Category: Christian refugees

Comment worth noting: US State Department, what is going on in Bowling Green?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update November 18th:  The tangled web that will hinder any investigation of refugee neglect, here.

Update November 17th:  More information on the satellite office of the BGIC that will open Dec. 1 in Owensboro, here.

Update November 14th:  Readers should know that this post is the most visited post for the last few days at RRW.  I don’t know who all is reading it, but I assure you many many people are.  If you didn’t see it yesterday, I posted information on the State Department’s Operational Guidance for Resettlement Agencies, here, and have had several requests for it so far.  This document outlines what is expected of federally contracted agencies when they resettle refugees.

Comments worth noting is a category we set up for comments (usually to older posts)that might be lost to most readers unless we showcased them here.

We just received this shocking information from a friend of a Burmese Karen refugee resettled recently in Bowling Green, KY.  The comment came in response to my post on October 25th about resettlements at Bowling Green, here.    It sounds like a repeat of what happened to the Burmese resettled in Waterbury, CT more than a year ago where some local church people finally were able to get the attention of the US State Department and the negligent resettlement agency was closed there.

US State Department, why does this keep happening?  And, why have you approved another office for this agency in Owensboro, here?

From a reader identified as C. Flores:

Jason [another commnenter at the post], you have to remember these people are refugees. They did not come to Bowling Green by choice! These people need some compassion cas’ they surely aren’t receiving it in Bowling Green!

You need to take action and write Governor Steve Beshear, Congressman Geoff Davis, Senator Mitch McConnell,
Commissioner Brian “Slim” Nash, Major Elaine Walker, Commission Joe Denning, Commissioner Catherin Hamilton, and Commissioner Bruce Wilkerson, US Campaign for Burma, USCRI and many of the Universities in Kentucky… Have the people of Bowling Green to sign and take action. This is coming from your tax $$ and mine!

The International Center (aka Western Kentucky Mutual Assistance Association) needs to be stop!! The filthy living condition they have in BG, they were better off where they came from. I’m totally humiliated that America are doing this to these refugees!!!

This is an email I sent to all of the above November 2, 2009.

“I drove 210 miles down to Bowling Green, Kentucky on Friday, October 30th, from Northern Kentucky to welcome a son of a Karenni/Burmese family I been visiting in the Thailand Refugee Camp outside Mae Hong Son, since 2003.

I stayed in the son’s apartment at Lover’s Lane for 3 days and I was horrified from what I saw and heard from the Karenni refugees in Bowling Green. I didn’t realize there were so many Karenni living in BG. They all had so many questions for me and I didn’t know how to answer any of them. I was totally dumbfounded from what I saw. I never imagined America would do this to these refugees.

The Riviera apartments on 1106 Lovers Lane and the Greenwood Villa Apartments on 1500 Bryant Way, are slum apartments loaded with cockroaches and rodents. They were totally nasty! And these apartments are charging them $500.00 a month after they land a $9.00/hr job at the chicken factory. They are not worthy to even live in. The walls and carpeting in all the apartments I went in, haven’t been cleaned in years by management!!! The owners of the apartments have to be working with the International Center for “PROFIT!!!” They honestly need to be demolished. They are unlivable!!!

On Saturday, I bombed his apartment and took the family out to trick or treat. When we came back, it took the son and I over an hour to clean up the cockroaches. It was totally disgusting!!

I was totally bewildered the whole weekend. I called the Bowling Health Department on Monday, November 2, to report the living conditions the Karenni people are living in. As I write this, I am still baffled; “where are the funds going?” It’s a total disgrace!

These people have only what they brought with them usually one luggage with their whole life in it. They do not have enough winter clothing, eating utensils & dishes, no furniture, basically nothing and winter is around the corner. I had to go out and spend close to $300.00 of my own money to buy the family the necessities and the majority of items I purchased was 2nd hand.

The whole weekend, I kept asking myself, “why would America bring these people over here if they can’t help them?” Knowing the life of a Karreni refugee camp, I feel as they had a better life in the refugee camp than living in Bowling Green, Kentucky! I drove the 3 hours back in disbelief. How can these Karreni people get help! We need to stop bringing refugees in if we cannot help them.

When I arrived home Sunday night, I had to leave my luggage out in my garage and bombed my garage in case I brought home any cockroaches. The apartments are that bad!

I searched in vain regarding the crisis in Bowling Green and this man links (“What’s going on in BG…”) below explains it exactly how life is for these Karenni people. Somebody needs to help them please!!! “

Jason, if I didn’t live 3 hours away, I’d be asking a lot of questions how is your tax $$ being used to help these people! They need help and the are not receiving it in BG!

Ask the people of BG to help them. They desperately need winter clothing. The need rides to the Asian/Thai Supermarket for food. When I walked in the son’s apartment, he had 2 coffee cups, 1 plate and 2 spoons and he has been her for over 3 weeks!! He didn’t have any furniture in his apartment and he has a wife and 2 small children.

Bowling Green needs to be ANGRY at the International Center in BG! I am!! I am driving back the 3 hours one-way again this coming weekend. Why, because no one in BG is helping them! After this family gets all their identifications, I plan on bringing them home with me. I don’t have the $$$ to support them either, though I do have the compassion. I bring them all here in Northern KY if I could.

“acorcoran” Thank you for all the time you have done with these very informative posts. Please let me know how I can help. I don’t know what more I can do besides emailing the ones above. This is all new to me and I honestly don’t know where to begin!! ~C. Flores

To C. Flores, I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow with some suggestions!

Denmark: We will take Burmese refugees, but not Iraqis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had a pile of stuff on the on-going conflict involving Denmark and the Iraqi refugees they have been deporting, but lacking time, have posted little of it.  So, just accept this simple summary.  Many Iraqis who arrived (presumably illegally and then asked for asylum) in Denmark have been ordered deported.  So, political activists hid them in a church and ultimately authorities entered the church and physically removed them—a riot ensued.  Now, according to this report, Denmark says it will take refugees that the UN designates, but only Burmese, no more Iraqis.

Below is the whole short article from the Copenhagen Post:

Despite announcing just two months ago that Denmark could accept the Iraqi refugees as agreed by the UN, Immigration Minister Birthe Rønn Hornbech has now said they will not be the first choice this year.

Head of the Social Liberal party Margrethe Vestager is demanding an explanation for the u-turn and said she suspected that domestic politics may be responsible. ‘Birthe Rønn doesn’t want to be in a position where she is throwing Iraqis out of the country, while at the same time bringing more in,’ said Vestager to Politiken newspaper.

The minister did not wish to elaborate on the reasons for the change, but told the paper that past experience showed that Burmese refugees were good at integrating into their new country.

Quota refugees are different to asylum seekers in that they are resettled in a country following agreement with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Denmark has agreed to take approximately 500 of these refugees annually, who are selected under a number of criteria, such as geographical regions, those who are critically ill and need treatment, those who are at risk of being sent back to their original country or those who are currently in danger where they are living.

Note to Danish government:   If it’s Muslims you are concerned about, although many Burmese refugees are Christian,  take into consideration that Burmese Rohingya are Muslims too.

To learn more than you ever wanted to know about Rohingya, visit our category on the topic here (80 posts!). So far, the US has not officially taken any Rohingya, but Canada, Australia, the UK and Ireland have, among others.

Welcoming Sweden a myth according to Christian Iraqis being denied asylum

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update August 12th:  More here from Stockholm News.

This is a story I would like to know more about.  We know that Sweden is having a terrible time with Muslim immigrants, but didn’t know the country was expelling Iraqi Christians.

More than two years after the Swedish Supreme Court of Migration decided there was no “inner armed conflict” in Iraq, and Sweden started the largest expulsion of any nationality that has ever taken place in the country, a Swedish Radio News investigation for SR’s Ekot uncovers the grim truth about the new asylum policies in Sweden. Unique documents, a hidden microphone and a whistle blower reveal a new Swedish asylum policy of which most people are unaware.

Sweden is known to be one of the most generous countries in the world in granting Iraqi asylum seekers refugee status. The government also pushes for all other EU Countries to adopt more generous policies when it comes to accepting particularly vulnerable Iraqi refugees, especially from the camps in the neighbouring countries of Iraq. At the same time SR News can reveal that Sweden at the same time has been returning other vulnerable Iraqis by force to Baghdad.

During three days – starting on the 10th of August – SR News will reveal more evidence of the new Swedish asylum policy.

For four months we have been interviewing 52 Iraqi citizens, all non-Muslim and most of them Christian Assyrians (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs). These non-muslim minorities make up a large part of the Iraqi refugees in Sweden, maybe as much as 30-50 percent, although there are no official statistics.

Some of the asylum seekers are now forced into hiding to avoid being sent back to Iraq, a country where only half the number of the Christians and other non-Muslims from before 2003 remain. Few non-Muslim Iraqis have been willing to return voluntarily. Many Christians are also afraid of the new tensions between the Kurdish provinces and the Baghdad government, and that a rising conflict between the two will put the large minority of Christians residing in the Nineveh Plains directly on the fault line.

Read on.  There is more.

I would like to know how many Christians and how many Muslim Iraqis we take, but the State Department isn’t talking.

Blogger questions Farooq Kathwari’s business ethics

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just now I came across this blogger and blog Financial Skeptic writing about Ethan Allen furniture and its CEO Farooq Kathwari.  Now, I grant you, I know nothing about financial management, and can’t make any judgement on Kathwari’s action, but it seems this blogger is questioning a recent announcement by Kathwari.

Revenues for Q4 are positioned as pretty good but overall revenues for the year dropped some 31%

Then Farooq Kathwari, Chairman and CEO lets you know that the real earnings results will be coming out Aug 12 which is three weeks in the future. Farooq you need a remedial class in disclosure. Coming out three weeks early and singing sunny sky’s has pretty well signalled to the market what you expect the final results to be. Hopefully now that everyone is warm and fuzzy you will not release a little bit of bad news when the market is no longer looking.

But seriously Farooq there may be a few lawyers who want to talk to you.

Then here is a straight news story about the Ethan Allen announcement.

So why do we care?    Farooq Kathwari is the Kashmiri-born Chairman of the Board of Refugees International and it’s always a good idea to follow the activities of those in the refugee industry.  Don’t the Democratic Alinskyites call that opposition research?  Ha, ha, ha!  I just noticed the name of a former director of RI—George Soros!  That says it all!

Here is my most recent post on Farooq Kathwari in which investigators Rabinowitz and Mayor say that Kathwari is connected to Islamist groups.   In that post I noted that Refugees International was lobbying to help Iraqi Palestinians resettle in the West, but was silent on the much larger number of Christian Iraqis.  But, I can happily report that RI is no longer silent on Christian Iraqis, here.

Refugees International utters the “C” word regarding Iraq

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is “C” as in Christian Iraqi refugees.   I’ve been critical for some time of Refugees International’s near silence on persecuted Iraqi Christians while vociferously arguing for Iraqi Palestinians and other supposedly persecuted Muslims to get into the US. Incidentally who is persecuting Muslims besides other Muslims and why is everyone so chicken to mention that fact?

So, I was happy to see this blog posting by Jake Kurtzer, a lobbyist for RI, speaking up for Christians for once even if he never mentions why the Christians, who have lived in Iraq for centuries, are persecuted.

While America’s attention has shifted to the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, recent news reports about the targeting of Christian Iraqis have turned a few eyes back towards the violence within Iraq. The targeting of Iraqi Christians portends a return to the attacks on minorities and ethnic strife that led to the massive displacement of civilians from Iraq.

He places resettlement as third in his list of three suggested action items for the Obama Administration.   Keep in mind it was only last November that RI was calling on Obama to resettle 105,500 Iraqis to the US this year!   I guess it’s dawned on them that hauling all these Iraqis here who then can’t find work and run to the newspapers to complain isn’t doing the refugee industry much good.

President Obama can convey this message by urging Al-Maliki to take a few basic steps. First and foremost, the Iraqi government must continue to improve its own response to the displacement crisis. Reports that the Iraqi government plans to close the IDP file at the end of this year indicate a desire on their part to gloss over this humanitarian emergency. This is unacceptable. The Iraqi government, with U.S. support, must continue to improve its legal framework for supporting returnees and must ensure that all returns are voluntary, and conducted with dignity to areas that are safe and suitable for return.

In urging Al-Maliki to take these steps, President Obama should reiterate America’s commitment to meeting the basic needs of Iraq’s displaced, through financial support for humanitarian agencies and through diplomatic engagement with host countries. The announcement of a potential return of an Ambassador to Syria is a welcome and overdue step that RI has been calling for since 2007. This will ensure that the U.S. can engage with the Syrian government on issues relating to the basic needs of Iraqi refugees. Finally, the President can continue to affirm the U.S.’s commitment to resettle those most vulnerable Iraqi’s who will never be able to return home.

So, when Obama pulls our troops out, and if a sectarian blood bath ensues, will it be Obama’s blood bath?