Category: Asylum seekers

Egyptian border confusion: IDF unit refuses to send “refugees” back to Egypt

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The incident highlights the political confusion (lack of will?)  in Israel regarding asylum seekers and economic migrants pouring into the country—-help migrants knowing that by doing so Israel could soon be taken over from within?  It is the same story here, it’s just that the US is bigger and it will take longer before we know we are finished.

From Haaretz:

Soldiers and officers in a reserve battalion that served on the Egyptian border in recent weeks have told their commanders they will not take part in “immediate return” – the sending back to Egypt of Africans sneaking into Israel. The brigade commander, meanwhile, has confirmed that the battalion will not carry out “immediate return.”

The Negev Brigade’s elite reconnaissance battalion completed a three-week deployment on the border. Nearly every night, Africans crossed the frontier, mostly Sudanese and Eritreans, and at least one time, Libyans.

Early in the deployment, a family of Eritreans was stopped. A company commander was ordered to send the transients back toward an Egyptian checkpoint.

The soldiers and officers had heard descriptions from colleagues who regularly serve in the area about abuse of the Africans by Egyptian border policemen – violence, rape and murder – and refused to carry out the order. The commander contacted the battalion commander, Lt. Col. (res. ) Avi Friedman.

Friedman supported his men and contacted the brigade commander, Col. Yair Barkat, who then agreed that the troops would not carry out “immediate return.”

During the deployment, Africans received medical treatment, food, drink and were taken to a holding area on the Israeli side of the border.

Officer:   “Israel has a problem, and they don’t know what to do, so they fob it off on the army.”

Soldiers and officers from the battalion who spoke to Haaretz asked to remain anonymous. “We’re proud of what we did, but we don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” one said. “What we had to say we said internally, to the battalion and brigade commanders. Israel has a problem, and they don’t know what to do, so they fob it off on the army.”

For further reading on Israel’s “refugee” issues we have a whole category, here.

Comment worth noting: you are inflicted with chronic cynicism

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Mary posted this comment to my post yesterday on the immigrant court system in the US.

You appear to have fallen off the cliff to chronic cynicism. People are desperate and are forced to leave children behind. Who are we to judge? I, for one, have never been faced with these decisions.

Yes, I admit, the more I learn about the worldwide refugee industry, the more cynical I get.  But, Mary, please answer my questions, and the questions in the minds of many who read the story about the poor woman from Cameroon who spent 5 years wrangling with our court system before being granted asylum.

First and foremost, how does a poor third worlder (not just this woman, but all of them!) with virtually no English manage to acquire the tens of thousands of dollars required to make a trip halfway (or more!) around the world, through several countries that you and I couldn’t easily get into to arrive on the US border and know to ask for asylum?

Who is paying the trafficker, the airlines, the passport forgers, the lawyers?

And, I suppose I shouldn’t make a cultural judgment, but I will!   What mother leaves her children alone in a country she now claims is dangerous for her family to take a risky trip halfway around the world on the off chance she will be granted asylum in the US?  Was she just trying to save her own skin?  Who told her that asylum might be possible; who put her up to it?

Mary, you suggest I’m a chronic cynic.  Tell me how can you be so chronically gullible?

P.S.  Mary, I am sure you are a decent well-meaning and good-hearted person, but it’s time to see that “humanitarianism” is merely a smokescreen for, in my view, a devious political plan that uses poor people (and people with good hearts) to accomplish its goals.

“Massive crisis” in immigration courts, gee, I wonder why?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Crashing the system (any system it seems) is the modus-operandi of the radical Left these days.   We have the Cloward-Piven strategists busy crashing the welfare system, the union thugs planning to crash the banks in May and we have the pro-migration/open borders gang crashing the immigration court system by urging more and more people to seek asylum in the US.

This story, hat tip Paul, begins with the dramatic tale of a woman from Cameroon who spent five years trying to get asylum in the US—this after abandoning her children including an approximately 5 year old girl in Africa.    Give me a break!  This story sounds so ridiculously phony no wonder it took five years and two whiz-bang lawyers to get her through the process.

You can go read the story yourself, here.

I’m reminded of the Somalis I wrote about here—young men and women with no English language skills managing to get tens of thousands of dollars and phony passports needed for the circuitous trip to the US (including a stop in Cuba) who then arrive on our border and say—give me asylum, I’m being persecuted.  It strains credulity and leads me to believe that they are getting advance help from people within the United States.

Just ask yourselves, how does some poor woman from Cameroon (depicted in this article) have the where-with-all to get all the way across the world, get into the US and have two sharp lawyers ready and able to get her through the legal system?   And, then she brings her previously abandoned and mostly grown children to join her.

In March of 2010, I attended the 30th anniversary celebration of the passage of the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980.  Here is one post I wrote at the time.   I wondered then about how much of the conference was being devoted to talking about these immigration courts and asylum generally.  Now I realize that they have been at this for some time—expanding the use of the asylum process to get more and more immigrants into the US. A program that was originally expected to allow the odd ballet dancer to defect (according to Doris Meissner mentioned here) has become a major avenue for bringing third worlders into the US—heck, I guess the refugee program at 80,000 or so a year wasn’t doing it fast enough.

Maybe before its too late someone involved in the scheme will realize how this is all part of a plan to bring down America as we know it and blow the whistle (but I won’t hold my breath!).

Mexican “refugees,” the Catholic Church and organized labor….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….the gang’s all here!

Here is an article that is so chocked full of interesting information, I don’t know where to start.   So, just a few things that caught my eye.

There is an increasing campaign by pro-migration forces to refer to illegal aliens coming across the US/Mexican border as “refugees” escaping the drug violence.   This article in Mexidata.info opens with your standard dramatic effect.

Shrouded in burka-like attire, the anonymous woman was suddenly transformed into “nobody.” Her eyes concealed by a pair of huge shades, the Mexican woman told the large crowd assembled at central El Paso’s Catholic Daughter’s Hall how she came to live in the United States without papers.

Once a professional with a bright future ahead of her, the woman claimed she left Mexico because extortion, kidnapping, murder and threats cascaded on her family in a land of impunity.

Part of a growing population of Mexican refugees from the so-called drug war, the mystery presenter spoke of a “constant pain in the stomach and pressure in the chest” that well up from living with a constant fear of deportation and possible separation from her refugee children.

The meeting was put on by a Catholic Church-related organization (ho-hum what else is new):

The refugee’s captivating speech was heard at an April 2 immigration forum organized by Annunciation House, a Catholic-sponsored migrant shelter in El Paso.

And, here we have the involvement in migration issues of Marxist organized labor:

In remarks to the forum, Texas state Senator Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso) said anti-immigrant sentiment was sweeping Mexico, Europe, the US and his own home state, where more than 100 pieces of “anti-immigrant legislation” were recently introduced in the state capital of Austin.

Simultaneously, a state budget deficit of $23-$27 billion was encouraging a state political leadership wielding “wrong priorities” to put education and social services on the chopping block, Rodriguez contended.

A long-serving El Paso county attorney before he won the seat formerly held by retiring state Senator Eliot Shapleigh last year, Rodriguez endorsed comprehensive immigration reform, grassroots mobilization and cross-border labor organizing initiatives like the one pursued by the United Electrical Workers and Mexico’s Authentic Workers Front.

Rodriguez said anti-immigrant and anti-labor measures have galvanized numerous public protests in Austin during the current legislative session, with a big, statewide day of action on April 6. “Pressure has results,” he insisted.

I doubt legitimate American electrical workers have any interest in socialist labor organizing and migration issues involving Mexico—-except if they knew union bosses were busily importing workers (voters) to compete with them.

Read the whole article it’s very informative.

Gaddafi has no weapons of mass destruction, unless you count the refugees unleashed on Europe

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ed West writing at the UK Telegraph yesterday suggests that the tens of thousands of refugees being pushed out of North Africa will be Gaddafi’s last laugh on Europe as serious commenters begin to wonder if this is what the Fall of Rome felt like.  Thank champions of chaos, Obama and Ms. Power.

Colonel Gaddafi, having foolishly agreed not to arm himself with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons*, a lesson other dictators may heed, has set upon a more surreal but perhaps more effective weapon against the West – refugees.

[…..]

One of Roger Scruton’s most original arguments against our asylum policy is that it allows brutal dictators to rid themselves of enemies without having to get their hands dirty. But Gaddafi is now using people-dumping as a weapon of war, and a fairly effective one when your enemy has a free media and a conscience.

Italy opened the door to 20,000 Tunisians and France is freaking out!   France’s Marine Le Pen, a tough anti-immigration/pro-western civilization warrior, is running ahead of Sarkozy in polls.

And Gaddafi is now being aided by Italy’s incredibly short-sighted decision to give 20,000 Tunisians an effective amnesty by allowing them free movement in Europe.

[…..]

Most of the Tunisians are heading for France, which has an enormous Tunisian population already, and Italy’s decision, plus the refugees from a war started by Nicolas Sarkozy, will almost certainly influence the 2012 French presidential elections. Marine Le Pen, who is now second in the polls, and ahead of Sarkozy, has made much play of the refugee influx, and has already visited Italy’s refugee island, Lampedusa, for a publicity stunt.

Fall of Europe and America alone!

The Roman Empire comparison may be simplistic, but it’s worth remembering that the empire collapsed not as a result of hostile barbarian invaders, but because of barbarian refugees who wished to become part of the empire.

If the worst comes to the worst then come 2050 we’ll all be claiming asylum in the United States – better start practising your Spanish. [very funny Mr. West!—ed]

Read it all.