This is an update on the movement of illegal aliens who tried to get in to Australia by boat, were placed in Australian detention centers, but thanks to former President Obama’s “dumb deal” they are coming to the US as refugees. Photo is of a bunch that was headed our way in January. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/01/23/australian-rejected-refugees-on-the-way-to-us-this-week/
(A refugee designation is the highest class of legal immigration one can hope to get because it comes with the works—a furnished apartment, job counseling, case workers to sign you up for your ‘services,’ etc.) If you are a new reader, you need to know that Donald Trump agreed to honor the deal he once called “dumb,” but at least the administration seems to be slow-walking the process.
This time we learn that the latest batch includes a few families in addition to the larger number of single men, that Australia did not want on its mainland, being placed without your knowledge in Any Town, USA.
From the Australian AP via the Daily Mail:
Four more families of refugees and a cohort of single men have left immigration camps on Nauru to start new lives in the United States.
The group of 29, including eight children, who flew off the island nation on Sunday is the fifth cohort to depart Nauru under Australia’s refugee resettlement deal with the US.
They included two Sri Lankan, one Rohingyan and one Afghan family and single men from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, refugee advocates said.
Two hundred and twenty four of a projected 1,250 have been selected.
Since resettlements under the deal started in September, 139 refugees have left Nauru and 85 from Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
Australian open borders activist Rintoul wonders why no more vetting interviews have been scheduled.
However, the Refugee Action Coalition said it was remarkable there were no Iranian, Somali or Sudanese refugees among those who have left this year, despite Australian Border Force officials denying any particular nationalities were banned from resettling in the US. [It makes no sense that the Trump Admin is blocking Iranians, Somalis and Sudanese, but allowing Afghans, Pakistanis and Rohingya!—ed]
Hmmmm……slow-walk?
RAC spokesman Ian Rintoul said US officials were expected to remain in Nauru for another couple of weeks but had not yet scheduled any new vetting interviews for another round of refugees.
Under the deal Australia reached with the previous Obama administration – derided as the worst ever by now-president Donald Trump – the US agreed to take up to 1250 refugees from the offshore detention centres.
Go here to learn more about the Australian “dumb” deal. We have been following it for months.
Were they simply greedy criminals looking to live high by destroying Australia’s youth, or is there more to Middle Eastern drug dealing? Is it a form of warfare on the West?
I don’t know the answer, but I thought about it when reader Jon sent this link from the Daily Mail:
An Iranian couple who arrived to Australia by boat five years ago have allegedly been flooding the streets of Sydney with the deadly drug ‘ice’.
By the way, they must have gotten in just before Australia lowered the boom on boat people and sent them to detention in Papua New Guinea or on Nauru (where Trump’s State Department is vetting them for movement to Any Town, USA.). Just your everyday Iranian refugees. Photo from the Daily Mail
Ali Maleki and Yosra Rabieh, from the city’s north-west, are two of several Iranians in Australia on temporary protection visas recently arrested over alleged meth trafficking, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The couple, who share two young daughters, were arrested last week after police allegedly seized more than 36kg of ice, over $260,000 in cash, three luxury cars and more than 100 ampules of steroids at homes in Hornsby and Asquith.
Maleki and Rabieh have each been charged with supply large commercial quantity of prohibited drugs and participate in a criminal enterprise.
A third Iranian has been charged with being an accessory after the fact of supplying drugs.
In a separate bust last week, two Iranian nationals were arrested in Sydney, allegedly trying to import almost 10 kilograms of ice hidden in honey jars on a cargo flight to Australia.
Go herefor more from the Daily Mail. If guilty they should hope for Australian prison rather than deportation.
See my ‘Australia’ category byclicking here.
….and plans to bring his wife and daughter to live here too! (He left them behind at least 5 years ago in ‘dangerous’ Iran).
Australia’s SBS Newsappears to be doing a series on those lucky, mostly Muslim, ‘refugees’ who attempted to get to Australia illegally and were then detained for nearly 5 years in offshore detention facilities with the Australian government refusing to consider their asylum claims. Many are hitting the jackpot and although Australia isn’t letting them in they are now free in America. And, every few weeks a new batch arrives.
Here is a story about one of those that Australia didn’t want, but Obama did and arranged for many to come just as he was walking out of the White House.
Trump is now honoring a deal he once called “dumb.”
(See my yuuuge archive on the Australia deal by clicking here.)
You can read the entire gushing storyyourself, but what got me is that the star of the story was initially headed for Malaysia, a Muslim country, and only at the urging of a friend got on a people smuggling boat headed for Australia.
As many of my readers have commented over the years—so if it was so dangerous back home, why did these men leave their wives and children behind?
[Phoenix, Arizona] is home to Reza Mohammad Nezhad, an Iranian refugee who in 2013 fled his homeland amid fears of persecution, and would eventually try to reach Australia. [They never tell us exactly why these Muslim men were persecuted. We are expected to take their word for it.—ed]
The 43-year-old left behind his wife and young child, hoping one day they could join him.
He travelled to Malaysia, then Christmas Island, but he was detained in Australia’s Manus Island holding facilities in Papua New Guinea, where he would spend almost four-and-a-half years.
[….]
Reza intended to settle in Malaysia after he fled Iran, but changed his mind after a friend there recommended Australia. People in Australia did not harass refugees, his friend said; they had freedom and a strong democracy. It would be a journey he would soon regret.
From Indonesia, Reza boarded a people-smuggling boat headed for Christmas Island. [Indonesia is a Muslim country too—ed]
[….]
“I was chosen to be resettled in Arizona,” he told SBS News through a translator. “I don’t know their reasoning, but they chose Arizona for me.”
[US State Department is building ethnic enclaves where people of certain cultures/religions get to live with their own kind of people and they have contractors facilitating the project! Never mind that you are a racist if you want to live with your people!—ed]
[….]
He has also got involved with the Iranian American Society of Arizona, which holds several cultural events in the city each week.
“There are many Iranians living here,” he said. “It’s a good city. I’m happy here.”
It’s warm too, which he likes, and he doesn’t feel out of place in a city packed with minority groups. More than 40 per cent of people in Phoenix are Hispanic; Mexico is just 200km to the city’s south.
[….]
In one year Reza will be eligible for permanent residency in the US. In five years, he will be able to apply for citizenship. He hopes he will be able to bring his wife and daughter to be with him soon. [Chain migration!—ed]
Continue hereand note the anti-Trump tone of the SBSstory even as it was Trump who is making all of this possible for these lucky jackpot winners!
Australia did not grant them asylum (refugee status), but we are in what has to be the dumbest refugee deal ever heard of!
Some of these men are already walking free in your US town! Manus Island locals don’t want them there: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41812189
This bunch of 35 (flying yesterday) will bring the number of mostly single Muslim men from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Rohingya (Burma), free to walk the streets in Any Town, USA, to nearly 200. Do we really expect these fighting age young men to go cheerfully into meatpacking companies to do slaughterhouse work?
But, take heart! Trump’s travel ban is saving us from Iranians—BFD!
I will repeat, if just one, of what could ultimately be 1,250 of the newly minted ‘refugees,’ becomes a problem it will be on Donald Trump because he should have followed his original instincts this time last year and killed the “dumb” deal!
And, refugee contracting agencies should be shaking in their boots because just one bad apple will bring more anti-refugee headlines. Recently we learned that some were going to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, here.
See all of my dumb-deal posts by clicking here.
FromThe Guardian:
Another 35 refugees are leaving Nauru for the United States on Sunday, the third group to depart Australia’s offshore immigration centres this week.
Almost all are single Afghan, Pakistani or Rohingya men, along with one Sri Lankan family and one Bangladeshi refugee, said Ian Rintoul of the the Refugee Action Coalition.
The makeup further confirms fears that Iranians, who make up the largest national group on Nauru, have so far been excluded from the US intake. Iran was proscribed by Donald Trump’s “travel ban”.
So far 84 people have flown from Nauru and another 85 from Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island to the US under the resettlement deal, with at least one more flight expected to leave this month.
About 2,000 refugees and asylum seekers remain in Australia’s offshore system.
The controversial “US deal” – decried as “dumb” but upheld by Trump – was brokered by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in September 2016.
There is much more (here) including a lengthy discussion about how some of the ‘refugees’ were just walking around Manus Island, minding their own business, when they were attacked by local police.
And, of course the detainees have twitter accounts to alert the world of the abuses they supposedly suffer.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Australian Prime Minister Turnbull later this week, see here.
In my opinion, the President should be inviting Hungarian PM Orban to the White House instead! LOL! They could compare notes on how much George Soros hates them!
And, although this articleat ‘Sight’ magazine got my blood boiling for its promotion of the six ‘religious’ charities (Ha! Ha!) that (out of the goodness of their hearts?) are ‘welcoming’ refugees and getting them their services in your towns and cities, it is very revealing.
Before reading on, maybe revisit my post yesterdayand know that the offices that the ‘religious’ contractors are closing could stay open if they raised private money to pay the salaries of their workers to care for the refugees they placed a few months, or a few years, ago. To SATISFY THEIR CHARITABLE INCLINATIONS, THEY COULD TAKE CARE OF THOSE WHO ARE ALREADY HERE! NEW REFUGEES ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR THAT! However, new refugees are required if they want to suck down millions of federal dollars (through per refugee head payments) and continue their high-flying spending especially on salaries for the big wigs—like Mark Hetfield in the photo that Sight uses to decorate its story.
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society CEO Mark Hetfield (left) demonstrating against the President last month in Washington. Being a humanitarian is lucrative if you can get the work! His annual salary (and related income) amounts to $343,630, and taxpayers pay a hefty chunk of that! Adding insult to injury, Hetfield sits down with the US State Department on a weekly basis to make decisions (in secret!) about which of your towns will ‘welcome’ refugees.
Sightmagazine (looks like it is a mag for the international religious Left):
A program under siege!
Refugee aid groups have conducted massive layoffs and office closures ever since the Trump administration began issuing various versions of a travel ban, sometimes called a “Muslim ban”.The groups have been left on the hook for empty apartments and have had to explain to interested churches why they can’t bring refugees to their areas. And many refugee advocates have expressed concern over how long it will take the groups to come back from those cuts, if they can at all.
[….]
President Trump has also slashed the total number of refugees who will be admitted into the US, from 110,000 in fiscal 2017 – a bar set by former President Obama – to 45,000 in fiscal 2018, which started in October. And agencies say they aren’t even on track to settle that number: Just over 6,000 had come to the country in the last three months.
Hidden behind these figures is the decimation of an expansive refugee resettlement apparatus composed largely of faith-based nonprofit organisations that have partnered with the federal government for decades.
Of the nine groups helping refugees find a home in America, six claim a religious affiliation: World Relief, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church World Service, HIAS (founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and Episcopal Migration Ministries.
Historically, these groups are contracted by the government to help take in refugees after they undergo a lengthy application and vetting process that involves several agencies, including the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. (The placement of families is determined on a weekly basis through consultation between the State Department and the resettlement groups.)
Once people are brought to the US, resettlement groups authorised annually by the State Department typically provide new arrivals with housing and food, as well as long-term assistance for achieving self-sufficiency such as help in finding jobs, learning English and often becoming permanent US residents or citizens. [And signing them up for their WELFARE, food stamps, medical care, etc.—ed]
But leaders of these groups say the Trump administration’s new policies are hobbling their operations and hurting those they serve. They’re fighting back and finding hope in a groundswell of support from people of faith, but the future remains uncertain. [If they have a groundswell of support, can’t those supporters send enough cash to keep the low level employees in their jobs?—ed]
“I don’t know how long it will take to undo the damage that has been done,” said Matthew Soerens, US director of church mobilisation for World Relief.
A program under siege
The harm inflicted on the resettlement program by the Trump administration is difficult to calculate. Each organisation is structured differently and many partner with independent local groups for on-the-ground efforts.
[….]
Meanwhile, officials say the cost of the ban can sometimes fall disproportionately on the resettlement agencies*** instead of on the federal government.
When you have contractors (see below) that are 97-98% federally funded I can’t see that the costs will fall disproportionately on the contractor!
For serious students of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program there is a lot of really good information in here, so continue reading here. I may actually revisit this article tomorrow so I can be sure you see the individual contractor’s sob stories. And, I got a chuckle out of their glowing use of quotes from the recently departedLinda Hartke.
Where is Congress?
As long as the nine federal contractors are almost entirely funded by the US taxpayer and then are permitted to protest, community organize and lobby Congress for more refugees and more money, this program will never be reformed!
Photo caption! Just so you know I am not making up Hetfield’s handsome salary, here is a page from HIAS’s most recent Form 990:
*** These are the nine federal resettlement agencies, six are (LOL!) ‘religious charities.’
The original Refugee Act of 1980, that set up this monstrosity, envisioned a public-private partnership that over the years has almost completely morphed in to a federal program and that is why these agencies are hurting now—they got fat and lazy on the federal teat!
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
