Category: Asylum seekers

Due to cyclone, Thailand and Malaysia urged to allow more illegals

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thailand and Malaysia have been having problems recently with illegal immigrants, mostly economic migrants such as the Burmese Rohingya Muslims, attempting to enter those countries.   We reported that the Prime Minster of Thailand just last month said that country would send the illegal Rohingya to a deserted island.

Now nature has handed those immigrants a great excuse to pressure Thailand and Malaysia to open its gates to them.  A news story from the Malaysian National News Agency begins:

BANGKOK, May 6 (Bernama) — With over 10,000 people feared dead and millions made homeless by the Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, neighbouring countries like Thailand and Malaysia have been asked to provide humanitarian support by easing immigration rules to possible refugees, an exile leader said Tuesday.

Soe Aung, the spokesperson of the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB) based in Thailand, said he could not rule out the possibility of thousands of people seeking refuge in other countries following the tropical cyclone that struck the military-ruled country.

“The people who are already suffering will be hard hit by this cyclone. This is a very very big devastation and the government is not prepared at all to undertake relief works,” he told a press conference here Tuesday.

Even before the cyclone, hundreds of Burmese had been seeking better life in neighbouring countries, including Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

The April issue of the Burma Bulletin produced by activists here claimed that the departures of Rohingya boat people to Malaysia has ended as the monsoon season begins while excodus of people from Arakan State to Bangladesh continues.

“We hope Malaysia and Thailand will ease restriction on these people who want to escape the devastation by not arresting them. We hope there will be some mechanism to help them,” he said. 

Note on the Rohingya.    We have been receiving correspondence (in addition to comment no. 8 at this post) from the Rohingya rights groups who are looking to third country resettlement for these fundamentalist Muslims who are being pushed out of Burma (Myanmar).   I have written to their leadership asking for more information, but they have not responded. 

I am going to create a new category called “Rohingya Reports” and instead of attempting to make heads or tails out of their case in order to post on them, I’ll put up everything I get so that at some point we will have an archive on this situation.  I predict this case will be a bellweather case for how the US government through the US State Department will treat Muslim immigration going forward. 

More refugees from Malta: Have we gone mad?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Arghhhhh!   Many months ago I wrote that we were going to take refugees from the Mediterranean island of Malta—simply to do a good deed.   These are not refugees!  They are African illegal aliens who have broken into Malta because the boats they were using to get to the mainland of Europe could not reach their destination.  Here is an update— we are taking them.

This would be like us sending our illegal aliens from Mexico off to Malta. 

To date, the UNHCR is continuing the screening process and has referred more than 260 cases which are now in process. A group of 15 Somalian refugees are departing from Malta for the United States tomorrow, and in the next few weeks, another group of refugees will be embarking on their journey to resettle in the U.S.

Ambassador Bordonaro observed that all refugees are assigned a sponsor agency that provides initial services such as housing, food, and clothing, as well as referral to medical care, employment services, and other support during a transition period lasting up to two years in order to ensure integration and assimilation. “I have personally met many of the refugees who are part of the programme,” Ambassador Bordonaro said, “and they will make outstanding U.S. citizens.”

Our ambassador actually thinks this is a great idea.   “Outstanding citizens!”  I guess she hasn’t been in touch with Shelbyville, TN or Emporia, KS recently.

And, of course the officials in Malta are tickled pink that because we understand the illegal alien issue so well we are happy to take theirs. 

In his remarks, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tonio Borg noted that this process, which commenced a year ago, is a clear declaration that the United States does understand the illegal immigration problem which is being faced by Malta. “This is a continuous process that should lead towards having hundreds of people to be resettled in the United States. This is a sign of friendship between two countries whereby the United States is clearly helping out Malta.”

Silly question I guess, but doesn’t all this actually encourage more Africans to take boats to Malta?

Update:  Can you believe it!  The morning after I wrote this post the Times of Malta is reporting 3 new boats arriving this week!  Did Ambassador Bordonaro run down to the shore to greet them?

And yet another Update moments later:   Here is another glowing article about the so-called “refugees” going to the promised land.  

Asked whether the resettlement of refugees in the US could bring more asylum seekers to Malta, Dr Borg [Malta’s Foreign Affairs minister] said he did not think the numbers would increase because of this possibility. He added that this was a convenient argument that some countries put forward to avoid burden sharing.

I wonder did Dr. Borg not know about the three boats just landed this week?  And, I wonder which part of our “burden” is he sharing.

Here is another post on the spring migration from Africa to Europe.

Muslim on Muslim crime

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday Jihad Watch had a good post about a mob of Jihadi Muslims in Indonesia burning a mosque of another sect of Islam, the Ahmadiyya.    The mob shouted “kill” “kill” as it torched the place.

Guess we will soon hear that we need to take more Ahmadiyya asylees, refugees, and immigrants due to the religious persecution they are experiencing.  But, who is doing the persecuting?  Muslims!  Against Muslims!

See the Jihad Watch post and note the comments.   The first reader to tell us that the Refugee Resettlement program is taking Ahmadiyya gets a gold star.

We have written about the Ahmadiyya community on many occasions during their failed attempt to get a special exception to the zoning in order to establish  a facility for 10,000 in a rural part of Maryland.  See Walkersville archives here.    I guess the Jihad Watch article demonstrates that fears of some citizens of Walkersville were not unfounded, the Ahmadiyya convention facility might have some day attracted violence as other sects of Islam attempt to wipe them out.

Coincidentally, the Frederick News Post also yesterday published a profile of Steve Berryman spokesperson for Citizens For Walkersville the grassroots group that was successful in protecting their small town from a well-funded and well-organized Ahmadiyya Community campaign to build a compound in the town.  Note the folks in Frederick are not shy about commenting.

Beware of Rohingyas

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Today we get news that 60 asylum-seeking Rohingyas set fire to a camp in Malasia after being rebuffed for third country resettlement by the UN.   These Burmese Muslims have been admitted to Canada and we know that the US is considering admitting them, or perhaps already has.

Here is the entire article from BBC News this week:

More than 60 immigrants from Burma have set fire to a building at a Malaysian detention camp after their request for asylum was refused.

The migrants – who claim refugee status – torched the administration building of the camp in the central state of Negeri Sembilan, according to police.

More than 200 security personnel were called in, but there were no injuries.

Police said some detainees grew angry when they were not selected by the UN for entry to a third country.

About 800 men and more than 200 women had been housed at the Lenggeng detention centre, but they have now been moved to other camps. The authorities said the rioters would be charged with arson.

Disputed status

Malaysia does not recognise political refugees and asylum seekers, and treats them as illegal immigrants, who if caught are detained and can be caned and deported.

But the UNHCR is allowed to send refugees to a third country.

It says around 39,000 registered refugees live in Malaysia, most of them from nearby Burma.

Of the total, about 13,000 are members of Burma’s Rohingya Muslim minority, and another 12,000 are members of other minority ethnic groups.

The Rohingyas arrived in Malaysia in the 1990s, but the Burmese government disputes their origin and refuses to let them return to Burma.

See our coverage of Rohingyas here.   I’ve been wondering if the murder suspect in the rape and murder case of the little Burmese Karen girl in Utah is Rohingya, but no one is talking.

Frederick, MD meet Ft. Wayne, IN

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For our local readers from Frederick, MD where Burmese refugees have begun to arrive, please read about the issues facing Ft. Wayne, IN which has the largest Burmese population in the country.

More than 100 people, many already serving new residents from other countries, packed a room at the City-County Building to discuss how to help 800 or more Burmese refugees who will resettle this year in Fort Wayne through Catholic Charities, which operates the region’s U.S. State Department-sanctioned resettlement program.

Last year 613 Burmese refugees resettled here, spurring a call to action to identify which agency is doing what, where gaps exist in services, and where and how to seek funding.

Much of the discussion at this public meeting revolved around how to find jobs, teach English and  provide services such as translation services to the hundreds more refugees expected this year.    You should know that the cost for translating anything important for refugees falls on the agency responsible.  Local Health Departments, Fire Departments, even the local court are all required by Federal law to provide translators.    A refugee gets a traffic violation that sends him or her to court and the county pays for an interpreter.

Here is a post I did way back in July 2007 about the cost to Montgomery Co. of translators to the court system there.  A Liberian refugee charged with raping a little girl was let off because an appropriate interpreter was not found within a reasonable time period.

Much to my surprise this new article from Ft. Wayne does not discuss the cost to the Allen County Health Department, an issue plaguing the Ft. Wayne area for the last year.  See our many previous posts on Ft. Wayne here.

If the citizens of Frederick wish to welcome refugees and asylees, then knowing in advance what to expect and what responsibilities will be placed on the community is the only sensible approach.

NOTE:  I am so bad, I don’t even have Maryland in our “your state” page at the top of RRW.  I’ll work on that today.