Category: Asylum seekers

Migration Policy Institute reports on the status of Refugee Resettlement program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an article of the sort that screams—we should be doing more!  However, you will find it a useful summary of where the Refugee Resettlement Program stands today.

I told you about the Migration Policy Institute here in February of 2011, they are one of those Leftist Open Borders advocacy groups masquerading as a think tank.   But, they are still useful as you will see in this summing-up of the modern-day resettlement program for refugees and asylum seekers which came into being in 1980 when President Jimmy Carter and Senators Kennedy and Biden created the monster.

Below is one of the opening paragraphs of their latest report.  And, by the way, the 2012 fiscal year ends effectively on Sunday and at any moment we should see the Presidential determination letter which officially asks Congress for the number of refugees to be admitted in 2013.

In 2012 Obama asked for 76,000 refugees  (MPI says 80,000 every year since 2008, so I don’t know where the discrepancy is?) and we admitted ‘only!’ 56,000 plus in 2011.  According to WRAPS, here, as of August 31st (one month short of the end of the fiscal year for 2012, we were just shy of 50,000 admitted).   Two things happened to reduce those numbers—a couple of Iraqi refugee terrorists were nabbed in Kentucky and all those cities getting refugees are completely overloaded with unemployed and needy refugees and contractors are scouring the country for fresh territory in which to drop off the refugees.

MPI:

The United States grants humanitarian protection on a limited basis to refugees and asylees from diverse countries throughout the world (see Definitions box) This Spotlight examines the data on persons admitted to the United States as refugees and those granted asylum in 2011. It also provides the number of refugees and asylees who received lawful permanent resident (LPR) status in 2011.

Check out the report for the summary and pay attention to the growing number of asylum seekers granted legal permanent residency status.  Asylum seekers are people who arrived on our borders illegally and say they were being persecuted somewhere in the world (never mind that most traveled through many ‘safe’ countries where they should have asked for asylum, but its the US they are aiming for).   Refugees are screened by Homeland Security before they are admitted to the US.  Asylum seekers waltz right in!

Have a look at this interesting table about those granted asylum and where they came from in 2011.  It gives you some idea of who those OTMs (other than Mexicans) are coming across our borders.  However, some asylum seekers are those with student or tourist visas who then ask for asylum rather than return home.

One more thing, when you visit WRAPS, and see the Refugee Admissions report up to August 31, note that we admitted over 4000 more Somalis this year.

For new readers:  We have a category entitled ‘where to find information’ and this post will be archived there.  You might want to visit that category from time to time for basic information about the program.

Europe’s multi-culti nightmare: Kurds this time

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Kurds (they are Muslims) are making the news these days.   We just had a report of a Kurdish refugee “welcomed” by Australia being found guilty of human trafficking.   Then earlier this summer we learned that young Kurds in Nashville (little Kurdistan!) are chief promoters of gang violence.   And, some European countries are deporting Kurds, here.

Looks like Kurds are scaring the ‘bejeezus’ out of Germany.  This ‘event’ happened two weeks ago, did you read about it or see it on your favorite TV news programs?  No! (I didn’t think so).

Here is the story at Frontpage magazine (hat tip: Judy):

“The festival gives expression to our demand for a peaceful coexistence of all humans with their different cultures, languages and traditions.”

– Proclamation of the festival’s organizers.

The beautiful, rosy multicultural paradise Europe’s leftists promised in the 1960s and ’70s manifested itself brilliantly again recently at a Kurdish festival in Mannheim, a German city in the south-western state of Baden-Wurttemberg. Almost as soon as the festival began, German police were set upon by hundreds of young Kurds who were encouraged “with words and applause” by thousands of others. When the shocking, hours-long savagery ended, eighty policemen were injured, one seriously, while “more than a dozen vehicles were destroyed” before order could be restored.

Martin Boll, a spokesman for Mannheim’s police, said he had never seen such violence in his 30 years of police service.

They had been allowed into Europe under the multicultural banner or asylum laws!

It was estimated 40,000 people, of whom 2,500 were regarded as “violent or violence-prepared,” attended the twentieth holding of this annual “multicultural” event. Most of the previous 19 Kurdish festivals had been held in the German state of Rhineland-Westphalia. An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Kurds live in Germany, but Kurds had travelled from all over Europe for this year’s festival in Mannheim.

The riot began when officials of a security firm contracted by the festival’s organizers asked two policemen for assistance with a 14-year-old Kurdish youth who was refusing to give up a flag he was carrying of the banned Kurdish terrorist group, the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).  Apparently angry at the police intervention, about 100 young Kurds “suddenly attacked the two policemen from behind and kicked them in the back.” The violence escalated from there as more police and thugs were drawn in.

Unfortunately, the Mannheim riot is not an isolated incident. Germans and other Europeans are becoming more accustomed to seeing their municipal police forces attacked by people who, for the most part, had been allowed into Europe under the multicultural banner or asylum laws. [Coming soon to a town near you?—ed]

Greatest worry for Germans?  The Police lost control.

It is not surprising that Germans are wondering what is going on in their country today. Many realize that multiculturalism is a destructive, failed policy and that they are destined to experience many more such violent, “culturally enriching” moments in the future. They question why people are being let into Germany who actually belong in jail rather than on their streets. But what appears to upset Germans most about the Mannheim riot, even more than the lack of arrests, is that the police lost control of the situation and actually had to retreat to safety, leaving the rioters in control of the area for hours until police reinforcements arrived.

[…..]

Due to this loss of control on the part of the Mannheim police, some Germans are now worried whether security authorities will be able protect them when such inevitable rioting occurs again in future.

Get a gun if you wish to survive in this beautiful multi-culti world!

And if the police cannot enforce law and order, another reader asked, what could prevent such a “violence-prepared” mob from “breaking into houses, plundering and pillaging?”

The answer is nothing. The politicians are also not going to help correct the situation by sending large numbers of these miscreants back to their country of origin. So the only option left is, like in America, for the ordinary citizen to arm him- or herself, if one wants to survive in the “beautiful, new multicultural world” Europe has become.

There is more on what is happening in Europe—read it all!

Expanding the use of asylum to include wife abuse?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A California Law School is working hard to convince the Dept. of Homeland Security that women who claim domestic violence by their husbands anywhere in the world can be granted asylum by the US.   Although we have sympathy for abused women where their country’s government won’t help them, I doubt few of these cases involve women from Muslim countries where wife beating is permitted by law (see Janet Levy on that point yesterday).  Most other countries have laws to protect women to one degree or another.

Also, I can see how hard it would be for someone to prove to a judge (or for the judge to believe the story!) that their hubby beat them, perhaps years before they undertook a dangerous and expensive journey to get across our borders in order to ask for asylum (by hooking up with an immigration attorney who teaches them how to ask).

Here is the story:

The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies has been instrumental in helping women gain refuge from domestic violence.

This summer, in cases that made national headlines, two women whose legal teams were supported by CGRS won asylum after suffering years of abuse and lack of protection from authorities in their home countries.

Aruna Vallabhaneri lived first with abuse from her husband in Hyderabad, India, and then with the threat of deportation when she fled to the U.S. She initially filed for asylum and was denied in 1998 and ordered deported. But after hearing testimony of the abuse in her arranged marriage, she was granted asylum on the basis of domestic violence in June 2012.  [India doesn’t have laws to protect people against violence?—ed]

[…..]

Under current U.S. law, individuals should be granted asylum if they have suffered persecution or have a well-founded fear of persecution for one of five reasons — political opinion, race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group. Domestic abuse claims most often fall under the statutory ground of particular social group, the murkiest and most contested category.

Until recently, the Department of Homeland Security, which both adjudicates some asylum claims and prosecutes others, has not supported domestic violence claims, and regulations promised in 2000 have yet to be issued. In April 2009, the department filed a legal brief in a domestic violence case known as L.R., taking the position that women who are victims of domestic violence may qualify for asylum. Despite this recognition, the brief is not binding on immigration judges, and many Homeland Security attorneys have continued to fight domestic violence cases.

[…..]

Of the 619 domestic violence asylum cases for which the center has provided counsel between 1994 and 2011, 422 women were granted asylum, and 192 were denied.

So, what are they complaining about.  Accepting 2/3rds of the claims and rejecting 1/3 doesn’t sound all that bad of a record.  Do these lawyers expect the judges to approve 100% of the claims?

By the way, once asylum is granted these new “refugees” become eligible for all of the social services refugees get—food stamps, subsidized housing, health care, etc.

Sweden expecting 17,000 Syrians to arrive seeking asylum this year and next

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It looks like those Djiboutians getting into Sweden are going to have some competition as Syrians are arriving in increasing numbers into the welcoming arms of the Swedish welfare system (where the “living is easy!”).   Meanwhile there are still reports, but I’m not sure if it isn’t old news, that Iraqis (mostly Kurds) are being deported from Sweden.

Europe is bracing for the anticipated Syrian tide, from Reuters:

(Reuters) – Ali Jamal travelled thousands of miles on foot, by train and road to flee violence in Syria while Jomaah piled his family into a camper van to smuggle them north to Europe.

They have now reached safety in Sweden, some of the growing thousands of Syrians who are evading the European Union’s frontier controls to escape the turmoil of the past 18 months.

That is raising calls for a more focused European response to a refugee crisis that has seen over 200,000 Syrians flee to Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and, especially, Turkey. From there, a determined, and usually richer, few press on to the EU borders, mainly into Greece, with most hoping for asylum further north.

Sweden alone, 2,500 km (1,500 miles) from Turkey’s European frontier, is expecting 17,000 Syrians to show up seeking refuge this year and next, reflecting a sharply rising trend across the continent; barely a tenth of that number reached Sweden in the first half of this year – itself a marked increase on 2011.

Don’t you wonder how long the Swedish taxpayer can afford all this?

While the numbers are still small, whether compared to Syria’s population of over 20 million or to the EU’s 500 million, the move to flight has placed strains on all concerned.

Sweden has had to improvise accommodation. In the case of Jamal and Jomaah that is a hostel normally used by tourists near Kopingebro, on the south coast. Many have moved into picturesque red cottages on an island campsite, which opened last week.

Syrians became the third largest group of asylum seekers in Sweden after Somalis and Afghans at 1,855 in the period from January to July, compared to 303 in the same period last year.

Read it all.

Check out new Australian ad campaign to deter illegal aliens arriving in boats

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As hundreds of new arrivals try to get to Australia by boat with many losing their lives in the process, Australia has launched an ad campaign to try to deter new arrivals.  Hat tip: mjazzguitar

Click here to watch the news report and the ad.

This is something we could do as well if we ever got serious about our borders.   Instead we have immigration lawyers waiting at the border to help anyone caught to seek asylum using an ever increasing list of possible reasons for asylum.