Category: Asylum seekers

ANC: Too many foreigners in South Africa, new policy on refugees proposed

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Previously:  too many foreigners in France, here.

Did you know that just earlier this year the African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela and the now ruling party of the “rainbow nation,” turned 100.   And, it was just last week that President Obama likened himself to Mandela saying it takes time for change, for peaceful change.  I wonder does Obama have any idea what the myth of the “rainbow nation” has come to in S. Africa?

Before I tell you the latest on the proposed crackdown on “refugees,” below are some of the promises the ANC makes to its citizens (no wonder “refugees” are pouring into the country).  Sounds a bit like a bunch of commies wrote this:

* The people shall govern
* All national groups shall have equal rights
* The people shall share in the country`s wealth
* The land shall be shared among those who work it
* All shall be equal before the law
* All shall enjoy equal human rights
* There shall be work and security
* The doors of learning and culture shall be opened
* There shall be houses, security and comfort
* There shall be peace and friendship

Who wouldn’t run to a country with promises like that!  Now to reality….

We reported recently that white South Africans are seeking asylum around the world, here.

And here is the latest news on South Africa trying to get its borders under control and deal with the  masses flowing into the country.   I love these delicious irony stories!  You didn’t hear this from any US media did you?

When “rainbow nation” mumbo jumbo hits reality

From the Mail & Guardian of S.Africa:

South Africa should take “robust steps” to refuse to grant refugee status to asylum seekers who have transited through one or more “safe” countries, according to the ANC policy discussion document released this week.

“Building appropriate relationships with other such countries, which are also signatories to the conventions on refugees and in particular our neighbours, is key to resolving this problem,” the document states in the chapter on home affairs. “The UN conventions on asylum seekers provide for the ‘first country’ rule, which states that an asylum seeker should seek refuge in the first safe country that he or she reaches.”

[This is international law—legitimate asylum seekers must ask for asylum in the first safe country—not hop around the world looking for the best deals.  As a matter of fact, most asylum seekers on our southern border have traversed through recognized safe countries in Central America and Mexico, yet we don’t turn them back.—ed]

Can you believe it?  Traffickers are moving people into the “rainbow nation:’

A combination of large numbers of asylum seekers, gaps in the law, weak systems and corruption has led to widespread abuse of an overloaded system by criminal syndicates that smuggle and traffic people, the document points out.

Just like Israel and other countries which don’t want to be destroyed, the ANC wants detention centers on its borders:

It suggests that asylum seekers who present a high risk must be accommodated in a secure facility until their status has been determined and that low-risk asylum seekers will be processed while they are assisted by various organisations.

[….]

The document claims that “refugee reception centres” will be relocated along the borders of South Africa, but suggests that a discussion is needed to ensure the home affairs department gets the support it needs to run and house these centres.

One thing that really bugs them (and it bugs me too) is this business of “refugees” who escaped “persecution” in their home country and then just bop back for a visit from time to time.  In the US we have large numbers of Somalis who regularly fly back to the supposed Islamic terrorist-filled country of Somalia to visit.  What is up with that?  Here the ANC suggests that if they leave and go “home” for a visit that they then be barred from re-entry to S. Africa (great idea!):

Among its concerns is that some refugees, including those still seeking asylum, tend to travel to their home countries for visits and return to South Africa. It is proposed that such people should be refused re-entry because they are flouting UN conventions and there is no evidence to show they have anything to fear in their home countries.

And, here is the kicker—give or take a few percentage points around the world—this is the truth!

“As a security department, home affairs will contribute to achieving two overriding goals: national security and public safety,” the document states. “The main challenge currently is that over 95% of those claiming asylum in South Africa are not genuine asylum seekers, but rather are looking for work or business opportunities.”

Read it all here.

What happens when whites and Christians become the persecuted minorities?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Will the United Nations and the refugee industry be as eager to resettle them to America?  After all the conventional wisdom is that only white people are racists and the world is full of Islamophobes, but what about “Christophobes.”

This article in the Times Live (Johannesburg) about white South Africans increasingly seeking asylum around the world and an article recently in Newsweek by Ayaan Hirsi Ali got me thinking about all this again.

Here is news about how increasing numbers of Afrikaners, fearing for their safety in black-ruled South Africa, are seeking asylum around the world.

A South African family is desperate to remain in the US, its members claiming they cannot return home because, as Afrikaners, they will be subject to racial discrimination.

The family’s legal representative has been contacting US academics in a bid to get a scholarly opinion that would bolster the asylum application.

The family, described by the law firm as “white Afrikaner farmers”, is among dozens of South Africans who, over the past decade, have applied for asylum abroad for a range of reasons, including fear of persecution and violent crime. Some of the applications have been successful.

I had to laugh, it is so predictable, US “academics” quoted flatly deny there is any reason for whites to fear for their lives in South Africa—they are so desperately holding onto the “rainbow nation” myth created when apartheid ended and blacks came to power.  (Just type ‘rainbow nation’ into our search function and see the mess South Africa is in!).

As many as 800 whites seeking asylum!

Adriana Stuijt, a retired Dutch-born journalist who worked in South Africa, estimates that there are almost 800 South Africans living as refugees around the world.

Stuijt has a blog that monitors the number of refugees and is a member of the Afrikaner Rescue Action Fund, which was started in the Netherlands to help poor Afrikaner communities.

By the way, be sure to take note of how these white asylum seekers are being grilled in the US and consider how easy it was for this Rwandan woman to get into the US as a refugee and to become a citizen!

Christophobia indeed!

Then here is Nina Shea writing at National Review Online about a conspiracy of silence around the increasing persecution of Christians in Muslim countries.

Best-selling author, film director, women’s-rights advocate, former Dutch parliamentarian, Islamist death-threat survivor, refugee from a Somalian forced marriage, and a fierce champion of individual freedoms — that of others as well as her own — Ayaan Hirsi Ali has demonstrated her courage once more. In the cover story she penned for the current issue of Newsweek, entitled “The War on Christians,” which is excerpted in The Daily Beast, Hirsi Ali gives a tour d’horizon of the most politically incorrect subject of all human-rights reporting: the ongoing religious persecution of Christians in the Muslim world. It makes heartbreaking reading.

She criticizes the media for giving short shrift to this development, favoring instead the narrative that Muslims are the victims of religious persecution by the West. She writes:

But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other.

The international media does report on the isolated anti-Christian atrocity: the Nigerian church that was blown up last Christmas, the Egyptian Coptic demonstrators killed for protesting religious persecution in October, and the 2010 Iraqi church bombing (the 70th documented church bombing in that country since 2003), which killed or maimed three priests and everyone else in it, to cite but a few examples. But it rarely looks at the global pattern, or even national patterns, and their significance.

Will we be seeing the refugee lobby in DC that includes contractors such as the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, World Relief, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and so forth clamoring to resettle persecuted Christians (instead of all the Muslims they resettle), or indeed say that white South Africans are worthy of their help—I doubt it!   Why? It doesn’t fit the narrative the international Left has so successfully established.

Ukraine: Somalis on hunger strike, demand asylum

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They are transiting the Ukraine and other countries that surround the European Union in hopes of getting across borders into countries like Germany where they stand a better chance of being granted asylum.

Franck Duvell:

Since 6 January, 58 Somalis, all from the Mogadishu region (13 women, including 7 minors, and 45 men, including 17 minors) who are detained in Zhuravychi detention centre near Lutsk are on hunger strike. On 29/1, they were subsequently attacked by riot police who forcefully took them to the dining room to take pictures of the refugees eating.

The hunger striking refugees demand that:

1) Somali asylum seekers are granted asylum status in Ukraine.
2) They are released from detention.
3) Asylum seekers are provided with documents so they cannot be arrested.
4) There is an end to the police harassment of asylum seekers.
5) No asylum seeker is to face re-arrest after a period of detention.

The detention centre where the Somali and other refugees are kept was set up in 2008 with funds from the EU, € 7.2 million from the ‘Capacity Building in Migration Management’ programme (CBMM), and under IOM management. Another ten EU-funded detention centres are planned.

Ukraine not safe for refugees:

It has been widely and internationally agreed by UNHCR, IOM, ICMPD and others that Ukraine does not live up to its obligations under international law and is thus not a safe country for refugees.

Somalis transit Ukraine attempting to get to the EU where their chances of being granted asylum improve:

For several years, Somalis have been using Ukraine as a transit route from Somalia via Russia to the EU, not in large numbers but a few hundred each year. Once in the EU, they try and continue they journeys to the western countries. There, they usually apply for asylum knowing that it is only there that they stand a chance of being recognised. For instance, in Germany, in 2010, 2,466 Somalis had applied for asylum, around 5 percent of the total. The recognition rate for Somalis was 41.4 percent, three times more than the national average…

In Ukraine people with “exotic” appearances are detained—guess those Ukrainians didn’t hear that ethnic profiling is politically incorrect:

In 2010 and 2011, Ukrainian authorities are reported to rounding up migrants, in Kyiv they ‘harass merchants at Troyeshchyna market; racism, corruption seen’ notably of ‘non-Slavik appearance’ (Kyiv Post, 5/11/2010) and in Kharkiv they ‘carry out raids at the markets and railway stations of the city. People with exotic appearance are checked their documents and established whether they stay in Ukraine legally.’

Formal request submitted to give TPS to Syrians in the US, volags involved

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since the open borders crowd has been so successful in keeping hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in the US (Salvadorans, Haitians, Liberians,  Somalis etc) through Temporary Protected Status they now want to secure TPS “protection” for Syrians presently in the US due to the turmoil on-going in Syria.

So who is next? — TPS for Yemenis, Egyptians, Libyans, Palestinians and the list goes on!

Just a reminder that Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies shrewdly noted in 1999—there is nothing quite so permanent as a temporary refugee!

Here is the news:

On Wednesday, January 25th, United for a Free Syria (UFS), in close coordination with a broad coalition including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Syrian Expatriates Organization (SEO), Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), Syrian Americans for Democracy (SAD), South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), and Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), has formally requested that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under section 244 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, to Syrian nationals presently in the United States. The request was sent directly to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

UFS understands the urgent need to file for TPS and will continue the political lobbying behind this effort at the US Congress and the White House as well as all relevant agencies. The thorough petition has been sent not only to DHS, but also to the Office of the Secretary of State, the National Security Council, and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service. The petition cites numerous facts regarding the current Syrian regime’s atrocities from numerous international governmental and non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, among other reliable sources.

Since two of the top refugee contractors (highlighted above) are in on this, I can only assume there is money to be made as visa overstays, illegal aliens, Syrian students, and Syrian tourists are magically transformed overnight into formal “refugees.”   There must be something more tangible in it for the volags besides the joy of enhancing our ethnic diversity.

One final thought.  As the refugee program itself comes under greater scrutiny (the numbers are down under Obama), I think those looking to bring ever greater numbers of immigrants to the US are just searching for more creative ways to get the job done.  TPS is one such legal program.

“Dodgy” asylum claims clog Australian appeals system, cost taxpayers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A problem everywhere?

From the Courier Mail (Brisbane):

DODGY* claims involving fake religious beliefs, sham marriages and lies about sexuality are adding to a logjam of cases in immigration and refugee tribunals, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

Desperate foreign citizens who arrive by plane are launching a barrage of appeals after Immigration officials reject their claims and seek to send them home.

The Refugee Review Tribunal – which handles only plane arrivals – had a 31 per cent jump in appeals last year while the Migration Review Tribunal, which deals with student and partner visas, had a 24 per cent increase.

More than 13,000 appeals to the two tribunals in the one year overwhelmed resources.

Readers, asylum seekers are basically illegal aliens (or visa overstays) who enter a country on their own steam and then ask for asylum.  In the US, once their asylum status has been approved, they get basically the same goodies as a refugee who has been approved and screened abroad and flown here at taxpayer expense.  (Well, they will tell you that the refugees must repay airfare, but you can be sure many impoverished people unable to find work are not going to have their airfare loan at the top of the list).

And, by the way, here is a post I wrote in January 2011 about how it appears that US NGOs may now be helping would-be asylum seekers get into the US.  When the Refugee Act of 1980 was signed into law by Jimmy Carter it was expected that asylum claims would be a tiny number and reserved for the odd ballet dancer seeking asylum from a repressive home country.  Now it is approaching the refugee program itself in the sheer number of claimants.

The US receives the most asylum claims.  Here is a report from the UN for the first half of 2011.  Asylum claims rising rapidly:

By country, the United States had more claims (36,400) than any other industrialized nation, followed by France with (26,100), Germany (20,100), Sweden (12,600) and the United Kingdom (12,200). The Nordic region was the only part of Europe to see a fall in asylum applications. Meanwhile, in north-east Asia applications more than doubled – 1,300 claims were lodged in Japan and South Korea compared to 600 in the first half of 2010.

* “Dodgy”—isn’t that a great word!