Category: Iraqi refugees

Lots of fraud among Iraqi refugee applications

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Associated Press reports:

AMMAN, Jordan: The Australian Embassy in Jordan says it and other Western nations are tightening their Iraqi refugee resettlement policy to eliminate fraud.

Embassy spokeswoman Tania Wilson says Australia rejects about 1,000 out of the 4,500 Iraqi resettlement applications submitted in Jordan and Syria every year due to fraud. The two countries host the bulk of Iraq’s 2 million refugees.

Most fraud involves fabricated documents or applications from Iraqis with illegitimate status.

Wilson said Sunday that several Western nations discussed several measures to combat fraud in a closed-door meeting in Jordan. She declined to elaborate on the nature of the measures.

Iraqi student in the US: wise beyond his years…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And awfully brave to make the politically incorrect remarks he made yesterday to the Tucson Citizen.  I’ll bet he gets a lot of flack from the refugee industry folks.   In a letter to the editor, this high school senior said: 

It has been 14 months since I stood at the Tucson International Airport welcome area to receive the first Iraqi refugee family that came to Tucson.

I remember standing beside their caseworker, four members of a church and the Imam of the local mosque.

I watched the father step off the escalator with his backpack and a briefcase in hand.

He dropped his briefcase as soon as he knew who we were and ran to shake our hands, saying “Thank you” with a heavy accent.

He, like every refugee, had a look of relief and a big smile radiating hope.

After he learned I was an Iraqi student, he whispered in my ear, “We are the lucky ones.”

A few months after, I realized why he had said that.

He wasn’t prepared only to be safe, but also had some inaccurate expectations about living in the U.S.

After having lost many loved ones and gone through many crises, Iraqi refugees come prepared to have an easy life here.

They sign up to qualify for food stamps, health insurance for eight months, and rental payments and salaries for three months.

But not often do they realize how long these privileges will last. Nor do they know what they should do in return, since most of them can’t read the contracts they sign.

With limited educational programs and orientations, the refugees end up spending their money not carelessly, but rather extravagantly.

After three months of being picky about jobs and chasing the same lifestyle they had back home, they find that their salaries and rent payments end.

The problem is, the number of refugees is a lot bigger than the agencies can handle. The agencies are overwhelmed, so their performance is not as expected.

This leads to misunderstandings and trust issues between the refugees and their sponsoring agencies.

Then Ali Rawaf goes on to tell us some of the things he thinks need to be done, and concludes with this:

There should also be consideration of allowing a reasonable number of Iraqi refugees.

It is better to have 10 Iraqi refugees who are satisfied with their lives than having 100 angry ones with no life at all.

I suspect, however, instead of limiting the refugees to those we can afford, the refugee resettlement industry will just see this as more evidence that we need to spend more of your tax dollars on refugees.  We have already said we are taking “tens of thousands” of Iraqis in the coming fiscal year.

We have written on several occasions (here is one post) about how well-educated Iraqis come to America as refugees and expect to work in their previous professions and instead learn that rather than working as a surgeon, an Iraqi doctor might get a job on the hospital cleaning staff.    I predict, and hope, that they will go home to Iraq one day soon and help their own country recover.

State Department Briefing on Iraqi refugee numbers is revealing

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 14th:  Human Rights First says lets resettle 85,000.

Thanks to a faithful reader for sending me the link to the US State Department’s briefing yesterday that spawned this eye-popping story about how tens of thousands of Iraqis would be coming to the US in the next fiscal year which begins in just a few week (Oct.1).

You can read the transcript here and note there is a film of the press briefing.

I only had a few minutes to skim it, but the huge number of refugees they are discussing is because in addition to the 17,000 normal Iraqi refugees they plan to admit to the US, the Kennedy bill (which we have discussed on several occasions) allows up to 5000 special visas for Iraqis (living inside Iraq, normally refugees are those who have left the country) each year.  Since we only took a few hundred of those this past year, apparently we can go back and fill last year’s quota and add it to the FY’09 allotment—thus bringing the number to the tens of thousands Foley says in this briefing.

Here is what I reported yesterday.  May have more later.  I did notice in my skimming through the briefing that no one asked how many refugees were rejected because of links to terrorism.

Oh, and not once in this politically correct briefing was the word Christian used.  No one asked and no one volunteered any information about the truly persecuted Christians or for that matter any of the persecuted minorities.

US to up Iraqi refugee numbers to 17,000, Refugees International says it’s not enough

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 13th:   More on this story here.  State Department briefing

More here:   I had originally linked the Reuters story at the bottom of this post in which US State Department Ambassador James Foley says tens of thousands  of Iraqi refugees will come in 2009 because I don’t think it will happen and I wondered why he would say such a thing.  It will only set the State Department up for a year-long harrassment campaign from the refugee resettlement lobbyists and their friends at the Associated Press and others of the MSM.   They will whine and nag all year—you said tens of thousands (of course it will be a differant State Dept.)

And, because I think many Iraqis will start to go home to Iraq.

I thank all of you who have sent me the link in the last hour for your thoughtfulness and decided I better post it here at the top of the post I did a little while ago.   And besides maybe I’m wrong and you all are right about its significance!

 

Fiscal year ’09 begins in just a few weeks, October first, and each year the President makes a determination about how many refugees we will take for that year.   Actually let me correct that, he sets a CEILING.  However, the refugee lobbyists and the volags (non-profit government contractors) say it’s never enough and they, for sure, want the number to be the goal not the ceiling.   That way they can beat up the Administration when the number isn’t reached.

For this year the ceiling was 80,000 from all over the world, but as of the end of August we had just passed the 50,000 mark.   However, we did resettle the magic 12,000 Iraqi displaced persons that the State Department promised the advocates.

Never satisfied, Refugees International has put out a press release today complaining that the 17,000 Iraqi goal for next year is, what else, too low.  How about 90,000?  Or, would they still not be satisfied?

Washington, D.C. – Refugees International expressed disappointment today at the State Department’s goal of resettling only 17,000 Iraqi refugees for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins October 1. While the United States achieved its target of resettling over 12,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008, the needs are far greater. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that in 2009, 90,000 Iraqi refugees in the region will be in urgent need of resettlement. This number does not include vulnerable Iraqis who remain inside their country, or Palestinian refugees from Iraq, who live in desperate conditions at the Syria-Iraqi border.

The part that really bugs me is that Refugees International never talks about the truly vulnerable Iraqi Christians because I suspect if they mentioned them it would be politically incorrect to imply they were vulnerable because of Islam.  

And, Refugees International is always pushing for resettlement of the Iraqi Palestinians we mentioned here earlier in the week, but don’t let that C-word (Christian) pass their lips.   My suspicion is that they don’t want to upset any Muslim board members, or mess up their chances of schmoozing with the likes of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

See also the Reuters story today.

UN: Using Palestinians again to guilt-trip the West

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

How about guilt-tripping Muslim countries for a change?   Why aren’t the wealthy Muslim countries in the Middle East resettling Palestinian refugees generally and this group in particular— stranded in camps on the border of Iraq and Syria?   I know the answer, it is better to continue to make the Palestinians the poster children for all the evil inflicted by the West and Israel.

Here is a story that is a real stretch.   We have written before about the Iraqi Palestinians who had been favored by Saddam Hussein.  When Saddam’s government was toppled, the Palestinians became potential targets in the sectarian turmoil that followed.  However, when they attempted to escape Iraq and their fellow Muslims they were not allowed into Syria (a Muslim country!).

Tragically a nine-year old Palestinian child died just recently when a truck backed over him in the camp, and the incident that happens throughout the world every day becomes a reason for a major news story from Reuters entitled, “Death of Palestinian boy highlights dangers at Iraq border refugee camp.”    Huh?  He was killed by an unfortunate truck accident.    Would you see a headline in your town about a vehicle accident, “Death of Anytown boy highlights dangers of Anytown?”  No, of course not.

I’m not saying that life in a camp is anything but awful,  however,  does this warrant a major news story?

DAMASCUS, Syria, September 10 (UNHCR) – The death of a nine-year-old boy in a road accident on the Iraq-Syria border has focused attention once more on the extremely dangerous and harsh living of hundreds of Palestinian refugees stranded at a makeshift desert camp.

It’s just an excuse for the UN to once again beat the drum over resettlement of this group of Palestinians:

“This is a terrible tragedy,” said Laurens Jolles, UNHCR’s representative in Syria. “The present area is not at all suited as a location for accommodation of hundreds of Palestinians. This proves once again how important it is to find a way to relocate this group to a more suitable area.”

So, why isn’t the UN pressuring Syria to let them in, or how about neighboring rich Saudi Arabia, they haven’t resettled any Iraqis yet.  I thought Muslims were supposed to be charitable to other Muslims. The Palestinians should be right up Saudi Arabia’s alley.   No, its always the West.  This boy and his family were scheduled to leave for Sweden, or so says the UN.   Although apparently they would be among the first of these Palestinians to go to overloaded Sweden.

Few Palestinians in the border camps have been accepted for resettlement or offered shelter in third countries. Only some 300 Palestinians have gone to non-traditional resettlement countries such as Brazil and Chile. A group of 29 vulnerable women and children from Al Waleed arrived in Iceland on Tuesday this week to start new lives.

What?  Muslim countries are “unwelcoming” to Palestinians?