Category: Asylum seekers

Canada: Immigration judge found guilty in sex for refugee status determination

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s what the headline in the National Post tells us, but something doesn’t seem right with this story.  I think the judge may well have had inappropriate designs on this South Korean woman seeking asylum in Canada, but there’s a line in here that sounds fishy.

TORONTO — A former immigration adjudicator and Toronto city councilor has been convicted of offering to write a favourable refugee claim in exchange for sexual relations.

Steve Ellis, 50, was found guilty Wednesday morning of one count of breach of trust under the Criminal Code and also of illegally seeking a benefit contrary to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Thea Herman concluded that it was clear that Ellis was seeking to trade sex for a positive ruling when he met with Ji Hye Kim at a Toronto coffee shop in September 2006.

I was planning to just post this as straight news, but here’s where the story starts to smell.

The central piece of evidence at the trial was an audio and video recording of the meeting, made by Ms. Kim and her boyfriend (now husband) Brad Tripp.

The pristine quality recording was played in court during the trial and showed Ellis talking about how he wanted to help Ms. Kim, even though refugee claimants from South Korea are rarely successful.  

There seems to have been no overt proposition.

She obviously married the Canadian guy (I’m guessing Tripp is Canadian) and thus got her immigration status secured.  Why did she need to go through this judge to seek asylum from of all places, South Korea?  Was this a sting from the beginning?

Then notice the couple went to the media with their “pristine” tape recording before seeing the police.  Hmmmm?

Ms. Kim was accused by Mr. Rosen (the lawyer for the judge) during the trial of being willing “to do anything” to get her status as a legal immigrant in Canada, which she adamantly denied. He noted that the couple approached the media with the recording of the meeting, before speaking to police.

There is surely more to this story!

Swiss official in hot water for saying most Nigerians are crooks

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The head of Switzerland’s Office of Migration was quoted as saying 99.5% of Nigerian asylum seekers are petty criminals.  Well, that stirred things up a bit!  You think!

Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Alard du Bois-Reymond, director of Switzerland’s Office for Migration, has been on the job only since 1 January 2010, but if remarks he made to Swiss-German media over the weekend are a sign of what is to come, tensions over the country’s refugees policy could rise. The director told NZZ newspaper that his office will be setting up a task force which will bring together federal and cantonal offices to resolve what he referred to as Switzerland’s number one migration problem: Nigerians, the majority of whom are involved in petty crime and drug trafficking, he says.

“These people aren’t coming to Switzerland as refugees, but to make money”, he told NZZ, noting that 99.5 percent of Nigerians have no chance of being allowed to stay in the country.

His remarks prompted numerous negative reactions ranging from outrage to wonder that the head of a government office would stigmatize another nationality. Even populist media such as Le Matin went out of their way to point out that not all Nigerians are criminals, which du Bois-Reymond appeared to imply, interviewing asylum-seekers from Nigeria to tell their stories.

[….]

Du Bois-Reymond’s comments may have been aimed at reassuring conservative elements in Swiss politics about reducing the number of illegal immigrants and reducing crime, several observers told GenevaLunch, but they have stirred up a complex debate.

Even the UN agrees, most Nigerians are not in need of asylum:

Susin Park, the head of UNHCR’s (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) office for Switzerland and Liechtenstein, says the UN organization is aware that a large number of Nigerian applicants for asylum in Switzerland have been found not to be in need of international protection.

Not to worry!  It’s only boys involved in drug-related crime!

Du Bois-Reymond’s numbers outraged Mark Bamidele, president and CEO of the African Mirror Foundation, which recently set up an online African TV and radio service based in Bern. Bamidele says that while a majority of Nigerian refugee seekers are involved in petty crime it’s not 99.5 percent of those seeking asylum and “these are not drug dealers, they are boys peddling on the streets because it’s the only way they see to make some money.

Read the whole article, it is very interesting.

Canada fighting tooth and nail to rescind decision on granting white South African asylum

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you about the initial decision here last October to give refugee status in Canada to a white South African, Brandon Huntley, because Huntley claimed he faced persecution in the ‘rainbow’ Nation because he is white.   In light of recent events in South Africa (detailed here at Atlas Shrugs) I believe it is going to be increasingly difficult for Canada to now renege on its earlier decision on Huntley.  If they send him back now he is a dead man.

You can tell they are scared as hell that “white people” could be the subjects of racial persecution anywhere in the world because that would really turn the tables on the worldview of the Leftwing lovers of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees.  I raised the specter here just last week.

This is from the Times last weekend:

The 31-year-old made international headlines in August when the Canadian immigration board granted him refugee status after it found him to be a victim of crime, genocide and affirmative action back home.

Huntley – a Cape Town-born martial arts fanatic – was declared a refugee after claiming he had been robbed, and stabbed seven times by attackers, who had called him a “white dog” and a “settler”.

Following a massive backlash, the Canadian government announced it would go to court to seek a review of the decision.

On Wednesday, the federal court in Toronto was set to hear an application by the country’s minister of immigration, Jason Kenney, for a review of this “plainly wrong” decision.

Lawyers spent the morning arguing a procedural issue as Huntley, in papers before the court, suggested the Canadians wanted a review of his case purely due to political pressure from South Africa.

“It is clear to objective observers that the applicant’s motives in commencing this judicial review were purely political and in reaction to complaints by the South African government,” Huntley’s lawyer argued in papers before the court.

Kenney, however, rubbished Huntley’s claims, accusing him of going on a “fishing expedition”.

The minister noted that the South African’s reasons for seeking a review were not the subject of the court matter.

“It is worth remembering that the reasonableness of the board’s decision is what is at issue in this judicial review application,” Kenney said.

A spokesman for the Canadian department of immigration told the Sunday Times that there were several reasons why Kenney was challenging the decision.

“The board’s decision contained several errors, including an error in its finding that Mr Huntley did not have access to state protection and an error in equating random acts of violence that Mr Huntley claimed to have experienced with persecution due to his race,” she said.

In addition to the white flight from South Africa, I envision the day when Europeans (Danes, Swedes, Brits and others) will attempt to follow Huntley to Canada or the US using the 1951 Convention on refugees to escape the Islamification of Europe.

Leahy “Refugee Protection” bill doesn’t reform much

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….actually it reforms nothing regarding the stress on communities overloaded with refugees and does nothing for the neglect of refugees by federal contractors which we report on frequently except throw more of your money to the contractors for salaries and such—two issues which I think are critical at this 30th anniversary juncture (in addition to the security issue!).

I first learned about the Leahy bill at the 30th anniversary “celebration” of the Refugee Resettlement Act that I attended in March at Georgetown University Law School.  Clearly the bill’s introduction was timed to coincide with the “celebration.”   Frankly I found it too boring to even report on here at RRW.  But, for the sake of thoroughness I need to tell you at least where to find more information on the subject.

Actually one of the things that really got me steamed at the “celebration” was that it was all about how to get more asylum seekers into the country (with no detention) where a phalanx of lawyers (immigration lawyer employment service anyone?) would be waiting to get them processed through the immigration courts. 

Then the other prong of the supposed reform is to make sure the resettlement agency contractors who are doing a lousy job now in many cases are just given more federal money before they even make any reforms to the program. 

There was nary a word of concern for the security of the American public with so many questionable illegal aliens coming across the border (Remember the 270 Somalis two months ago, if they had even been caught these people do not want them detained!).  Nor is there even a nod to the plight of cities in the great recession expected to cope with all the needy newcomers. 

With that said, is it any surprise that anybody who is anybody in the refugee industry is pushing the Leahy bill.   Groups hail Refugee bill here.

NEW YORK, 7 Apr (IPS) – Immigrants’ rights activists are virtually unanimous in their endorsement of proposed legislation that would change decades of U.S. asylum practices. But proponents of the legislation fear it may never find its way out of the U.S. Senate to the president’s desk.

Senator Patrick Leahy introduced the Refugee Protection Act of 2010 back in March. The objective of the bill is to “affirm the U.S. commitment to provide refuge to individuals fleeing persecution in their homelands.”

It helps restore protection to deserving individuals fleeing persecution and torture, who have been denied refuge under increasingly restrictive immigration laws and court decisions.

Chances for passage are slim.

But some Congress-watchers point out that historically, major refugee and immigration reform bills have not moved through Congress the same year that they were introduced. In addition, the Senate calendar has been so choked with health care legislation and other “must pass” bill that the House of Representatives is now referring to the upper body as “the place where bills go to die.”

Finally, the status of the Leahy bill could change if the Barack Obama administration decides to introduce comprehensive immigration legislation during the current session of Congress.

Meanwhile, pro-immigration groups are lobbying senators to obtain more co-sponsors. Thus far, all are Democrats. Getting two or three Republicans is one of the objectives of the White House, but immigration is one of the most predictable third rails of U.S. politics, especially in a mid-term election year.

If grassroots support were ever enough to get a bill through the Senate, Leahy’s legislation would have smooth sailing. It has been lavishly endorsed by more than 25 of the country’s leading immigration organisations.

You can read what Leahy says about his bill here.   And, Chris Coen at Friends of Refugees wrote about it here.

Mexican drug violence creating new “refugees”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Whew!  The Miami Herald reports today that escalating drug-related violence is creating a whole new group of asylum seekers— Mexicans!

José Jiménez, a Mexican mechanic, is now doing odd jobs in an American town after escaping a violent northern Mexican city where drug traffickers threatened to kill him when he refused to build secret compartments in tractor trailers to hide U.S.-bound drug shipments.

He’s hoping the U.S. immigration system can keep him alive — and he’s not alone.

He is one of a growing number of Mexicans receiving asylum in the United States, where until recently most Mexican immigrants had sought work permits. But the escalating drug war violence south of the border over the last four years has prompted immigration judges and federal asylum officers to approve more Mexican asylum petitions.

“I definitely feel safer now,” Jiménez said. “But I’m still nervous. These criminals have resources and contacts everywhere.”

Jiménez, 49, is one of the first Mexican refugees to share his story. He is also the first with a known South Florida connection.

All such asylum claims were rejected in the early 1990’s.

In the past, asylum claims from Mexicans were typically rejected because judges and asylum officers deemed them fraudulent or frivolous. It’s only in the last five years that authorities have taken a different view.

In fiscal year 2008, asylum officers and immigration judges combined approved 250 Mexican asylum petitions compared to 153 the previous year and 133 in 2006 — the formal start of the war on drugs launched by Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Separate figures from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services show an increase in Mexican asylum case approvals from fiscal year 2007 to 2008 — 146 to 264 — but a decrease to 249 in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2009. USCIS cases often cover more than one person.

Though still relatively small compared to the number of asylum petitions from other countries, Mexican asylum approvals are significant when you consider that virtually all were were denied in the early 1990s. The majority of new asylum applicants are former police officers, lawyers and journalists.

In the United States, asylum seekers can file petitions with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services whose asylum officers then decide the case. If approved, the asylum-seeker is granted a green card. If not, the case is referred to immigration court where a judge decides the case. If the judge rejects the case, the petitioner could be deported.

Doesn’t this open the door to any claims due to violence anywhere in the world?