Category: Iraqi refugees

More Muslim asylum seekers caught attempting to reach Australia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Looks like Australia’s more lenient policy toward asylum has opened a floodgate of Afghan and Iraqi refugees attempting to reach ‘welcoming’ Australia.  This group was caught in Indonesia.  From the Herald Sun:

ANOTHER 68 Afghan asylum seekers poised to head to Australia have been arrested by Indonesian authorities and are being questioned tonight.

Read the whole story and learn more about Australia’s recent refugee problems in our category on the subject, here.

Update:  Just came across another story of an Iraqi family who may be trying to reach Australia.   See how it’s done, here.

Comment worth noting: Why are Iraqi refugees given more than the local poor American?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the gist of a reader’s comment we posted yesterday here.  Msdreamgirlusa is commenting on a post from late last year about refugees going to Ohio and so I’m posting it here now so it won’t be lost at an old post you likely wouldn’t see.

Her comment demonstrates a point we have made over and over again, local citizens see an unfairness in the way refugees are treated when compared to the local less fortunate.   The refugees are definitely given more and they wonder why.  

Also, her comment demonstrates another point we tried to make in Hagerstown, MD nearly two years ago now.   If refugees are to be resettled in a community the local citizen must be fully informed.   Refugee resettlement agencies (volags, the federal contractors) and the government agencies at state and federal levels give the impression that they are so fearful of a local backlash that they keep the whole damn thing secret which only serves to get local citizens even angrier.   If the Refugee Resettlement program is good, then put all the facts out for public debate!

So, here is our Ohio reader’s comment.  

I live in Franklin County Ohio and here is my opinion of the Iraqi Refugees In Ohio , Why are the Iraqi Refugees allowed to come here , recieve double sometimes triple the benefits that should be entitled to American Citizens , they cause problems where ever they are placed , they comment that the USA attacked and Bomb Iraq and that we owe them .

I am an American Citizen ( Natural ) the area I live in has been overtaken by Iraqi Refugees which live like Uncivilized people and hit their children in an abusive manner , they fight amoung themselves constantly , they speak about how bad America is treating them , why do we have to suffer them and why do we have to live in poverty while they are getting paid to be here thru our welfare and medicaid services ? Our goverment needs to put a limit on how long they can be here and make them find jobs to support themselves , they are given Resident Status as soon as they arrive in the USA and obtain Social Security Cards and Employment I.D.’s yet they seek employment with wages paid under the table and still recieve welfare and medicaid benefits.

I think that Our Goverment needs to monitor them more closely . I think that they are being treated more than fair and given more in monies than most , they are able to purchase New Automobiles and New Laptops and still able to send monies back to their families in Iraq and other Arab Countries.

I am sure some of our readers don’t like what they have just read,  others of you are likely shaking your heads in agreement with her.   Bottomline, Msdreamgirlusa must be allowed a voice and that is what we provide.

More Iraqi asylum seekers arriving in Australia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The word has gotten out that the Rudd Administration has made it easier for refugees arriving by boat to be granted asylum in Australia, so now, not surprisingly, the numbers are on the rise.  From the Jakarta Post:

A boatload of suspected Iraqi asylum seekers skirted border patrols and landed Wednesday on a remote Australian island, officials said, becoming the third group of people to reach the country’s territorial waters in a month.

The opposition Liberal Party says the increase in boat arrivals is a result of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s relaxation of the country’s refugee policy last July.

When I first saw this story, I though how on earth were Iraqis getting to Australia on boats, but we learn that they first fly to Indonesia.

Australia has long been a destination for people from poor, often war-ravaged countries hoping to start a new life. Most of the asylum seekers in recent years have come from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. They typically fly to Indonesia before continuing to Australia aboard cramped, barely seaworthy boats.

Indefinite detention on remote islands by the Howard government  previously kept the numbers of asylum seekers low.

The number of boats had dwindled after the previous government imposed unlimited detention for illegal immigrants and made it difficult to get refugee visas. But since Rudd’s government relaxed some of those policies last July, 11 boats carrying more than 340 people have entered Australian waters, three of them in the last month.

[….]

Rudd’s government has limited detention to 12 months and gives accepted refugees permanent visas instead of the three-year visas provided by the previous Liberal government.

The article doesn’t mention if these are Muslim Iraqis or Christians.

Diversity is strength, or so we are told

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I would love for someone to give me evidence of the much ballyhooed theory that diversity strengthens communities.    I swear someone just made that up and it is repeated so often that no one ever challenges it.  Well, almost no one.   We have a link at the top of our page simply titled ‘Diversity’ which we haven’t mentioned much lately, but this might be a good time to revisit it.   Be sure to read the first article reprinted there entitled “Bowling with our own.”

So what made me think about this today was this mention of a struggling Iraqi family in Rochester, NY.  Yes, same story, no jobs, resettlement funds running out, but this is the passage that attracted my interest:

Ahmed and Mahmood, the two teenage boys in the house, described in detail a terrifying incident they had during their first two weeks in America. The pair was playing soccer at a park across the street from their house. Two older African-Americans, one wielding a knife, approached them. Holding Ahmed at knifepoint, the two bullies absurdly demanded Ahmed to explain why he made fun of his mother. Ahmed, who couldn’t speak English at this point, dashed home with his brother afterward.

The episode terrified the children — Mahmood told me he didn’t leave the house for two weeks. Furthermore, the episode solidified in the kids’ minds stereotypes about African-Americans. The kids still seem to fear them and think they’re thugs, and after an episode like that two weeks into a foriegn country, well, it’s kind of hard to blame them.

This is not the first time we have heard of clashes between African Americans and refugees, even their ‘African brothers’, the Somalis, don’t get along with American blacks.   When plunking refugees down in a community, do the refugee agencies just project their own view of how we should all embrace one another no matter what our cultural upbringing is— that we should simply join in brotherly love because it makes the do-gooders feel good?

Oh, that reminds me, check out this thought-provoking essay at Gates of Vienna a few days ago about ‘deadly diversity jive.’

Utah wants even more money for refugees so they won’t become mentally ill or leave US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Regular readers are likely saying, oh no, not another story about unemployed Iraqi refugees leaving the US to go back to the Middle East.  I am afraid so, but this story had a few more pieces of information that are very timely in light of our recent spate of news about mentally ill immigrants, including the depressed Turkish guy just today.

We told you previously that Utah is getting extra money for refugee resettlement from the federal government  in an experimental program, but apparently it’s not enough.

As more Iraqi refugees return to the Middle East disillusioned about America and defeated by unemployment, many of those who remain in Utah are increasingly angry. Recognizing their sacrifices and the growing dilemma, the state refugee office is fighting for additional federal funds to alleviate their painful transition.

[….]

More than 300 Iraqi refugees are expected to arrive in Utah in 2009, pushing the state’s community beyond 500.

[….]

To help create a softer landing in Utah, the state hopes to secure federal funds [your tax dollars] to hire staff at nonprofits for additional counseling and orientation.

“We’re not asking them [that’s you the taxpayer] to pay for everything,” Brown (Gerald Brown, director of the Utah Refugee Services Office) said. “But with this group, with the problems that it has, I think they [you, again] should be obligated to give us additional resources.”

Then there is kind of an ‘or else’ tone to this article.  Angry, unhappy refugees can lead to mental health issues and I don’t need to tell you where that leads!

Not treating the Iraqis’ mental health issues may lead to more anger, Rabin (Mara Rabin, medical director at Utah Health and Human Rights Project) wrote in her comments to the state. She believes it’s likely that Sulejman Talovic, a teenage Bosnian refugee who shot and killed five shoppers at Trolley Square in 2007, had untreated mental health problems.

And, we need to throw more money at refugees so they won’t leave the US like this Iraqi family.

Ahmed Ahmad, 26, used to be surrounded by family: his mother, father and sister came to Utah with him last year. Now he lives alone in Salt Lake City.

His family went to Syria last month after his father spent 10 months futilely looking for work in his field. The periodontist, who was an academic in Baghdad, quickly got a job teaching at a university.

Ahmad, a structural engineer, hopes to attend a master’s program at the University of Utah.

Though he has friends in Utah, he concedes he feels “sad, lonely, and I hoped my family would stay here.”

Is that the best sob story out there in Utah.  I guess I just have no heart, but this guy is not 16 years old, he is 26!  He can live a little while without mommy and daddy, get a degree and then go for a visit to his homeland.  Isn’t that what immigrants have done for eons?