assimilating.  From the Daily Telegraph:

AN Afghan refugee who strangled his wife with her scarf in a fit of rage because she wanted a divorce has been jailed for 20 years.

Soltan Azizi, 48, has twice been found guilty by Victorian Supreme Court juries of brutally beating and strangling 33-year-old Marzieh Rahimi in their Hampton Park home in November 2007.

[…..]

Justice Stephen Kaye said Azizi’s account was totally unconvincing.

He said the couple’s relationship had been hostile and strained and that Azizi had killed his wife in an uncontrollable fit of rage during an argument about her rights.

The court heard Azizi had told Marzieh’s sister that she had changed religion and become Australian.

[…..]

Justice Kaye said Azizi and Marzieh came to Australia as refugees in 2005.   [The honor killing happened in 2007–only two years after being granted refugee status—and no one saw this coming?—ed]

Should Norquist and Napolitano decide our immigration policy?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  This is cross-posted from Potomac Tea Party Report and mostly involves illegal immigration which we mention here from time to time.  Also there are ramifications for asylum because if a path to citizenship is available for all those who entered the US illegally, then surely the thousands of pending asylum cases would become moot literally overnight should “comprehensive immigration reform” come to pass.

Of course the answer is a resounding NO (to Norquist and Napolitano)!

But, having these two—Grover Norquist and Janet Napolitano—as the poster children for so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” is good for us (the side whose adherents see the rush, to legalize 11 million workers and dependents on the social safety net, as America committing suicide.)

Two stories over the weekend are worth mentioning.

First The Hill reports that the “gang of eight” would let the Secretary of Homeland Security determine if the border is sufficiently secure to grant what amounts to amnesty for the 11 million illegal aliens presently in the country.

Under a bipartisan Senate framework, Democrats say, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano would have final say over whether the border is secure enough to put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.

If Napolitano does not provide the green light for putting illegal immigrants on a pathway to citizenship, the responsibility for judging whether the metrics for border security have been met will be given to her successor. [And just for a minute imagine the stampede to the border this legislation would unleash if signed into law!—ed]

The early debate over immigration reform has yielded two thorny questions: What metrics will be used to determine whether the goals for border security and other safeguards against illegal immigration have been met? Who will decide whether the metrics have been achieved?

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the lead Democratic sponsor of the bipartisan immigration reform framework unveiled this past week, said Napolitano should decide.

“What we’ve proposed is that the DHS secretary, whomever it is, will have final say on [whether] whatever metrics we proposes are met,” Schumer said. “We think those metrics will be quite objective.”

Grover Norquist

(LOL! gotta keep my Norquist files up-to-date)

This story from the Daily Caller highlights Grover Norquist as one of the chief proponents of open borders and a corporate gun for hire.

Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist’s insistence that large-scale immigration is good for America and the Republican Party is attracting intense criticism from policy advocates who see him as a pawn of corporate interests.

“There are a whole bunch of people who are listening to loud voices, some of whom claim to be Republican … talking about [employers] who didn’t fill out the paperwork, about going after [an immigrant’s] aunt,” said Norquist, whose opposition to tax increases has made him popular among Republicans and a hate-figure among progressives.

Once advocates for tighter immigration are sidelined, the GOP will be able to win votes from Hispanics and other recent immigrants, he said.

“Removing that threat [of deportation] from millions of Americans will make it possible to have a conversation with [immigrants] about tax policy and spending, and all the other issues we have with legal Americans.”  [Oh sure Grover, as soon as they are legalized they will want to sit down to talk about tax policy—hell, most won’t make enough money to be among the taxpaying members of the public. And, as for spending, they will be voting for candidates who promise a larger “safety net”—ed]

His critics are equally vehement.

“Grover is an extremely effective lobbyist … [and] the thing about Grover is that he has clients who make big money off of immigration,” said Roy Beck, founder of advocacy group NumbersUSA, which helped derail previous efforts to expand immigration.

“Grover is going to do everything in his power to prevent America having a middle class … it appears he thinks oligarchy is a better way to go. … You can’t have a Republican Party when you have a voting base that is impoverished and needs government assistance.”

Norquist has been pushing to rewrite immigration policy for years, and he’s got his arguments down cold.

The Daily Caller goes on to say Norquist wouldn’t care if the immigrants were Egyptians or Uzbeks (of course not, remember Norquist is an Islamist sympathizer).  And, as we have pointed out on other occasions, the illegal aliens who would be allowed to stay are not just the friendly ones from Mexico and south, but they include Somalis, Iranians, Iraqis and the list goes on of OTMs (Other than Mexicans) coming across our southern and northern borders.  Also, don’t forget, Norquist famously said Shariah Law is compatible with the US Constitution here.

Asylum-seeking Muslim men re-start hunger strike today in Vienna, Austria church

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We first reported this story, here, ten days ago.   63 men, ages 20-40 years old, are on-and-off hunger-striking in a Viennese Catholic Church demanding that they be granted asylum in Austria because they want to work.   Nevermind that there isn’t any work in most of Europe these days.

As you read through the news account, their big problem is that many, especially the Pakistanis, don’t even qualify as refugees and are in fact economic migrants (at minimum).

Since I reported on the protesters last, we are told in the news from The Vienna Review that they had taken ten days off from their hunger strike to eat and are now, Feb. 1, resuming their fasts as the media swarms the place to tell the mean old Austrian government about them.  All-the-while they are being protected by the Catholic Church and are being coached by Georg Burstmayr an asylum lawyer!

Burstmayr:

“The most important question is access to Austrian labour markets,” said Bürstmayr.  [Sure that’s it!  They are just dying to work. Excuse my cynicism—ed]

Austrian government position so far is that they are “asylum shoppers:”

Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner met with the asylum seekers on 2 January to discuss their demands, but she remained unmoved. The Austrian asylum system is “one of the best asylum systems in the whole of Europe,” she said, adding that changing the laws on fingerprints and relocation would contradict the EU. The Dublin Regulation prevents simultaneous claims by the same person in different EU member states – known as “asylum shopping”. Bürstmayr explained that “every decision made by a country in the EU is valid for all other member states. They have no second chance.”

They do not fit the definition of refugees because they could safely live in some portion of their home country, that is especially so for the Pakistanis.

… asylum seekers in limbo: They cannot legally stay in Austria, nor can they return to their homeland. “Many of the asylum seekers protesting in the Votivkirche will have a very hard time getting recognition as refugees according to the Geneva Convention,” said Bürstmayr. This applies particularly to those from Pakistan. “They have fled from very complicated and threatening situations but still they might not [technically] be refugees.”

Of the 1,718 asylum applications made in Austria by Pakistani citizens in 2012, only 14 were accepted. Adalat Khan is from the Swat region of Pakistan, where 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban last October for her activism surrounding education and women’s rights.

“Pakistan is a more dangerous area than Syria at the moment, but Austrian people don’t understand that,” Khan explained.

This discrepancy arises from a concept called “domestic flight alternative”: If there is an area within an asylum seeker’s home country where they can feasibly go to live without danger, as in Pakistan, they are not considered a refugee. Additionally, Pakistanis are often thought to have economic reasons for seeking asylum.

Read it all and have a good cry for Vienna.

Readers keep in mind that Austria has been more than welcoming and some sections of Vienna are no longer majority Austrian as we learned here (Babel on the Danube) at Gates of Vienna.

It’s time for my nag—read about Al-Hijra the Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, these men are invaders and the Catholic Church is sowing it own demise here in Vienna—a city that defeated the Islamic invaders centuries ago.  Ask these “educated” hunger strikers if they know what happened here when the Muslim hordes were defeated at the Gates of Vienna and I will bet every one of them knows the history.  They are back to finish the job!

Denmark could save itself from cultural annihilation by closing bridge to Sweden

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From Dispatch International via The Muslim Issue:

During an interview with Dispatch International, Pia Kjærsgaard, former chairman of Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) Pia Kjærsgaard commented on the consequences of the massive Muslim and Middle Eastern immigration into Sweden.

According to Migrationsverket (the Swedish immigration authority), an estimated 175,000 immigrants will come to Sweden, primarily from Somalia and Afghanistan. All these so-called ‘asylum seekers’, as well as their relatives, will be free to enter Denmark after having gained a Swedish permit of residence.

How will Pia Kjærsgaard solve this problem?

“I said already ten years ago that we might need to block the Øresund bridge leading to Sweden. It was intended as a joke, of course, though a serious one. We are in the process of digging our own graves. I am all for Nordic cooperation, but the Swedish policy is a liability. Eventually, Denmark may be forced to discriminate about which Swedes can be permitted to take up residence in Denmark, so that real Swedes may be freely admitted, while we keep immigrants from certain third world countries and their descendants out.

Pia Kjærsgaard stresses that she is not at all afraid of using the word ‘discrimination’.

”We already discriminate in a lot of areas. For instance, one needs to be of a certain age to vote, and a certain age in order to receive a public pension. We do differentiate among people. We also have the right to discriminate between persons who are able to become integrated into the Danish society, and those who are not.”

There is more, here.

(Muslim) asylum-seeking hunger strikers: We want the right to stay in Vienna…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….and get a free education and be able to move around where ever we want.  Oh, and no deportation for those who failed to qualify as refugees in Austria.

This story is over ten-days-old and has been kicking around in my posting queue for over a week and just now I couldn’t find a follow-up—did they starve to death or did the Austrian government cave in?  Although, not exactly breaking news now,  it’s an interesting story when coupled with another report from the excellent international blog–-Gates of Vienna—on Vienna.

Here is the hunger strike story from Deutsche Welle (emphasis mine):

 Political refugees in Vienna are starving themselves to protest against poor living conditions. The Austrian government wants the protest to end as soon as possible – but it seems there’s no end in sight.

In the dark, neo-gothic Votive Church near Vienna’s city center, weak winter sunlight filters through stained glass windows and illuminates the mattresses and blankets jammed into a corner. More than a dozen young men lie in the jumble of bedding.

“We got families,” says one of the protesters. “We got situations that people just don’t understand. We gotta make a change. We gotta make people understand.”

The protesters say they will starve themselves to death unless the Austrian government changes its refugee policy. They marched on the church from a refugee center 20 kilometers outside of Vienna. They say conditions there are overcrowded, that they receive only 150 euros a month ($198) on which to live and that many of them will spend years in these cramped quarters, sometimes with young families. Muhamed Numan, a 24-year-old from Pakistan, defines the group’s goals.

The two tall spires of the chalk-colored Votive Church dominate the cityscape of Vienna. (Photo: Votava / dpa) Vienna’s Votive Church has guards at the doors to protect refugees.

“The first is asylum,” he says. “The second is free education. The third is freedom of movement.”

They also want to stop the deportation of those who have been refused refugee status, as well as to erase refugee fingerprint records. The Austrian government says it is not prepared to meet those demands.

Austrians: no patience for those who bite the hand that feeds them!

 “These demands, like the right to stay for everyone, like the erasing of finger-prints … lack any legal basis and don’t come anywhere near meeting EU regulations,” said Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner.

Austrian Freedom Party MP Norbert Hofer also believes that the asylum seekers’ message will not be well received in Austria.

“People have no time for someone who comes to Austria seeking protection and then starts demonstrating,” Hofer said. “In Austria we have done a lot. Between 2005 and 2010 alone we spent a billion euros on asylum provision.”

But, of course Mr. Hofer, they don’t care how much you’ve done in the past, the point is to bring Austria and all of Europe to its knees economically and culturally.

And, look who is here!  The Catholic Church supporting the Muslim ‘asylum seekers.’   What else is new!

The protesters are backed by aid agencies and NGOs, which have been criticizing the government’s asylum policies for years. They claim that accommodation for refugees is overcrowded and that the burden of care falls mainly on charities like the Catholic aid agency Caritas.  [I say let the Catholic Church use its vast resources for its chosen “charity.”   It is not the role of government to do so!—ed]

Think about it!  Over 300 years ago, at the Gates of Vienna, Christians turned back the Muslim armies about to over-run Vienna and march through the gates of Europe, and it’s today’s Catholic Church helping Muslims conquer Christendom now.

Refugee camp squatters were earlier evicted near Vienna

There is more here about a camp previously disrupted by the Austrian government.  Readers, we are seeing these camps all over Europe (here in Germany and here in Holland).   See also Greece, here.  These are not spontaneous and disconnected events, they mean to bring down Europe in our lifetimes.  The Islamists know history!

Demographic change has already come to Vienna!

Now, please visit “Babul on the Danube” at Gates of Vienna (a blog you should visit daily*):

Barely any students with German as mother tongue in Vienna

The nationwide statistics conceals the dramatic developments in Vienna, because German is hardly spoken in the primary schools of the federal capital. The district in Vienna where this is most blatantly visible is Margareten, where the proportion of immigrant children has risen to 89 % — that is, 924 out of 1038 children have as their mother tongue something other than German.

* The Gates of Vienna blog moved yesterday, find it here!