Category: Iraqi refugees

Over 110,000 Iraqis have entered the US since the end of the Bush Administration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been in Washington all day (regarding the refugee program) and am too tired to post much, but ‘Pungentpeppers’ found this news last night and I decided to at least post this today.  From Epoch Times where the reporter reminds us of how the Bush Administration was really concerned about security issues with the Iraqis and had been only letting in a trickle of Iraqi refugees until sometime in 2007.

This news story picks up at the end of the Bush Administration, but here are the Iraqi numbers prior to the Obama years which are now numbering close to 20,000 a year.

Back then, every month (as the numbers were released) for probably a year, a reporter for AP—Matthew Lee—beat on the Bush Administration with a chorus of NGO ‘humanitarian’ groups sniping from the wings.

Once the Iraqi numbers took off, they really took off, as you can see in the graph and below.

Interesting to me is that there is virtual silence from this same bunch of reporters who shill for the Open Borders Left about Obama’s foot-dragging on Syrian refugees.

The UK, which is also foot-dragging on admitting Syrians, is being harassed in the media by the usual Leftist suspects, but they are silent about the US and Obama—what gives?

By the way, this reporter at Epoch Times estimates that 2/3 rds of the Iraqis are Muslims, my numbers indicate it is closer to 3/4th (at least in the post-2007 era).

From Epoch Times:

It has been seven years since the United States opened its borders to tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees. And they keep coming. Last year, over 20,000 crossed the border—a record number. More than 1,500 more have come so far in 2015, as of Jan. 31, foretelling another high year. So where are they settling?

[….]

Since then over 110,000 have come to the United States.

[….]

The largest chunk, over 23,000 settled in California. Close to 18,000 ended up in Michigan and another almost 11,000 in Texas.

[….]

California is the biggest host state for refugees. Out of some 600,000 refugees that have come to the country in the past decade, more than 65,000 went to California—over two thirds of them were from Iraq and Iran.

Cities and towns with the highest incoming Iraqi refugee population in the past 10 years:

El Cajon California 9,568

Southfield Michigan 4,417

San Diego California 3,742

Phoenix Arizona 3,723

Houston Texas 3,532

Sterling Heights Michigan 3,505

Chicago Illinois 3,104
Source: U.S. Department of State, Jan .31, 2015

Go to the article, here, to see how many your state received.  LOL!  I see ol’ Joe Biden’s Delaware got a grand total of 8 Iraqis (Biden was one of the original sponsors of the Refugee Act of 1980).

We have 646 posts in our Iraqi refugee category in case anyone wants to write a book—we’ve done your research!  You will find posts there about reporter Matthew Lee’s monthly squawks about Bush!

More news about Syrian Muslims headed to Kentucky

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

While I slept, Pungentpeppers was busy reading the latest news…..

And, by the way, the last time we reported on Syrians headed to Kentucky, Nebraska and North Dakota it was our top post for three weeks running!

The US State Department’s man in charge of refugees coming to America, Laurence Bartlett: “The US will be a significant player” in the resettlement of Syrians and private resettlement agencies will determine where they go!

The State Department has been slow gearing up for the big Syrian push and in this article at The Courier-Journal they claim it’s due to the United Nations being slow to get them a list.

REMEMBER! it is the UN choosing who is coming to America.

They say we do intensive security screening, but logically that is impossible because who is going to supply records (what court records? what government documents?) when the whole region has been in turmoil for years.

Here is the latest from The Courier-Journal:

Twenty-one Syrian refugees will arrive in Louisville over the next two weeks, a figure expected to increase in Kentucky and beyond as the U.S. begins to take in an expanded number of refugees fleeing Syria’s bloody civil war.

The refugees, from four families who fled to Jordan and Egypt, are part of a larger U.S. resettlement effort expected to bring as many as 10,000 Syrians to cities throughout the nation over the next several years, according to the U.S. State Department.

[….]

The U.S. has accepted few Syrian refugees in recent years, sparking criticism that it was slow to respond. But Bartlett said the U.N. only recently has sought to resettle larger numbers. The State Department is now reviewing nearly 10,000 referrals from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. By contrast, just 323 Syrians were resettled in the U.S. in 2014.

The U.N. is asking an array of nations to take in 100,000 refugees through 2016, Bartlett said, and the U.S. will be a “significant player.”

Although private resettlement agencies will determine where they go, last year some arrived in California, Illinois and Texas. Bartlett predicted resettlements would reach 1,000 to 2,000 through this fiscal year and would grow more quickly in the subsequent 12 months. While no ceiling on Syrians has been set, the U.S. has a cap of 70,000 total global refugees a year.

[….]

Kentucky, home to two Louisville resettlement affiliates, has taken in 6,428 refugees since 2011, including 1,113 from Iraq, according to the State Department figures. That has left the area with resources and interpreters that could make it a landing spot for Syrians, Koehlinger said, though exact numbers are unknown.

“We’ll probably have a significant number here in Louisville” by summer, said Darko Mihaylovich, director of Louisville’s Catholic Charities Refugee and Migration Services.

The Iraqi terrorists in the next section did have a “record,” at least one of them had fingerprints on an IED that killed American National Guardsmen in Iraq and no one had ever put the prints together with the fraudulent refugee application to America.

Advocates said the refugees from Syria bring added security concerns, in part because of fears of Islamic extremism among Islamic State followers and others.

In 2013, two Iraqi refugees living in Bowling Green, Ky., were sentenced on terrorism charges. They were arrested in 2011 after helping a confidential government informant load cash and weapons that they thought were bound for al-Qaida in Iraq into a tractor-trailer.

Read on, the article is full of information including the fact that a local Islamic Center is getting geared up to welcome the new Muslims.

By the way, Kentucky is a Wilson-Fish state and as such the program is run by contractors and the federal government (UN!) with no Kentucky state government say-so!

Senator Mitch McConnell has obviously not protected Kentucky for all of his time in the Senate.  Senator Rand Paul did speak up here in 2013 when he wanted to know why we needed to bring in all the Iraqis.  You may not like Senator Paul, but he may be the only one in a position to put the breaks on the Syrian resettlement for Kentucky and for America (if he wanted to!).

The UN is gearing up and so is the State Department so that by the time a new President enters office in January 2017 there will be no hope of stopping this train.

About the photo:  Do you see that map behind Bartlett? That is the map I referred to in my presentation in St. Louis this past weekend.  You can find it online by clicking here.  It depicts the 180 or so cities that have contractors working in them and that are being colonized. Any smaller town within a hundred miles is fair game.

Iraqi Refugee Helped Terrorists Kill U.S. Soldiers In Iraq

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Sergeant First Class Bryan E. Hall, 32, of Elk Grove, California. Loved camping, fishing and hunting and was very proud of serving his country. http://www.warriorwishes.org/2014/04/32in30-san-francisco-giants-warrior.html

Editor:  This is a very sad story from our indispensable reporter ‘Pungentpeppers:’

A Kurdish Iraqi man, who settled as a refugee in Canada while still a teen, has been extradited to New York and is facing terrorism charges. Sayfildin Tahir Sharif, 36, who also goes by the name Faruq Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa, is accused of helping orchestrate an April 2009 truck bombing in Mosul, Iraq. Five American soldiers died in the attack, and two Iraqi policemen.

Muhammad ‘Isa admitted he corresponded by email with two of the terrorists while they were in Syria, and that they were on a mission to kill Americans. He wired $700 to a “facilitator” who helped one of the attackers, a Tunisian, enter Iraq.

On wiretaps last year, Muhammad ‘Isa was overheard explaining to someone in Iraq how he used code words when discussing the Iraq operation.”For example, when I want to name the brothers, I say the farmers — because they plant metal and harvest metal and flesh.” He also explained that he used the term “married” to mean “in the afterlife.”

Muhammad ‘Isa pleaded “not guilty” to the charges on Saturday.

Although the press describes him as “Canadian” – he arrived in Canada in 1993, and became a Canadian citizen four years later – he is Canadian on paper only.

This turncoat needs to get “married” and see “the afterlife” – but first he’ll spend his time in prison.

The five American servicemen who were killed in the attack:

Staff Sgt. Gary L. Woods, 24, of Lebanon Junction, Kentucky;
Sgt. First Class Bryan E. Hall, 32, of Elk Grove, California;
Sgt. Edward W. Forrest Jr., 25, of St. Louis, Missouri;
Cpl. Jason G. Pautsch, 20, of Davenport Iowa; and
Army Pfc. Bryce E. Gaultier, 22 of Cyprus, California.

To learn more, here are the links for this breaking news:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/canadian-sayfildin-tahir-sharif-extradited-to-u-s-to-face-terror-charges-1.2930365

Edmonton man pleads not guilty to U.S. terrorism charges

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/canadian-pleads-guilty-us-terror-case-28453837

Defendant To Appear In Court In Brooklyn On Charges Of Helping Orchestrate Truck Bombing In Iraq

Senator Rand Paul has a lot of nerve to question French immigration policy!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

How can a man whose own home town was traumatized by the arrest of Muslim refugee terrorists, and whose home state of Kentucky is a prime US State Department resettlement site for Somali, Iraqi, Burmese and soon-to-arrive Syrian Muslims have the audacity to tell the French that they need to re-think their immigration policy!

Frankly, I had a lot of hope for Senator Paul a few years ago when he raised some hell in Washington over how those two Iraqi (now convicted and in prison) terrorists slipped through Homeland Security’s hands (they lied on refugee applications, big surprise!) when one of them had fingerprints on IED fragments from Iraq.  He is the only Senator I have seen even make a peep about the Refugee Program.

Maybe I’m the only one who remembers Senator Paul’s brief stand!  See posts here,  here, here and here.   After 2013 (what! when 2016 was around the corner?) it sure sounds like Paul himself erased concerns for Kentucky and America right out of his mind!

Grover Norquist and Senator Rand Paul. For your own good Paul, get away from Norquist! Photo: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/norquist-bloomberg-and-rand-paul-team-up-for-dont-call-it-amnesty/

Why doesn’t Senator Rand Paul get it—if he came out strongly right now about American security as it relates to LEGAL and illegal immigration he would have a shot at the Presidency in 2016!

This is the news that got me steamed this morning.  From CNN:

(CNN)Sen. Rand Paul thinks that France needs to rethink its immigration policy in light of the recent terror attacks.

The Kentucky Republican said Thursday that intelligence and surveillance tactics should still be employed to prevent terrorism, but argued “there’s some policy changes, though, that could be better.”

“I think also you got to secure your country. That means maybe that every Muslim immigrant that wishes to come to France shouldn’t have an open door to come,” he said on Sean Hannity’s radio show, referring to Islamic radicalization in Europe.

Paul suggested such policy be considered by France and “many of these other countries that had old colonies in predominantly Muslim areas.”

He does throw in a comment about our border security and student visas (big deal), but more than any other Senator in Washington, maybe even more than Senator Jeff Sessions (who doesn’t say much about refugees), Paul knows about the dangers and the cost of our refugee program.

Paul, a potential presidential contender, argued that “it’s also my concern here,” saying the U.S. border “is a danger to attack” and criticizing what he described as a poorly monitored student visa program.

See our extensive archive on Kentucky and its many problems with refugees, here.  Paul’s home town of Bowling Green was until recently a ‘preferred resettlement site!‘  Sometime after 2009 it was taken off the list, why? because it is so overloaded with refugees that the feds and their resettlement contractors are now focusing on other Kentucky cities like Louisville (where they eat camels!).

About the photo and Senator Paul’s association with Grover Norquist.  In 2007 Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform) was promoting, with his inside-the-beltway Republicans, the idea of bringing in Iraqi refugees.  More recently Norquist and Suhail Kahn ginned-up a letter from a group of RINOs to bring in more refugees generally.

Jeb Bush signed that letter asking that we resettle MORE refugees.

Note to Paul—get away from Grover Norquist!

Pittsburgh working hard to “welcome” refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

City leaders think the refugees will rejuvenate the city and bring economic prosperity.

Hey Pittsburgh, how about if you call up the City of Seattle before you get too excited by this “welcoming” propaganda. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/12/19/seattle-housing-crisis-pay-attention-refugee-welcoming-cities/

Frankly, I don’t get it, the only economic windfall (in my view) that will flow into Pittsburgh (a federal government “preferred” community) is the federal welfare dollars that follow the refugees—the special grants and special micro-loan deals etc.  It isn’t new money, it is just money recycled from the federal taxpayer.

I’m not an economist, but we better soon get some rigorous studies to counter the growing “welcoming” movement!

From National Public Radio:

Studies show immigrants start businesses at a higher rate than non-immigrants, and can raise home values when they move into neighborhoods.  [ but do the businesses close soon too?–ed]

Programs like Welcoming Pittsburgh [anything to do with ‘Welcoming America’?—ed] come as a reaction to failed immigration reform, but also because depopulated industrial cities see immigrants as an economic development tool, says Audrey Singer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“A lot of these places are looking for two things: economic activity and population,” Singer says. “Immigrants and refugees are often looked at as a really dynamic group.”

Pittsburgh is just the latest Rust Belt city trying to boost the demographic — just 7 percent of the city’s residents were born outside the U.S., which is low for an urban area. About 40 other U.S. cities have similar programs, including Philadelphia; Chicago; St. Louis, Mo.; Columbus and Dayton, Ohio.

Do those “studies” report the costs of educating the kids, and the cost of low-income housing (Seattle!); taking care of their health needs; the costs to the criminal justice system?  I doubt it!

Then this:

Immigrants under-employed?  So what does that tell you?  There isn’t a booming economy as a result of immigrants, just more immigrants competing with Americans looking for work.

About 30,000 high-skilled immigrants are underemployed in Pennsylvania. In addition, some see Pittsburgh as parochial and not open to outsiders.

Welcoming Pittsburgh hopes to change that by opening government and coordinating various agencies’ efforts. Singer says it’s too soon to tell if it’s working in other cities, but what some call “deliberate welcoming” enhances the No. 1 thing city residents need: opportunities.

And, near the end, NPR mentions this about their ‘star’ of the story, a well-educated Iraqi refugee (Ammar Nsaif):

Nsaif currently works as a caregiver, earning $1,400 a month, plus SNAP benefits to purchase some groceries, for a family of five.

I’m guessing he is a “caregiver” in a state or federally financed home health care business (he could even be paid to take care of granny at home), he gets food stamps and supposedly supports a family of five on $1,400 a month—yeh right! He is adding to the economy of Pittsburgh?  At that salary he surely isn’t even paying taxes.

Where are our studies—just take Nsaif’s case and tell us how much he drains from the US economy!