Maryland readers of RRW might be interested in MD CAN conference

Update January 10th:  Controversy brewing.  CAIR bullies speakers, here.

We won’t be talking about refugees, but we will hear from speakers on the issue of blogging and free speech, immigration generally, national security, and Obama’s war on the suburbs and much more at the Maryland Conservative Action Network conference (Turning the Tides 2013) on Saturday, January 12th in Annapolis, MD.

I’ve been involved in the planning and so my posts might drop off here at RRW later in the week.  Check out the website and if you are a reader in Maryland or DC or anywhere nearby this is your chance to hear speakers such as Pamela Geller (Atlas Shrugs), Diana West, Stanley Kurtz and Tom Fitton (Judicial Watch) among many others.

Click here for the program and how to register.

Comment worth noting: expert on Texas border comments on Greek landmines post

Readers:  Comments worth noting is a category here at RRW where we post comments that interest us and are informative that you might have missed at the time they were posted in response to a story.

Here is ‘Freshideaguy’ on the Greek border security strategy (my title for this comment—Saving lives with landmines!):

The landmines did it!

Sounds kind of cruel, but when you are trying to prevent the collapse of your country, it’s economy and the very ability to continue to exist, some type of control over your borders is a necessary restriction that must be made.

In Texas, for instance, the Rio Grande Valley area is a hotbed infiltration point for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, (read that “gimmie-grants”) that storm into the USA annually, and for those who think that we are talking about Mexicans and Central and South Americans, think again!

At last check, there are more people now coming through the Texas border turnstiles from China, India, Africa, Middle East, Asia than are arriving from Latin America!  [Then they seek asylum!—ed]

What would be the impact if it were possible to stop that flow? In Brooks County, Texas, in 2012, there were more than 120 bodies found in the ranchland, most dying a cruel death in the monstrous Texas heat and buried in mostly anonymous pauper’s graves. All were autopsied and buried at county expense, (Texas State Law), and consider what that does to the county budget. Brooks County is a very poor area.

With landmines, virtually no one would have died trying to enter the USA in this area. Lives saved, money saved, and the enormous resources necessary to service illegals could be applied more appropriately to increasing the support for needy American citizens of all colors.

Right now the “landmines” are sprinkled all over the USA in the form of 1000+ cartel drug distribution centers, and the attendant turmoil created in our towns and cities by the marketing of illegal substances made available to our young people of all colors and millions of other Americans.

Tens of thousands of Americans have been murdered by illegal aliens, killed by drunk driving illegal aliens. Millions of Americans have been victimized in many ways by the presence of the drug infrastructure, countless sex offenders, thieves, burglars, to say nothing of the tens of billions in welfare support for these criminals, money drained from the “empty” pockets of American taxpayers.

Landmines may not be your cup of tea, (they would represent a harsh, but more humane solution), and I don’t recommend them. But enforcement of our immigration laws and the penalties for hiring illegals, (and stop the Obama Cartel from encouraging illegals to come here), would go a long way towards reducing the problem by stopping the illegal immigrant flow before it enters the USA.

Libyan “refugees” want their rights to social services in Italy

We talked about the mess that Obama helped create when he and several European leaders decided to depose Muammar Gaddafi in their zeal to spread the Arab Spring across North Africa here just a few days ago when former Libyan rebels toured US border crossings.   Following the overthrow of Gaddafi, tens of thousands of economic migrants launched themselves from Libyan shores (escaping the joys of the Arab Spring) and landed in Europe (Malta and Italy mostly).

I’d like to know if the rebels in charge of Libya are going to close their ports so that no more “refugees” can embark to Europe?  The rebels are Arabs and I wouldn’t be surprised if they ‘permitted’ those other dark-skinned ethnic groups to skip the country and head to Italy and Malta.

Last Sunday, hundreds of asylum seekers protested in an Italian city demanding their right to stay and get on welfare.

From Struggles in Italy (a lefty blog):

 On Sunday, December 16, a group of migrants fleeing Libya demonstrated in the streets of Reggio Emilia, the city where they are currently living. Several associations called for the rally, including Associations Città Migrante, GA3, Emergency Reggio Emilia and Laboratorio Aq16. The migrants reminded everyone that the City of Reggio Emilia has not, to date, granted residency to asylum seekers from Libya; as their banner read, they want to be “no longer refugees, but citizens”.

In the wake of Gaddafi’s overthrow, around 20,000 people fled Libya and arrived in Italy, a country with a population of 60 million. Such numbers are hardly an “emergency”, the ridiculously inaccurate description used in the media and political discourse.

Following the Italian civil protection agency’s North Africa emergency plan, the asylum seekers were distributed across the country, according to agreements with the regions, provinces and municipalities, and according to each area’s population density. In the past year and a half, the Province of Reggio Emilia has received 200 migrants.

Most of the asylum seekers are not Libyan nationals: they originally fled other countries such as Somalia, Eritrea, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Sudan, the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Burkina Faso, but they were living and working in Libya at the time of the revolution.

So, why couldn’t they just stay and work there after the glorious revolution?

Libyan officials are in Texas studying how we secure our borders….

….maybe they are here to see how to get more of their people across our border!

This is not a joke, this is not a Saturday Night Live skit, but it will make you chuckle on several levels.

First, they say they are here to learn from us—the experts—on how best to secure their borders.  And, my question is are they trying to keep illegal immigrants out of Libya, or their own people in, because Libya has been the jumping off point for Africans (Libyans and others) trying to get to Malta* or Italy and to the rest of Europe.

Apparently invited by the Obama Administration, here is the story and video report (hat tip: Gary, who knows the Texas border well):

WESLACO – Members of the Libyan government were in the Rio Grande Valley to learn about the way the United States secures its borders.

More than a dozen Libyan officials toured Valley ports of entry this week. They said Libya faces some of the same problems with drug smuggling, weapons smuggling and illegal immigration.

The Libyans said that, contrary to United States, their borders have little security.

They said 3,000 miles of border separate Libya from six other countries. Their borders are open, with no natural or manmade barriers. Their borders have no ports of entry or checkpoints.

They came to the Valley to learn how Customs and Border Protection officers stop drug smugglers, human traffickers and illegal immigrants.

[…..]

Members of the delegation said they need more resources and training to secure their borders.

What do you want to bet that Obama is about to give them the “resources.”    It’s O.K. for Libya to want to secure its borders while the US border is still a sieve and the Democrats cry foul when some of us want to secure it even further.

Watch for it!  US tax dollars to Libya for border security!

Libya’s history with illegal immigrants and allowing them to embark from Libyan ports has been a long one.  During Gaddaffi’s reign he turned the spigot of “refugees” leaving Libya on and off at his whim, but in years leading up to his getting the heave-ho from Obama and friends, he had tried to stem the tide of migrants launching from Libya.

Then when the ‘beautiful’ Arab Spring began (thanks to Obama and Hillary) the flow began in earnest and many died in vessels attempting to carry immigrants across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.   As a matter of fact, Libyan “refugees” are still dying as this article from last month highlights.

Also, as the racist Arab rebels consolidated power in Libya after the fall of Gaddaffi, we have many posts here reporting on the treatment of black Africans in Libya (here is just one on the subject where Hillary slaps the rebels’ wrists).

The Arab Spring created tens of thousands of additional refugees running for their lives.   The Arab Libyans do not like blacks and I suspect that is the real reason behind their desire to close their borders to the rest of Africa (I doubt that guns and drugs are foremost on their minds).  It’s those low-life blacks (Muslim or not) that the Muslim Arabs hate.

* For new readers:  We have paid special close attention to Malta for over 5 years now, as the US continues to take illegal immigrants who arrive on Malta to the US as refugees.  Reader Charles sent us this article just a week ago today.  Look at the video clip associated with the Texas article above which shows a map of the region—the island of Malta is in a direct line from Libya.   These African illegal aliens now on the way to America, surely launched from Libya.

From the Times of Malta:

20 migrants from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, all single adult men, except for a family of four and one couple, have left Malta for the US  under the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).  On arrival, they will be assisted by NGOs in the USA to proceed to their final destinations in various states.

This latest departure brings the total of beneficiaries of international protection who were resettled to the United States from Malta since 2007 to 1,118 migrants. Since the start of the USRRP in 2008, the number of beneficiaries of protection resettled to the United States amounts to 1,090.

307 migrants have been resettled from Malta to the United States of America since the beginning of this year.

15 more of Malta’s illegal aliens came to the US the week before that!  Here, thanks to Charles.  This precedent-setting practice of taking off Malta’s hands some of its economic migrants began in the Bush Administration and was instigated by Jesuits in Malta with the help of a succession of US Ambassadors to the country.   Legitimate refugees are to seek asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive.  There isn’t supposed to be this ‘pass through’ ticket to the US.  This is the European Union’s problem, not ours!

How about if we tell our “friends” running Libya now to stop the boats from launching as a first step in their border security!

For more, type ‘Libya’ into our search function.  We have dozens and dozens of posts on the monster we helped create.  Responsibility to protect!  What a joke!

Guatemalans must be lobbying for temporary refugee status

Your tax dollars!

I wrote a post back in February at Potomac Tea Party Report about how Guatemala’s Foreign Minister traveled to the US to lobby for Temporary Protected Status for ‘his people’ in the US.  Every day that post is still near the top of my list of most read posts, so I can only assume that there is a campaign on-going to get Obama to grant the backdoor amnesty for Guatemalans already in the US.

Here is what I said in February about the program that Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration Studies rightly pegs when he says there is nothing quite so permanent as temporary refugee status.

While we are all busy arguing over illegal immigration and how to combat it, the Obama administration is busy with backdoor amnesty.  One such program to legalize the illegals is quietly becoming increasingly popular— Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

Just recently TPS was extended for Salvadorans who have been here illegally for more than a decade.  We’ve also extended TPS for Haitians who got here illegally prior to the earthquake.  And, now in light of the turmoil in Syria, an open borders cabal* is asking for TPS for Syrians.

The basic idea behind TPS is that those who are in the country illegally, or whose Visas might expire are allowed to stay and WORK in the US because it would be a hardship on their country (and the illegals themselves) to send them back to a country that is a mess for some reason.

However, the way things are going, this administration would have a good excuse not to deport illegals back to almost any country in the world for some reason.

Now we learn that Guatemala wants TPS for its people here too—because of heavy rains related to tropical storm Agatha nearly two years ago!

Read my whole post that is attracting so much attention.  The great benefit to Guatemala is that their nationals living in the US can readily send remittances back to their homeland without any legal hassles.

Flimsy excuses like this one—a two year old storm—have perverted what might have been a limited program for very rare circumstances, instead it is one more egregious misuse of the concept of “refugees.”   These are illegal aliens/economic migrants not true refugees.

What got me thinking about this again today was this story from North Carolina about one more taxpayer-funded benefit TPS “refugees” get—instate tuition.