Category: Other Immigration

Gateway cities: the Sacramento example

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Check out this article “Twenty-First Century Gateways: Immigrants in Suburban America” at Immigration Daily a publication of the ILW.com.  (You might even want to subcribe to the free publication.)

We’ve mentioned Gateway cities in the past.  Traditionally immigrants arriving in the US went to certain cities. Two that come readily to mind are  New York and Los Angeles.  All that has changed and immigrants and refugees are spreading out not just to large and medium-sized cities but to suburban areas as well.    Audrey Singer and co-authors have written a book entitled, “Twenty-first Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America” in which they describe the changing demographics throughout the US.

Here’s one example from this article about the book:   The apparently ‘welcoming’ city of Sacramento, CA 

Sacramento, although it is the capital of California and located in a traditional settlement state, had been largely bypassed by immigrants during the mid-20th century, but its foreign-born population began rising during the 1980s and 1990s due mainly to refugee resettlement.

[…]
 

 

Geographers Robin Datel and Dennis Dingemans identify a host of forces that have led to the re-emergence of Sacramento as a gateway of immigration. These include a history of immigrant settlement, the region’s role as a refugee magnet, the availability of inexpensive suburban housing, and the demand for both brain and brawn migrants.

Sacramento had about 250,000 foreign-born residents in 2000, and it gained another 100,000 by 2006, making it 17.6 percent foreign born. Forty-one percent of this population is from Asia; 33 percent from Latin America; and 11 percent from Eastern Europe. Furthermore, Sacramento ranked tenth among all US metropolitan areas in the absolute number of refugees that were resettled between 1983 and 2004.

 

Wow, 100,000 immigrants added to the city in just six years. 

* Note to cities:  You can say ‘no’ after awhile.

Friends in high places: Muslim immigrants helped by Norquist

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Grover Norquist is President of the Americans for Tax Reform and a prominant GOP political mover and shaker (supposedly best friends with Karl Rove), but he also has promoted stepped-up immigration of Muslims to the US.  We reported last year that he played a key role in pushing the Kennedy bill to allow more Iraqi refugees into the US.     And, for a guy supposedly concerned for the taxpayer, his organization supported the Bush-Kennedy Amnesty bill that the voters resoundingly defeated last summer in Congress.

This morning comes a Frontpage magazine article by Paul Sperry (Hat tip:  Janet) explaining how Norquist is also playing a role in planting Muslim Republicans in elected office.    The article begins: 

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That appears to be the strategy of GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist in his wicked project to dress Islamists up as patriotic Republicans so they can infiltrate the government.

While he’s managed to get some of his Muslim proteges jobs in the Bush administration, getting them elected to public office has been another story. Voters aren’t buying their makeover.

Last November, his crony Faisal M. Gill lost a bid for a seat in the Virginia state legislature. Now another protege, Kamal M. Nawash, has lost his third political race in seven years. Republicans in Virginia’s most affluent county last month overwhelmingly rejected Nawash as their party leader.

Gill and Nawash failed despite the ringing endorsements and behind-the-scenes maneuvering of Norquist, who founded the Islamic Institute (where he met his Palestinian wife) with the express purpose of promoting such Muslims into positions of power.

The article describes the deception used by GOP candidates Norquist supports and ends as follows: 

Early last decade, the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in America wrote an 18-page manifesto, titled “General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” Their secret plan was to form legitimate-sounding Muslim NGOs like the MSA and AMC and use them to infiltrate and subvert the U.S. political system. Translated from Arabic, the document reads in part:

“(Our) work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Another document in Arabic found on the home computer of al-Arian states:

“Our presence in North America gives us a unique opportunity to monitor, explore and follow up. We should be able to infiltrate the sensitive intelligence agencies or the embassies in order to collect information.”

In other words, their goal is to infiltrate the U.S. political system and undermine it from within.

Scandalously, they have in Norquist a powerful inside-the-Beltway friend who’s still helping them run influence operations against the government – now under the cynically patriotic guise of GOP candidacy. 

Read all the troubling details and fascinating examples of how Muslim immigrants use the principle of taqiyya.  Lying is permitted in Islam and it is something that we Westerners who grew up with the Ten Commandments need to wrap our minds around.

And, remember Thirty Muslim Mayors!

P.S.  To any BAMs (Black American Muslims) reading this, the IMMs (Immigrant Muslims) do have a strategy led by the Muslim Brotherhood and I think they are leaving you out.

South Africa: Tensions continue as immigrants beg to be resettled

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As perhaps the world’s most highly touted experiment in multiculturalism continues to crumble, immigrants and refugees storm humanitarian offices insisting they be resettled to first world countries.  See our coverage last week of the anti-immigrant riots in South Africa and with them the demise of the “rainbow nation” myth.

Here is the latest news, this story is from Durban:

The spotlight was thrown on the true nature of intimidation, robbery and assault that Durban’s foreign community has had to deal with, as angry yet desperate foreigners pleaded for help at the gates of the Diakonia Centre on Thursday.

Police were called in to control the furious group of foreign nationals and refugees who had barricaded the gates to the centre after demanding intervention from Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Mennonite Central Committee Refugee Project (MCC).

Some women clutched babies swaddled in blankets while men waved hastily written placards in the air outside the gates, but they quickly abandoned their protest action and gathered around journalists to tell their individual stories of oppression in a country they thought they were safe in.

Their protest action was aimed directly at forcing the LHR and MCC, who act as local agents for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), to act in assuring them protection and, in some cases, repatriation.

Tensions rose as some vocal refugees shouted at LHR and MCC staff across locked gates, before police intervened and restored calm.

Incidentally, I think the reporter is misusing the word “repatriation” which means to be returned to one’s native country.  The gist of the article is that the immigrants do not want to go back to the country they were escaping from but want third country resettlement—code for free passage to Europe, America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

But LHR attorney Sherylle Dass said the dreams many of the refugees had of being repatriated to other countries, let alone a first world country, were extremely slim.

The intervention of the UNHCR only resulted in about 2 percent of applications for repatriation being successful. It could take up to five years for such applications to be processed.

She said a letter outlining the frustration of Durban’s refugees and foreigners seeking repatriation and help had been sent to the UNHCR fafter the protest action and a subsequent meeting.

“The people were basically seeking protection in various ways. Some want a local refugee camp, but others want to resettle. We have had a steady stream of resettlement applications before the xenophobic attacks, but now there has been a huge influx,” Dass said.

“Some may have security risk, but there are those who are using this as an opportunity to get into a first world country.”

Now to Maryland…our home state

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For the last few days I’ve written about immigration hot spots around the world (Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, and shortly I’ll tell you about Scotland), but now to Maryland, my Maryland.  

This is part of a story from a man who demonstrated recently at one of several Motor Vehicle Administration offices in the state.  Here is part of what he says:

I’m at the rally because Maryland is one of only four states that give drivers licenses to foreign nationals who are illegally in the United States. An illegal alien can get a Maryland driver’s license simply by having a foreign driver’s license – that’s all! Or, an illegal alien with merely a foreign birth certificate, an auto registration card, and an apartment rental contract qualifies for a Maryland driver’s license. There’s no requirement to prove legal presence in the U.S.; and needless to say, I’ts relatively easy to forge an apartment lease.

Maryland MVA is giving drivers licenses to foreign nationals as fast as it can – 1,700 a week according to officials (if we can believe them they have the authority to give as many as 5,000 a week)! Maryland even pays Spanish translators to help illegal aliens apply for driver’s licenses and offers a Spanish version of the driver’s test to license applicants all at taxpayer’s expense!

Now 5,000 a week totals 1.3 million in 5 years about of the State’s population! Why on Earth does Maryland’s government want to give drivers licenses to that many foreign nationals?

I bet  you are thinking he is some rightwing xenophobic racist redneck.  He isn’t!  Here is the opening paragraph of his narrative: 

This morning, I participated in a citizen’s rally at the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) facility near my home in Maryland. A group called Help Save Maryland had arranged these rallies at three different MVA sites for the same day – May 17th. Now you have to understand, I am 57, a professional manager, and haven’t participated in a demonstration since college. I’m politically progressive and adopted my son from Guatemala.

I’m not saying we are going to end up in flames like France, or Italy or South Africa, but I am saying that the heat is turning up.  Just this last week when Senator Diane Feinstein successfully attached an amendment to give amnesty to farm workers on an Iraq funding bill those of us concerned about uncontrolled immigration got in gear and defeated it (again!).  I can’t tell you how furious people are getting over these maneuvers by many in government to defy the will of the majority of Americans.

When 50 year-old self-described progressives like this fellow, Bob Fireovid, are willing to stand outside a Motor Vehicle office holding a handmade sign things are getting bad.

So what does this have to do with refugees?   You are saying refugees are legal!  The demonstration was all about illegal immigrants.  Yes, and so far that has kept the spotlight off refugees for the most part.   Most of those active in pushing for border control readily say, “I’m not against legal immigration.”  That is going to change as time goes on and there is growing resentment about out of control immigration shoved down our throats by governments.

To prove my point check out the agenda for a meeting coming up in Maryland in which a government supported agency teaches participants how to sell refugees and immigrants on communities or how to find an asylum lawyer or how to get a drivers license. 

Read about this June workshop of the Maryland Coalition for Refugees and Immigrants (MCRI) and see what your tax dollars are doing for you.

 

Misc. stuff that passed me by recently

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been way overloaded  lately, so have had little time to post on some important issues.   What follows is a roundup of articles you might find interesting, annoying, enlightening:

News team attacked at Muslim school in Minnesota as reported by Jerry Gordon of ACT.

Recommendation that “innocent” Guantanamo inmates be treated as refugees and resettled in the US.

British proposal to ban the word “asylum”.

Australia donated $1.4 million for Rohingya housing in Bangladesh camps.

Church World Service and Ethiopian Community Development Council team up to lobby for more Africans to come to the US.

Muslim immigrants sue federal government to speed up their citizenship process, reported in another post at ACT. 

Burundi’s First Lady visits Tennessee and urges Burundian refugees to return to Africa to help rebuild the country.  We have resettled 10,000 Hutus from Burundi recently.

Canadian blog discusses new book which says Canada should limit Muslim immigration.

Media threatened in Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal.

World Refugee Day is June 20th, get ready for media blitz with crisis stories and puff pieces on refugees.