Where are the ‘Unaccompanied alien children?’

10/03/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor’s note: It has been one of those days and many potential posts were not posted. Thanks to all who have sent story ideas, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

In our earlier post this morning we reported that Obama was awarding millions of dollars to refugee contractors to hire lawyers for some of the “children” who broke into America over the summer. A reader alerts us to the latest numbers (as of August 31) by state of where the Office of Refugee Resettlement has sent them.

So, look at this list and remember that the states getting lawyers for illegal alien children are MD/VA, CA, TX, FL, TN, LA, AZ. Why Tennessee and Arizona when there are several states with more illegal alien children?

Update: I didn’t notice originally that you can check out your counties here.

Here is the list (highlighted in red are the top 10 states) from the Office of Refugee Resettlement:

State	# of Unaccompanied Children
Alabama	634
Alaska	4
Arizona	218
Arkansas	250
California	4,680
Colorado	336
Connecticut	455
Delaware	168
District of Columbia	301
Florida	4,392
Georgia	1,623
Hawaii	8
Idaho	15
Illinois	437
Indiana	357
Iowa	196
Kansas	246
Kentucky	333
Louisiana	1,414
Maine	9
Maryland	3,248
Massachusetts	1,115
Michigan	154
Minnesota	240
Mississippi	238
Missouri	173
Montana	1
Nebraska	278
Nevada	188
New Hampshire	28
New Jersey	2,171
New Mexico	32
New York	4,799
North Carolina	1,648
North Dakota	4
Ohio	489
Oklahoma	284
Oregon	96
Pennsylvania	513
Puerto Rico	1
Rhode Island	173
South Carolina	491
South Dakota	31
Tennessee	1,020
Texas	6,217
Utah	103
Vermont	3
Virgin Islands	1
Virginia	3,193
Washington	310
West Virginia	20
Wisconsin	73
Wyoming	8
Total	43,419

All of our posts on ‘Unaccompanied minors’ are here.

German guards allegedly abused asylum-seekers in refugee center

10/03/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The UNHCR must be hopping mad that their favored country for asylum these days—Germany—has produced some down right unwelcoming behavior toward the mostly Muslim asylum-seekers attempting to stay in Germany.

Let’s just say Germany has been the ‘fair-haired’ country as far as the UN is concerned, especially as it has promised to take in up to 20,000 Syrians over two years.

Now this!

Frankly, I think this is not an isolated incident involving a few rogue guards, but one which indicates (symptomatic of) the underlying anger of the average German citizen to being overrun by mostly Middle Easterners and Africans.

Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert: Achtung!!! We are a humane country! Get it! Humane I say. And, we are trying ever-so-hard to prove it!

From AFP via Relief Web earlier this week:

BERLIN, September 29, 2014 (AFP) – German police Monday started an investigation into six private security guards at a refugee centre accused of assaulting and humiliating asylum seekers in ways that drew comparisons to abuse against Guantanamo Bay prisoners. [What the heck are they talking about—at GB the prisoners are treated with great care.—ed]

Police also questioned hundreds of refugees after disturbing photo and video footage emerged at the weekend, including an image showing a security guard pinning a handcuffed Algerian man to the floor with his boot on the man’s neck.

Police said they launched their investigation after a journalist passed on to them cellphone video footage that showed security guards forcing an elderly man to lie on a mattress covered in vomit while threatening to beat him.

North Rhine-Westphalia state Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger pledged to pursue “with utmost determination” the case in the refugee centre in Burbach, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) southeast of Cologne, vowing to ensure “that this never happens again”.

[….]

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said that if investigations confirm that “refugees were abused and humiliated, then these would be repulsive acts”.

“We are a humane country. In Germany, the dignity of man is respected… and that must be true in asylum centres and refugee camps,” said Steffen Seibert.

See all of our posts on Germany by clicking here. And, visit our archive on the ‘invasion of Europe’ here.

Gates of Vienna!

And, check out this post at Gates of Vienna a couple of weeks ago for the reader comments that have come in since then on the topic of Muslim immigration to Europe. GoV asked readers to report in from Europe and they have.

Two refugee contractors awarded taxpayer $$$ to supply lawyers to the “children”

10/03/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Eight regions of the US will be getting taxpayer funded lawyers.

The Obama Administration has come up with $9 million of your tax dollars so two of the big nine refugee resettlement contractors*** can get lawyers for some of the ‘Unaccompanied alien children’ who broke into America this summer.

Surely what the immigration lawyers will be trying to prove is that the kids are legitimate asylum seekers who can be declared refugees in the full sense of the word making them eligible for all forms of welfare and putting them on the fast track to citizenship. Of course once the kids are declared “refugees” they will be able to bring in the extended family as well!

Lavinia Limon, CEO of USCRI (in green) and Clinton’s head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement must be jumping for joy at this windfall. Far left is Eskinder Negash, previously a VP at USCRI now heads the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Cozy huh! Wonder why people are sick of Washington! Photo: http://thehispanicblog.com/2012/04/14/who-is-lavinia-limon-meet-the-ceo-of-the-u-s-committee-for-refugees-immigrants/

Who says Obama isn’t creating jobs!

He is creating more jobs at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops special lawyers’ service and at the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI is already funded 99% by you!).

And, he is putting to work potentially hundreds of immigration lawyers who are pouring out of US law schools and looking for work (there is a glut of lawyers these days as any new law school grad will tell you).

From the Washington Times (hat tip: Erich).

Will the gutless wonders in Congress do anything about it?

The Obama administration will pay $9 million over the next two years to give taxpayer-funded attorneys to some of the illegal immigrant children who have surged across the U.S. border this year, the Health and Human Services Department said Tuesday.

About 2,600 immigrants will be able to be represented by lawyers thanks to the funds, which were awarded in two grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, according to a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

Advocates cheered the decision, which they’d been demanding for months, saying it will not only help the children get a fair hearing on asylum claims, but it will also make the court proceedings go faster, which will end up saving the government money.

But administration critics in Congress said the move could violate federal law and will most likely prolong illegal immigrants’ time in the U.S., encouraging more children to make the dangerous crossing.

To end the surge at the border, the Obama administration should instead focus its efforts on deterring future border crossers and enforcing the laws against illegal entry into the United States,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican. “Without such actions, the flood of people attempting to cross the border illegally will only continue.” [Blah, blah, blah, but will he do anything?—ed]

The administration’s move marks another effort to circumvent Congress.

Mr. Obama had requested $15 million to provide lawyers for the children in his emergency spending request earlier this summer, but Congress left town without approving the money.

The contractors will decide which children will be served, but there will be eight targeted areas in the US.

The Washington metropolitan region, with its high population of Central American immigrants, has taken an outsize number of the children, so it’s not surprising the Baltimore/Arlington region is one of eight areas that will get the money for lawyers.

The other seven are: Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Dallas, Memphis, Tennessee, New Orleans and Phoenix.

All of our coverage of the Unaccompanied minors issue is here.

*** Two of the nine contractors hit pay dirt! These are no longer non-profits, they are quasi-government agencies!

Culture of domestic violence comes to Lewiston, Maine along with African asylum seekers

10/02/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Somali community organizer, Fatuma Hussein, quoted in the Lewiston abuse story, lobbies for more welfare for Maine migrants earlier this year. http://bangordailynews.com/2014/05/23/politics/maine-attorney-general-rejects-proposal-by-lepage-administration-to-bar-general-assistance-for-immigrants/

A pregnant Angolan asylum seeker was run down and killed on a Lewiston street last week by her angry ex-fiance and so this story is all about how African women should speak up so that the police can protect them from the cultural norms they brought with them from Africa.

Frankly I am sick of stories about cultural conflicts and problems in Lewiston, Maine, the ‘Little Mogadishu’ of the Northeast. So check it out yourselves (Portland Press Herald) titled:

Domestic violence often kept hidden by Maine immigrants, refugees

I don’t think the debate should be about how African women should speak up, it should be about why we are inviting so many to the US from cultures that are so diametrically opposed to our culture in respect to women’s rights (and a whole lot of other things).

See also Maine election year battle over welfare for asylum seekers. And, one of our recent top posts, ISIS fighter had ties to Lewiston.

By the way, Maine has become the go-to state for asylum seekers because the state gives welfare to them while the feds only give welfare to successful asylum seekers who have been granted asylum and been declared a “refugee.” Many of Maine’s would-be refugees arrive in the US illegally or overstay a visa, head to Maine, and then apply for asylum claiming they will be persecuted if sent home.

Go here for our extensive archive on Lewiston.

Human rights activists complain about stricter asylum rules…

09/30/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….but don’t get too excited about the possibility that the Obama Administration is seeing the light because as we learned last week, thousands of illegals who entered the country this past summer aren’t even showing up for court!

Thousands have just disappeared into the woodwork of America presumably planning to wait it out until Obama and Congress give them amnesty!

From the Wall Street Journal (hat tip Richard):

Watch Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Asylum fraud last February. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mxDxtHAszU

Immigrants who enter the country illegally are becoming less likely to be deemed eligible for asylum, as federal authorities tighten standards amid an increase in Central American migrants this year.

As an initial step to request asylum, apprehended migrants who say they are scared to go back to their home country are screened to determine if they have “credible fear” of persecution or torture. In July, the most recent month available, 63% of those who claimed they were afraid to return were found to have met that criterion, down from 83% six months earlier, according to a report released to immigrant-rights groups by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The decline comes after the agency’s Asylum Division toughened the criteria its officers use during the interviews. The goal of the new guidelines, according to an agency official, is to ensure that immigrants with little to no chance of obtaining asylum in immigration court are quickly sent home.

Immigrant advocates say the tougher screening criteria are preventing many immigrants from being able to make a case for asylum before a judge.

“It’s turning away people who may very well have been entitled to asylum protection,” said Eleanor Acer, refugee protection director at Human Rights First, a New York-based nonprofit group.

The Asylum Division is one of many federal agencies that have been taxed by an influx of tens of thousands of immigrants who have illegally entered the country from Central America this year, many saying they were seeking refuge from gang violence and poverty. From October to June, the Asylum Division received 36,334 credible-fear claims from immigrants, surpassing the 36,035 in the 12 months of fiscal 2013, data from the office shows. Immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras accounted for the majority of the claims.

The office is responsible for screening migrants apprehended at the border, asking, for example, whether they are being persecuted because they belong to a specific social group or feel threatened because of their race or religion. If their claims are credible, the immigrants are referred to immigration court, where a judge ultimately decides whether they qualify for asylum or other protection. Immigrants who go through that process, which can take years, are sometimes released in the U.S. until their cases are resolved.

Unaccompanied children arriving from Central America don’t go through the credible-fear process, as they are routed to the court system directly.

Now be sure to see Hot Air last week where we learned that 70% of the families ordered to appear for a hearing never showed up!

DHS secret revealed: Tens of thousands of illegals released during the border crisis didn’t show up for their immigration hearings

Big smooch from Eleanor to Grover!

About the photo and Acer’s testimony to Congress: I had to laugh when I watched the clip because she praises and enters into the record the Grover Norquist/Suhail Khan Republicans-want-more-refugees letter which we reported here.