Category: Asylum seekers

Maine border agents arrest asylee sex offender

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One more arrest of an African for a crime in Maine wouldn’t be worth posting, but this story had a  little bit of information that interested me.

Here is the Bangor Daily News story from Houlton, Maine:

HOULTON, Maine — A citizen of the south central African nation of Angola was arrested in Houlton on Thursday for a probation violation stemming from a sex crime.

Officials with the U.S. Border Patrol said Friday that agents assigned to the Houlton sector were conducting a transportation check on a commercial bus in Houlton when they came across a man who said he was a U.S. refugee. The man told agents that he was born in Angola but had been granted asylum in the United States.

The suspicious agents conducted immigration and criminal checks, which revealed an active warrant out of Saint Charles County, Missouri. The warrant was for a probation violation stemming from a guilty plea that the man entered on a charge of first-degree sexual intercourse with a person less than 14 years old. [Why was he even free—ed]

Now this is what I found interesting.  Houlton is a border town with Canada, but the arrest was made at the local bus station (guess the guy was hoping to get to Canada) not at the border crossing.

Williams said that while most Border Patrol work is conducted in the immediate border area, agents conduct enforcement actions at transportation hubs away from the immediate border as part of a strategy of disrupting human smuggling activities.

Makes me wonder too which NGOs and immigration lawyers are helping these asylum seekers get across our borders—either coming or going!

Is there a conspiracy by NGO’s to bring asylum seekers to US borders?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This post is a call for a Congressional investigation!

Last March (March 16th to be precise) I attended the 30th Anniversary “celebration” of the passage of the Kennedy/Biden Refugee Resettlement Act (signed by Jimmy Carter) at Georgetown University with Human Rights First! in Washington, DC.  This is just one post I wrote at the time.

Note there are a few lines in that post that have been rattling around in my mind on and off ever since.

Expressing gratitude for being granted asylum in the US an African young man from Sierra Leone described how he somehow (mysteriously) got a plane ticket to the US and ended up in NYC.  He was placed in detention for 4 months, but also mysteriously was visited by a lawyer from Human Rights First who helped him through the asylum process.

I was also struck at the conference by how much emphasis the pro-refugee, pro-open borders activists and speakers were placing on our asylum program.   They wanted to educate more asylum lawyers and hire more asylum judges (apparently the refugee program itself wasn’t bringing immigrants in fast enough!).  One speaker even said that the original idea behind the program was to rescue the odd ballet dancer seeking asylum from some repressive regime, but had now expanded to thousands every year.

Last night as I began reading all of my backed-up articles on refugees, two jumped out at me, both are about Somalis arriving at our borders and being granted asylum.  Both stories involve young Somalis, supposedly running from Al-shabaab and who mysteriously had the resources to trek across the world and just happened to end up on our borders where they then knew enough to immediately ask for asylum.  Come on folks, we all know that some poor third worlder who knows only an obscure African language could not manage such a thing without enormous amounts of help.

Where are they getting their help?  I don’t know but maybe that’s where Mr. Foster, the RICO lawyer could help.

Below are the stories I came across that set off my warning bells.  Both, of course, are meant to be feel-good stories.

The first article is from the Las Cruces Sun News and it highlights a Somali woman recently granted asylum:

Asha Omar, a native of Somalia, spent almost a year looking for safety, away from the Islamic militants who murdered most of her family.

Late last year, she found it in El Paso.

In November, a federal immigration judge granted Omar’s application for asylum based on her fear of being persecuted in her home country.

[….]

At least two other Somalis are in El Paso seeking asylum, said Louie Gilot, executive director of Las Americas.

Nationwide, more than 300 Somalis requested asylum in 2009. Almost 200 were granted their requests.

Now this is the sentence that jumped off the page:

She managed to make her way to Cuba and then flew to Mexico. At the San Ysidro port of entry in California, she requested asylum, and she was taken to the El Paso Immigration Detention Center while her application was processed.

She MANAGED! She MANAGED to make her way to Cuba and then flew to Mexico! Some 19-year-old shy third worlder MANAGED to get to Cuba!   How many of you adults reading this could manage to get yourselves to Cuba!

Who helped Asha Omar?

My second story comes from the Minneapolis Star Tribune on January 5th.  and it is yet again about a young Somali managing to make it to the US.  Who helped Liban Hussein?

Fearing for his life and still mourning his murdered family, Liban Hussein fled Mogadishu in 2009 and eventually found refuge a world away in the Twin Cities.

But Hussein didn’t follow the route of most Somali refugees, who live in overcrowded camps in Kenya or other neighboring countries and wait months, even years, for a travel visa.

Instead, he resorted to an option that an increasing number of desperate Somalis bound for Minnesota are choosing: He paid underground operatives $10,000 to smuggle him to America. The smugglers, relying on forged documents and bribes, passed Hussein by air and land through 11 countries, stopping everywhere from Dubai to Moscow to Havana.

Finally they got him to Tijuana, where he went to the nearby U.S. border and asked for asylum.

Then listen to this immigration lawyer, she makes me want to scream!

“It’s a free-market solution to a refugee processing backlog,” said Kim Hunter, a local immigration attorney who represents Hussein and about a dozen others smuggled into this country.

One Los Angeles law office interviewed 200 Somalis smuggled into the United States in 2010 alone.

Free-market solution!—trafficking human beings is a massively criminal activity!

Reading on, my heart is pounding because here we have it, getting Somalis into the US through the asylum process is apparently being condoned by “leaders” in the refugee field.  Meissner, quoted in this article is the speaker I heard last March at the “celebration” say that the asylum program was established for the purpose of helping the odd ballet dancer seeking freedom but has long since become a major conduit for NGO’s to bring Somalis across our borders.

And then get this, they are not detained while awaiting a decision, but freed to go live with family and friends in your neighborhoods!

Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said applicants can wait in camps for years with no assurance they’ll get into the country of their choice.

“Sometimes they decide that smuggling is the best shot,” said Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Dick Zonneveld, a St. Paul immigration attorney, recently taught a law class on Somali immigration issues. “Many times their only way to travel to the United States is illegally with false papers,” he said.

Previously, amnesty seekers were detained, sometimes for a long time at a high cost, until given asylum. But in January 2010, U.S. policy changed to release them if they have a “credible fear” of persecution and can stay with friends or family until a final court decision.

Nationally, the number of Somali asylum seekers found to have a “credible fear” more than doubled in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, from 186 in 2009 to 394 in 2010, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Please read the entire Minneapolis Star Tribune story where there is also a discussion of the 270 smuggled Somalis that have not been found—maybe Ms. Meissner or Ms. Hunter know where they are!   Maybe a Congressional committee should ask them!

Who is paying the smugglers?  Who pays the lawyers?  US Non-governmental organizations? We don’t know but Congress should find out.   Everyone reading this page should immediately contact your Congressman and US Senators and demand Congressional investigations!

Australia: boat carrying asylum seekers wrecks off Christmas Island, much loss of life

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Residents of Christmas Island were awakened by screams from the sea as a wooden boat carrying an undetermined number of asylum seekers wrecked off Australia yesterday.

From AFP News:

SYDNEY (AFP) – Hope dwindled for survivors of a refugee boat wreck off Australia Thursday which killed at least 28 people, including seven children, renewing debate on the plight of boat people travelling from Asia.

The wooden craft, crowded with up to 100 Iraqi, Kurdish and Iranian asylum seekers and their children, hit rocks at remote Christmas Island Wednesday and was shattered by huge waves as residents watched in horror.

Traumatised survivors pulled from the sea after the disaster huddled in a hospital and reception centre Thursday, with the most seriously injured flown to Perth as hope faded of finding their fellow passengers alive in wild seas.

“We have got to prepare ourselves for the likelihood that more bodies will be found and there has been further loss of life than we know now,” warned Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who cut short her holiday to respond to the emergency.

[….]

More than 5,000 asylum seekers from Iraq, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka have made their way to Australia this year, mostly on unseaworthy vessels from Indonesia, prompting criticism of Canberra for softening its refugee policy.

Read it all.

See our Australia category where we have written on many previous occasions about Australia’s boat people problem.

Canadian official, Jason Kenney, zings Catholic Bishops

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You go guy! The Catholic Sentinel reported two days ago on an exchange between the Canadian bishops and Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism on the issue of human smuggling.

I laughed because I cannot imagine any American politician slamming the powerful (with your taxpayer dollars) US Conference of Catholic Bishops as Kenney does here calling the bishops part of the “immigration industry!”   Alas, in Canada, and unlike the US, they are having the much needed knock-down-drag-em-out discussion on refugees and asylum seekers while we (and the media) sweep any discussion of reform under the rug.  [Note to our critics:  this is why we write this blog, to counter the glossing-over that is going on in most media circles and within our government about legal immigration problems.]

OTTAWA, Ontario — Jason Kenney, minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, has fired back at Canada’s bishops who criticized his recently introduced anti-human smuggling bill.

The views expressed by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ justice and peace commission in a Nov. 25 letter reflect a “long tradition of ideological bureaucrats who work for the bishops’ conference producing political letters signed by pastors who may not have specialized knowledge in certain areas of policy,” Kenney said in an interview.

The bishops’ intervention underscores the reason why “the church makes the detailed application of moral principles in public policy the prudential responsibility of legislators who have a technical knowledge of how to apply the principles,” he said.

The bishops warned that portions of the Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act now before the House of Commons might contravene international and Canadian law concerning the rights of refugees.

The bishops reminded Kenney that national interests and security concerns should not trump human dignity.

“We believe that human smuggling undermines human dignity,” Kenney said. “It’s an industry of profiteers who sell people an illegal service to smuggle them to countries in the most dangerous way possible.

Fake grassroots coalitions in the immigration industry!

Kenney suggested that the bishops’ conference staff members who write letters on public policy issues or the bishops themselves bring their concerns to government officials rather than “cut and paste” arguments circulating in “fake grassroots coalitions” of “special interest groups in the immigration industry.”

Kenney also said the bishops’ conference has not said anything on the 20 percent increase in the resettlement of refugees even though the program is “hugely unpopular politically.”

Readers, when envisioning human traffickers, think about groups like the US federal refugee contractor, Church World Service, having one of its subcontractors arrested taking Haitians illegally across the Canadian border, here, in 2007.

South Africa: Huntley will come back in shame

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For new readers, Brandon Huntley, a white South African, had been granted asylum in Canada on grounds that he was being persecuted for his skin color in the Rainbow Nation.  A couple of weeks ago a judge threw out his claim.  This article from IOL (Independent On Line), a South African publication, sounds a bit ominous to me about whether Huntley will be safe if deported to his home country.

Once he returns to South Africa, Brandon Huntley, the man who has just lost his refugee status in Canada, will “forever suffer the indignity of his false claims”.

This is the view of Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa, who said Huntley should never have been granted refugee status.

Huntley now faces deportation and a return to South Africa.

“We welcome the decision of the Canadian federal court,” said Mamoepa. “From the outset, our view has always been that his claims are based on falsehood that tarnishes our image and the people of South Africa in the eyes of the world.”

He said the ruling vindicated South Africa and any negative perceptions Huntley’s claims may have caused. “We are looking forward to his deportation to South Africa, where he will forever suffer the indignity of his false claims,” he said.  [And, IOL has prominently posted his photograph.]

Heck, we have so much crime going every which way in S. Africa we should all be refugees! Astounding comment from a government official.

John Kane-Berman, chief executive of the South African Institute of Race Relations, said Huntley did not have any grounds on which to argue that he, or any one race group, was at a greater risk of being a victim of crime than any other in South Africa. “South Africa has a very high level of crime, particularly violent crime,” he said. “If South Africans were entitled to refugee status based on the level of crime in the country, we should all be given refugee status.”

No where do these government officials say they will protect Huntley.   Huntley’s attorney should use these remarks to argue his client will not be safe if deported to S.Africa.