Category: Christian refugees

A church group taking care of refugees with real charity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From time to time people ask me if there is any group resettling refugees without getting paid by the US taxpayer for their “charitable” work.   Well, yes, here is one, Christian Freedom International— CFI not only helps refugees in camps in Thailand but puts its prayers, volunteers and private money to work helping refugees resettle and assimilate to a life in America.

SAULT STE. MARIE, MI (Christian Freedom International) — Miraculous. It’s the only word I can think of to describe what’s going on here in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

When I say “miraculous,” it’s not what you might think. There hasn’t been an outbreak of sudden, unexplained healings, nor have there been any sightings of angels walking among us here in the Soo.

Instead, the town has been quietly rejuvenated by a group of 14 families—over 50 men, women, and children—who have claimed for themselves a piece of the American dream while making a lasting impact on the small community they’ve learned to call “home.”

What’s so remarkable about these 14 families and the 8 children my wife and I have adopted? They’re Karen refugees from Burma.

Against the greatest of odds, these families have gone from struggling through a bleak existence in Thailand refugee camps to enjoying abundant freedom and opportunities in the United States.

In the recent months since they’ve relocated to Michigan, these refugees have found new homes, friends, and churches, and are happily thriving in ways that they never thought possible.

Volunteers are volunteers, the old fashioned type.  There is no logging “volunteer” hours to be turned into the federal government for cold hard cash from the Match Grant Program.

Local volunteers have been a special blessing to the growing Karen community, as well. Several mentor families are teaching many of the refugees the basics of how to shop, pay bills, and manage their homes, and more than 25 volunteers hold English classes for the refugees three nights a week.

It looks like CFI is rescuing refugees that have been resettled by federal contractors in crime ridden cities.

Volunteer manpower has also been a tremendous help with the motel reconstruction, which is an especially important project that will offer clean, safe housing for new families—many of whom have been living in high crime, inner city neighborhoods since their resettlement in the United States.

Now, can you imagine there are actually groups resettling poor, scared refugees in high crime neighborhoods.  It is almost impossible to believe.  Who could be so cheap and heartless to do such a thing?

A different kind of Iraqi refugee story

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

With all the stories we’ve put up about unemployed Iraqi refugees,  I thought I’d post one outside of that template. Adam Ashton of the Modesto Bee reports on a group of Iraqi refugee women who are learning hair styling at Modesto’s Dior School of Cosmetology.

Sam Rasho, the school’s owner, lent these students a hand up, waiving $12,000 in tuition for them and 13 other refugees. They must spend eight more months in class before they’ll be ready to seek a license from the state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology.

“People helped me, so I felt it was my duty to help them,” said Rasho, who left Iraq and arrived in Chicago in 1974.

This is typical of how immigrants have traditionally made their way in America — earlier arrivals helping new ones to make a living and to assimilate. So how come this story is so different from those previous ones of Iraqi refugees disillusioned with America? I suspect the answer is here:

Rasho heard about their trouble finding work through a network of Assyrian Christians in Stanislaus County.

That’s all it says about Christians, but it’s clear these are Iraqi Christians, not Muslims. Not something a reporter who values his job would want to emphasize, but probably the crux of the story.

“They are so dedicated,” Bradley said. “They’re going to get jobs because they’re eager to work and they work hard.”

There are plenty of Iraqi Muslims who have been here a long time and have prospered. Perhaps they could help out some of those unemployed Iraqi Muslims refugees by teaching them a useful trade. Perhaps they already are doing that and we just haven’t heard of it, but I doubt it. It makes such a good story that some reporter would have picked it up.

More evidence of a connection between Rohingya and Islamic terrorism

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a follow-up to a couple of my previous posts (especially this one) in our Rohingya Reports category (72 posts!) and probably only will hold interest for readers who have been diehard followers of the Rohingya issue.   To make a long story short, this ethnic group—Burmese Muslim Rohingya—is agitating with help from their friends in the NGO community to be resettled in the West.  As far as we know, they are not officially in the US (yet!).  I suspect, however, that some have come in with the Karen Christians*.    They have begun to be officially resettled in the UK and Canada.

This is from the Daily Star in Dhaka (the Capital of Bangladesh).  The Daily Star says it is “journalism without fear or favor.”

Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) had close links with Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), an insurgent group in the Arakan state of Myanmar, JMB’s explosives expert ‘Boma’ Mizan revealed in interrogations.

Sources close to Rab interrogators said Mizan and some other JMB operatives received training from RSO arms experts in a camp near Myanmar border in 2002.

Now executed JMB chief Shaekh Abdur Rahman sent them for the training. In exchange for the firearms lessons, JMB trained Rohingyas to improvise and set off bombs.

Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji) Bangladesh, another outlawed Islamist outfit, too had strong connections with RSO. 

[…..]

Lately, some individuals claiming to be former Huji men told this correspondent that in the late 80s and 90s many of their fellow operatives took arms training from Rohingya rebels.

[…..] 

Sources said Huji took RSO help also in securing weapons and funds. The Rohingyan group had extensive supplies of arms, and for funds it would count on a number of Muslim-majority countries especially those in the Middle East.

* We have resettled 8,149 Burmese refugees this fiscal year already (that is from Oct. 1, 2008-April 30, 2009).  That number is second only to the number of Iraqis resettled in that time period (9,581).  We have heard from sources that “Burmese Muslims” were getting into Karen Christian camps and getting into the US.

Refugees International Report from Iraq: no mention of Christians

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

To further make the point I made yesterday in my post about Refugees International’s pro-Muslim (really if you read it carefully, it is pro-Sunni Muslim) bias, here is a recent RI report from Iraq that discusses “vulnerable” groups, but never uses the “C” word.

The last segment entitled “Focus on the Most Vulnerable” gobbles up nearly an entire paragraph on the much smaller number of Iraqi Palestinians that have been displaced then the Christians who are running for their lives from Muslim persecution.  Here is the whole section, if you didn’t know the circumstances you would never know who the other “vulnerable” might be.

As efforts continue to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, special attention needs to be given to the most vulnerable, and durable solutions need to be found. The stateless Palestinians of Iraq remain one of the most vulnerable groups, and are the subjects of discrimination and attacks by many factions. The hundreds who sought shelter in the camps of Al-Tanf and Al-Waleed at the Syrian border with Iraq must be resettled immediately and the criteria applied should be the same as for Iraqis. According to the UN, there are 10,000 to 12,000 left in Iraq. For this population, resettlement to a third country is likely to be the only durable solution.

The U.S. and the international community must also turn their attention to Iraqis who will not be able to return home, whether they are refugees or internally displaced. They may be too vulnerable to return, or have reasons to fear for their safety. Either way, there are currently no plans to address their needs and plan for their future. The U.S. must engage Syria, Jordan and other host countries on finding durable solutions for these particularly vulnerable groups. As for the 39% of internally displaced Iraqis who don’t plan to return home, they will need assistance to either integrate in their new communities or resettle elsewhere. The political implications for the future of Iraq must be carefully considered, while respecting the will of the displaced.

As for resettling the Palestinians, these Iraqi Palestinians have blasted Arab governments for not helping, here, where they called their co-religionists hypocrites.   I have never seen RI or any other NGO put pressure on Arab governments to take in their Muslim kin and I believe it is either their pro-Muslim/anti-West (US is always bad) bias or that RI is flat-out chicken to take on a Muslim government.    The pressure is always on the West to take-in this group of Palestinians who are persecuted by other Muslims because they were friends of Saddam.

Meanwhile in the US, a Chaldean (Christian) group is helping resettled Christian Iraqis weather the economic down-turn by establishing an ‘Adopt-a-Family’ (note how nice it is to see Iraqi women not covered from head to toe) program where private citizens help Iraqi Christians pay their bills thus placing less demand on the American taxpayer to do so.  I wonder if the Chaldean group can apply for the Emergency Housing money from the State Department.  I’m betting they can’t.

Iraq’s VP wants Christians to stay

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Iraqi Christians apparently are still being threatened and killed by Muslim extremists in Iraq causing them to continue to seek refuge in surrounding countries according to this article in The Christian Post.

The vice president of Iraq, Adel Abdul Mahdi, urged the country’s Christian population to resist fleeing Iraq and called on the international community to help protect the dwindling minority group from extremists.

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, some 250,000 to 500,000 Christians have left the country. Christians, although making up only three percent of Iraq’s population, account for nearly half of the refugees leaving Iraq, according to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees.

“The position of Iraqi Christians is vulnerable and Iraq must not be left alone to face this. It’s a collective task,” said Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim, at a conference hosted by the French Institute of International Relations in Paris on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse.

“Christians are an integral part of Iraq,” he said. “We need to help Iraq and help Christians remain in Iraq.”

Iraq’s Christian population has mostly fled to neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan, but has also been granted refuge in Western countries including France, Germany, and the United States.

Members of the tiny Christian population are forced to leave their homeland because of daily physical threats to their life. More than 200 Christians [Edit: as Judy pointed out here the numbers seem to be unreliable]  have been killed, dozens of churches bombed, and countless believers have been kidnapped for ransom money since 2003.

And, a reminder, the Christians were living in what is now Iraq long before the Muslim’s arrived.

Iraq is home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Many religious freedom groups have warned that if nothing is done soon the Christian population in Iraq will likely disappear.