Category: Asylum seekers

Another white South African granted asylum

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story from Ireland to follow-up the earlier story from Canada, here, about white South Africans seeking asylum and claiming persecution in the “rainbow nation.”

Dianne Jefferson (22), who moved to Ireland to live with her father when she was 14, was turned down for a resident’s visa even though she was married to an Irishman. She appealed to the Dublin High Court for permission to stay in the country, stating in her affidavit: “I say and believe that as a white South African there is a real possibility of criminal racial discrimination against me and I fear for my well-being and ultimately my life if I am returned.”

The judge granted her an injunction stopping immigration authorities from deporting her, and she has now been given a five-year residency visa.

The South African government is not too happy with the trend.

“This is untrue and inaccurate to suggest that crime is racially motivated and that a particular section of the South African society is more likely to be exposed to crime than any other,” the department said. “The South African government has reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to provide safety and security to all South Africans, black and white, and not only to a select section of its population.”

The department went on: “The applicant’s unsubstantiated claims and suggestions are nothing but an attempt to tarnish the integrity of all South Africans, black and white, and to damage the country’s reputation.

“While South Africa faces many developmental challenges, insinuations that crime is racially based are inaccurate.”

I might actually agree with the South African government on one point (well, sort of anyway).  I haven’t written about the subject for awhile but it seemed that all that terrorizing and killing that had been going on in South Africa in recent years wasn’t racial because it was mostly black on black terrorizing.   Here is my most recent post on how Somalis trying to escape the persecution by South African blacks were caught, and returned.

South African white guy given asylum in Canada

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know the background of this case, but it appears that Canadian politicians are all in a tizzy because a white South African, claiming persecution in the “rainbow nation,” has been granted (at least for the moment) asylum in Canada.

Former Canadian prime minister Joe Clark believes the decision to give “racial oppression victim” Brandon Huntley refugee status in Canada should not have happened.

A diplomatic row erupted last month when Huntley, 31, was granted refugee status in Canada on August 27 after claiming he had been attacked because of his race.

In his application Huntley, who grew up in Cape Town, claimed he was persecuted as a white man in South Africa, had been the victim of seven attempted robberies and that the South African government was doing nothing to protect him.

But the Canadian government is challenging the board’s decision in the Federal Court. “Most Canadians were astounded by the ruling,” said Clark. He refused to speculate whether Huntley would be deported.

Why “astounded?”  Isn’t it possible that persecution and bigotry can go both ways.

Gee, makes you wonder doesn’t it—maybe someday French, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Dutch and the Brits can ask for asylum in the US.

Australian media calls it the “stay the bloody hell away” campaign

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have reported on many previous occasions (see our category on Australia, here) about the problems that country is having with asylum seekers attempting to reach the shores of Australia with the help of human traffickers.  Now comes word, that the Rudd government considered friendly to refugees, or more so than the Howard government was, has a media campaign to discourage potential asylum seekers from Sri Lanka.

From Australia’s 9News:

The Rudd government has employed advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi to help scare off potential asylum seekers to Australia.

The taxpayer-funded campaign will be shown in Sri Lanka, where street theatre and local actors will help spread the message that coming to Australia illegally is dangerous, according to news.com.au.

Civil war in northern Sri Lanka has created a massive refugee problem, with more than 250,000 displaced persons in that region alone.

Saatchi & Saatchi’s Ronald Peiris said the campaign would use “street drama” to take its message directly to the people.

Actors will play people smugglers, and warn locals their efforts to escape from Sri Lanka will end in disappointment.

All I can say is it’s a novel approach.

Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  Be sure to read the comments from Johnny Simpson, the author of the story on the IRQR, and see his comment I have highlighted here.

Homosexuals are persecuted in Muslim countries and I find it annoying that whenever someone writes about gay refugees and asylees wishing to come to the West, the connection to the intolerance of Islam is never made.

An interview with Arsham Parsi published in The Digital Journal.

Arsham Parsi, a gay Iranian activist, fled Iran for his life in 2005. He settled in Canada in 2006 and founded IRQR [Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees], an NGO that helps LGBTs flee Iran or fight their deportation back to certain death.

In early 2005, Arsham Parsi was engaged in perhaps the most hazardous profession in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Then a 24-year-old native of Shiraz, Iran’s sixth-largest city, Mr. Parsi was working secretly in the city of his birth as a gay activist promoting LGBT rights in the Islamic Republic.

Mr. Parsi says in the interview:

IRQR is working on about 250 Iranian queer asylum cases worldwide at the moment.

[….] 

Though IRQR has no paid staff, we have a great success rate. More than 70% of IRQR’s refugee clients have gained asylum status or are in the middle of the resettlement process. IRQR is currently the only progressive Iranian NGO working on behalf of the Iranian LGBT population around the world.

Iraqis making a beeline for Detroit

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Time magazine has a story this week that we have reported previously, but as an old friend reminds me—repeat, repeat, and repeat some more!   Come to think of it, that’s what the mainstream media does too—just repeat the same old stories—and that’s how a couple of twentysomethings scooped them on the ACORN scandal (I guess you can tell those two are my heroes). 

Back to my reason for writing:  according to Time, 1/3 of the population of Dearborn (on the outskirts of Detroit) now is of Arabic descent and the children of Arab heritage make up 2/3 of the school-age population.

For Wasan Aljanaby, the journey from her native Iraq to the U.S. was long and convoluted: with her husband and young son, she fled first to Jordan, then Turkey, Argentina and Ecuador. Everywhere they went, inhospitable immigration rules prevented them from even trying to put down roots. It wasn’t until they were finally granted asylum in the U.S. last year that the Aljanabys could finally unpack their lives and settle down.

The easiest part of it all was deciding where in the U.S. they would settle down. “From the beginning, our destination was Detroit,” says Aljanaby.

It didn’t matter that Motown was experiencing the nation’s highest rates of unemployment or that Aljanaby’s skills as an Arabic-English translator might be more valuable in states with concentrations of defense contractors. More important was the fact that her husband had some relatives in Dearborn. “We knew we’d get shelter, food and the chance to build our lives,” says Aljanaby.

Detroit may be the poster child for urban flight, but there’s one group that still regards it as a city of hope: Iraqi refugees. Like previous waves of Arabs fleeing violence and political upheaval — or merely seeking new economic opportunity — thousands of Iraqis have been arriving in the Detroit metropolitan area since 2007, when the Bush Administration began accepting refugees from Iraq.

The U.S. will admit 17,000 Iraqi refugees this year, an increase from 14,000 in 2008. Mindful of Michigan’s unemployment burden, the State Department, working with nongovernment refugee-resettlement agencies, places most of the newcomers in other states, like Arizona, Maryland and Virginia. Michigan got around 3,000 last year, and that number is expected to shrink by a third in 2009.

But once they’ve got their bearings, many Iraqis placed elsewhere in the country make a beeline for Detroit.

I wondered when I read this story if many Iraqis, like the family above, are coming as asylees.   Generally asylum seekers get here on their own steam then use one of the hundreds (thousands!) of immigration lawyers ready and willing to file their asylum applications.   Once approved they receive the same benefits as refugees, except of course the airfare loan.