Category: Other Immigration

Greece tries to stem the “invasion” tide by rounding up illegals for deportation

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees objects of course.

This is the story from the Christian Science Monitor  (Hat tip: Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum):

Authorities in Greece are rounding up thousands of suspected illegal immigrants in a large-scale deportation drive to combat what a government official compared to a prehistoric invasion.

Greece has long been Europe’s main entry point for illegal immigrants from Asia and Africa seeking a better life in the West. But Greece’s severe economic problems and high unemployment are making the problem worse than ever.

Police said Monday that 6,000 people were detained over the weekend in Athens in a massive operation incongruously named after the ancient Greek god of hospitality, Zeus Xenios.

Keep in mind that the UNHCR is a socialist, here.

Left-wing opposition parties criticized the crackdown, while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees voiced concern that migrants from war-torn countries and genuine asylum-seekers could be denied the right of protection.

Some 100,000 illegal immigrants are estimated to slip into Greece every year, mostly from neighboring Turkey, and up to a million are believed to live in Greece, which has an official population of about 10 million.

Think about it!  One-tenth of the Greek population is made up of illegal aliens!  No wonder they are broke!

What is wrong with this?

Once beyond the pale of Greek politics, the extreme right Golden Dawn gained nearly 7 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections six weeks ago. Mainstream parties also pledged to curtail immigrant flows.

Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said Monday the rounding-up of illegal immigrants would continue, arguing that their unchecked entry has brought Greece “to the brink of collapse.”

“The country is being lost,” he told private Skai TV. “What is happening now is (Greece’s) greatest invasion ever. Since the Dorian invasion some 3,000 years ago, the country has never received such a flow of immigration.”

Ancient tradition linked the invasion of Greek-speaking Dorian tribes with the end of the heroic Mycenaean age, although historians believe that the Mycenaean palatial civilization was brought down by financial and social unrest.

That last made me laugh.  By using the phrase “although historians believe” the writer suggests there is no connection between an alien invasion and financial and social unrest!  Seems to me there is without a doubt a straight line connection!

By the way, see UNHCR Antonio Gutteres lecture Europe on “welcoming” the African, here.

Center for Immigration Studies releases new report on US immigrant population

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  Washington Times has more on the study here.

Conclusion:   Immigrant households represent a larger percentage of those people living in poverty than native households.

The Center for Immigration Studies is a great source for background information on the legal and illegal immigrant population in the US.  Today they have announced the availability of their latest study based on Census Bureau data collected in 2010 and 2011.

They estimate that about a little over one quarter of the immigrants in the US and their children are here illegally.  But, these stats apply to both legal and illegal immigrants.

I’ve just picked a few summary points from the study (see below), but urge you to read the whole report here.

Overall Numbers

*The number of immigrants (legal and illegal) in the country hit a new record of 40 million in 2010, a 28 percent increase over the total in 2000.

*Of top sending countries, the largest percentage increase in the last decade was for those from Honduras (85 percent), India (74 percent), Guatemala (73 percent), Peru (54 percent), El Salvador (49 percent), Ecuador (48 percent), and China (43 percent).

Poverty

*In 2010, 23 percent of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) lived in poverty, compared to 13.5 percent of natives and their children. Immigrants and their children accounted for one-fourth of all persons in poverty.

*The children of immigrants account for one-third of all children in poverty.

*Among the top sending countries, poverty is highest for immigrants and their young children from Mexico (35 percent), Honduras (34 percent), and Guatemala (31 percent); and lowest for those from Germany (7 percent), India (6 percent), and the Philippines (6 percent).

Welfare Use

*In 2010, 36 percent of immigrant-headed households used at least one major welfare program (primarily food assistance and Medicaid) compared to 23 percent of native households.

*Among the top sending countries, welfare use is highest for households headed by immigrants from Mexico (57 percent), Guatemala (55 percent), and the Dominican Republic (54 percent); and lowest for those from Canada (13 percent), Germany (10 percent), and the United Kingdom (6 percent).

Read it all.  You might find especially interesting the “state numbers” which shows (no surprise) that financially struggling California tops the list with an almost 28% share of its population made up of immigrants.

Ann Coulter on immigration: America will be California

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Coulter penned a good column this week on the changing demographics of America thanks to the Democrat’s goal of “browning America” … it is not about color it’s about the welfare mentality of the increasing number of third-worlders being admitted to the US.

Emphasis below is mine.  Be sure to read the whole column.

Coulter (hat tip: Jeannine):

While conservatives have been formulating carefully constructed arguments, liberals have been playing a long-term game to change the demographics of America to get an electorate more to their liking.

They will do incalculable damage to the nation and to individual citizens, but Democrats will have an unbeatable majority. Just like California, the United States is on its way to becoming a Third World, one-party state.

Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 Immigration Act was expressly designed to change the ethnic composition of America to make it more like Nigeria, considered more susceptible to liberal demagogues.

Since 1965, instead of taking immigrants that replicate the country’s existing ethnic mix, we’ve been admitting mostly immigrants from the Third World. At the same time, people from the countries that sent immigrants to this country for its first several centuries have been barred.

Eighty-five percent of immigrants now come from “developing countries.” (How are they ever going to develop if their people are all on the dole over here?)

The “browning of America” is not a natural process. It’s been artificially imposed by Democrats who are confident of their abilities to turn Third World immigrants into government patrons.

It’s worked. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, 57 percent of all immigrant households in the U.S. get cash, Medicaid, housing or food benefits from the government — compared with 39 percent of native households. The highest rates are for immigrants from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), Mexico and Guatemala (tied at 75 percent).

Isn’t the idea to get immigrants with special skills? If you can’t even get a job, by definition, you do not have a special skill. Other than voting Democrat.

There’s a strange asymmetry in how this matter can be discussed. Liberals and ethnic activists boast about how America would be better if it were more Latino, but no one else is allowed to say, “We like the ethnic mix as it is.”

That would be racist. By now no one even tries to disagree.

As I said, read it all!

Detroit area workshop set up to teach Syrians to apply for temporary protected status

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You know the story, the Obama Administration granted TPS to Syrians* inside the US (they could even have gotten in illegally or be here as a visa-overstay), but now they get to stay.  This “temporary” bit is a joke because as far as I know no one is ever sent back once their country is o.k.—just ask the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans here on TPS for over ten years.

From AP:

Troy — A group will hold a town hall meeting and legal clinic in the Detroit area on Saturday designed to provide assistance to Syrians looking to temporarily stay in the United States beyond the expiration of their visas.

The Obama administration has said it will allow Syrians to temporarily stay beyond the expiration of their visas and not deport those in the country illegally due to deteriorating conditions in their native country.

The United for a Free Syria-hosted event will be held at the Troy Public Library and feature immigration lawyers available to take questions from attendees.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in March says Syrians will get temporary protected status because they’d face “serious threats to their personal safety” if they were to return to Syria.

*Here is one previous story I’ve written at RRW on TPS for Syrians.

Lexington, KY: New twist on food stamp fraud

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is yet another way for immigrant food stamp fraudsters to rip-off the American taxpayer, thanks to reader Robin for sending this in after reading my post yesterday on food stamp fraud in West Virginia, here.

And, can you believe it, it’s another Mohamad involved!  New readers might want to search RRW for food stamp fraud and I think you will be struck by how many cases involve someone named Mohamad (or one of the many variations on the name).  Ripping-off infidels is permitted in the Islamic faith.

From Lex18:

Police in Lexington said they arrested two people in a scheme in which people were selling EBT cards for bath salts.

Outside Six Brothers Market on West Sixth Street, undercover police arrested Mohamad Kadah. Police say his family runs the store and another around the corner where customers line up before business hours to buy synthetic meth, marketed as bath salts. Investigators say the salts, which are illegal and dangerous, are selling like crazy in businesses like these because of the cocaine methamphetamine like “high” they give people.

And as it turns out, taxpayers are paying for the alleged scheme. During a raid of Six Brothers, police found 32 EBT cards, food stamp cards with pin numbers belonging to 32 different people. Police suspect some of the cards were traded for bath salts or sold to the merchant for fast cash.

Another man, Bahjat Amira, a clerk, was arrested and charged with welfare fraud and selling the illegal bath salts.

Police say it is a growing problem, merchants paying cash for a fraction of the card’s value then using the welfare recipient’s pin number to buy hundreds of dollars of supplies for their store.

By the way, I see that a Mohamad Kadah (age 21) was on Lexington’s most wanted list, here, in October 2011 (photo 5).  Same guy? Could the store owner be 21? Or is this a son?