Category: Where to find information

Pew: Christians still make up most of US immigrant population, but Muslim share is growing

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No worries!  Only a quarter of a million US Muslims say violence against civilians in the name of Islam may sometimes be justified!

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life came out with a new study just yesterday about the religious make-up and size of the mostly legal immigrant population in the US.

As you read through this ponder these facts (I’ve rounded the numbers):

~ The US population is around 315 million.

~Pew says the US Muslim population as of 2011 was 2.75 million.

~We are adding roughly 1 million immigrants a year (for the past 20 years) and 100,000 of them are Muslim.

~Christians make up the largest share, but the share of Muslims and Hindus is growing.

Here are some interesting segments of Pew’s conclusions (I’ve highlighted the parts that interest me):

Over the past 20 years, the United States has granted permanent residency status to an average of about 1 million immigrants each year. These new “green card” recipients qualify for residency in a wide variety of ways – as family members of current U.S. residents, recipients of employment visas, refugees and asylum seekers, or winners of a visa lottery – and they include people from nearly every country in the world. But their geographic origins gradually have been shifting. U.S. government statistics show that a smaller percentage come from Europe and the Americas than did so 20 years ago, and a growing share now come from Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region.

With this geographic shift, it is likely that the religious makeup of legal immigrants also has been changing. The U.S. government, however, does not keep track of the religion of new permanent residents. As a result, the figures on religious affiliation in this report are estimates produced by combining government statistics on the birthplaces of new green card recipients over the period between 1992 and 2012 with the best available U.S. survey data on the religious self-identification of new immigrants from each major country of origin.  [US refugee program does track religious affiliation, they just don’t make the information public.—ed]

While Christians continue to make up a majority of legal immigrants to the U.S., the estimated share of new legal permanent residents who are Christian declined from 68% in 1992 to 61% in 2012. Over the same period, the estimated share of green card recipients who belong to religious minorities rose from approximately one-in-five (19%) to one-in-four (25%). This includes growing shares of Muslims (5% in 1992, 10% in 2012) and Hindus (3% in 1992, 7% in 2012).

More coming from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The geographic origins of new permanent residents have shifted markedly during the past two decades, according to U.S. government data. In 1992, a total of 41% of new permanent residents came from the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa region or sub-Saharan Africa. By 2012, more than half (53%) of new green card holders were from those regions.

No surprise!  Most Muslim population growth in US is coming from immigration.

The estimated number of new Muslim immigrants varies from year to year but generally has been on the rise, going from roughly 50,000 in 1992 to 100,000 in 2012. Since 2008, the estimated number of Muslims becoming U.S. permanent residents has remained at or above the 100,000 level each year. [Readers, that means that probably the biggest chunk of legal Muslim immigration is coming through our refugee and asylum programs—ed]

Between 1992 and 2012, a total of about 1.7 million Muslims entered the U.S. as legal permanent residents. That constitutes a large portion of the overall U.S. Muslim population (estimated at 2.75 million as of 2011).

Most Muslim immigrants coming from Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Iraq, Somalia and Ethiopia.

The most common countries of origin among Muslim immigrants in 1992 included Pakistan, Iran and Bangladesh. Those countries, as well as Iraq, also were among the most likely birthplaces of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012.

In recent years, a higher percentage of Muslim immigrants have been coming from sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 16% of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012 were born in countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia. In 1992, only about 5% of new Muslim immigrants came from sub-Saharan Africa.  [Whew! That means about 16,000 Somalis and Ethiopians came last year!  Higher than I thought!—ed]

Now just for fun, go to Pew’s worldwide Muslim survey last month, here.

Don’t you just love it how Pew spins this with the word ‘few’!

Few U.S. Muslims voice support for suicide bombing or other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam; 81% say such acts are never justified, while fewer than one-in-ten say violence against civilians either is often justified (1%) or is sometimes justified (7%) to defend Islam. Around the world, most Muslims also reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians. However, substantial minorities in several countries say such acts of violence are at least sometimes justified, including 26% of Muslims in Bangladesh, 29% in Egypt, 39% in Afghanistan and 40% in the Palestinian territories.

So, if we have roughly 2.75 million Muslims in the US and 8% say it’s often or sometimes justified to use suicide bombings and violence against civilians in the name of Islam, that means that 220,000 American Muslims think violence against civilians is justified (someone check my math, maybe I have too many zeros!).  Ahhhhh!

I’m confident (aren’t you?) that when we take immigrants from Egypt, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories that we are only getting those from the percentage who do not approve of violence against civilians in the name of Islam—right!

I bet there is a lot of juicy stuff in here for anyone with the patience to dissect it!

Best day ever at RRW yesterday!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We are a small blog on a rather arcane subject that gets a moderate number of readers from day to to day (until the Tsarnaev ‘refugee’ brothers bombed Boston and since then our number of readers has steadily increased).   Yesterday we had a record-breaking number of 3,708 readers.

Granted over 2000 went to one post—Laura Ingraham calls for halt to Muslim immigration—demonstrating the power of social media (facebook in this case).   The next two top posts following far behind were the Diversity is Strength alert from Wisconsin and the Minneapolis intimidation and harassment post.

If you are a new reader here, we started writing this blog (a charitable enterprise) in 2007 when Mesketian Turks/Russian Muslims were brought to our rural county in Maryland by the Virginia Council of Churches (subcontractor of major federal contractor Church World Service).   We, blog partner Judy and other women friends, just wanted to figure out how that could be done with no approval process by local elected officials or consultation with the citizens who were told we must be “welcoming.”   It is a very long story (chronicled in our category entitled ‘September Forum’), but the bottomline is that here we are, going on to our 6th anniversary in July, still trying to understand the refugee and asylum process in America (and the world!) and trying to educate you.

You can see from the categories on the left hand column how busy we have been—there are 1,500 posts on Muslim refugees alone!   We are approaching the 1.5 million visitor mark and have written 4,626 posts in all.  We have readers from all over the world.

If you don’t find a topic among our categories that interests you, we have a great search function.  Type in a couple of search words and presto you will likely find something that you want to learn more about.

And be sure to check the TOP POSTS in the right hand sidebar every day to see what posts most readers are finding of interest.  Sometimes it’s a post that is several years old because the topic has suddenly become relevant.

I apologize that our fact sheet (on the header) is out of date, but those mundane chores—updating a fact sheet (yuk!)—are hard to do when every day there are so many news stories begging to be reported.  Also, I’m not very good at responding to comments (I’ll try harder).  And, I stink at keeping up our facebook page, but have recently started tweeting, so follow me—Ann C @Refugee Watcher.

And, thanks for visiting RRW!

How much money does the United States spend on refugees and asylees?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

That is a question being searched-for lately that has brought readers to RRW.  It is hard to answer with any accuracy.

Before I direct you to the closest figures I have, remember that these budget numbers do not include costs presently being absorbed by your states.   The numbers on page 58 of the Proposed Refugee Admissions for FY 2013 were sent to Congress by President Obama near the end of FY2012.

The summary of costs, also does not include costs associated with the Unaccompanied Alien Childrens Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income Programs, Educational costs, Section 8 housing, other medical assistance from states, ESL programs and others I can’t think of at the moment.

So we see that excluding those costs above—Refugee Resettlement was expected to cost the US taxpayer in FY 2013—$1,064,700,000 (that’s a billion with a B).  A very large portion of this funding is distributed to unaccountable non-profit groups who contract to manage and care for the refugee population.

The program comes under the purview of three cabinet-level federal departments: the US State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security.

Media on Chechens, manipulating the numbers and twisting the truth

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Steve Sailer has a very good post on Chechens, here (read it), in which he directs us to a USA Today story on Chechen “refugee” numbers.

Here is how USA Today begins (emphasis mine, and when I use red I really mean it!):

Glen Howard looks like a nice guy, maybe I shouldn’t say he is lying. But no city in America gets to pick its refugees!

There are probably fewer than about 200 Chechen immigrants in the United States, and most of them are settled in the Boston area, as many U.S. cities have refused to accept asylum applicants from the war-torn area of southern Russia, says Glen Howard, president of the Jamestown Foundation.

Glen Howard is flat out lying!    First, we really don’t know how many Chechens are in the US (heck, clearly this family was moving back and forth to Russia), but more importantly I am unaware of any city in America given the opportunity to say “NO ” to any particular ethnic refugee group.  Indeed, this is one of the most serious complaints about refugee resettlement (which includes asylees)—states and cities are not consulted in the resettlement process, and once the migrant has a foot in the door, they can move anywhere.

The decision about which cities get refugees and from where is made mostly by unelected federal contractors (the volags) in collaboration with the State Department.  This is a Tenth Amendment States Rights issue that hardly any state has ever raised (except maybe Tennessee).    Only when there has been a complete breakdown in the city due to refugee overload is there ever a hiatus for a city once it’s been deemed “welcoming” by the resettlement industry.

***Update*** A reader this evening sent this comment in response to the above point:

Not only do states and cities not have a choice to say no, but when and if they try to, the federal government simply contracts with a private non-profit to bring them anyway.

Should there ever be any peep of objection by the “native population”, they are then accused of being unwelcoming.

USA Today continued with this:

About 70% of the Chechen immigrants are women, Howard says. Very few men are granted asylum because of U.S. anti-terrorism policies and because Russia often protests when ethnic Chechens try to settle in the U.S., he said. The U.S. admitted only 197 refugees from all of Russia in 2012.

This is how they twist the numbers.  There might have been only 197 from Russia proper in 2012, but that is meaningless!   Go to the Office of Refugee Resettlement Annual Report to Congress for 2009 (published three years late btw) and go to Appendix A.  Note that refugees are listed as from THE FORMER USSR!  (not just Russia).

From 1983 to 2009 we resettled 526,308 from THE FORMER USSR which includes Russia AND all of those countries that split off—all of the ‘stan’ Muslim countries.  Someone at the State Department might be able to tell us how many are Chechens, and indeed how many are Muslims!

In 2005 we resettled:  11,272

In 2006: 10,452

In 2007: 4,583

In 2008: 2,390

In 2009: 2,022

After that the numbers are hard to find (and I’ve got other things to do today!).  But, if the ORR wasn’t breaking the law by not providing annual reports to Congress for 2010, 2011 and 2012, we could easily find numbers.

And, then this!  We are expected to assume the US has only 200 Chechens when Austria has 30,000.  Last I checked you could come to the US easily from Europe once you were in the EU.

That contrasts with many European countries, especially Austria, where many Chechens who want to leave difficult conditions at home settle. Austria has about 30,000 Chechen immigrants, Howard said.

For additional edification, readers might want to search RRW for all the problems poor Austria is having with its large and ever-growing Muslim population.  Just type ‘Austria’ into our search function and see if you want that here!

Moratorium!

No surprise! The world wants to come to America….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….and the Chinese want to have babies!

Steve Sailer writing at VDARE directs us to a recent worldwide Gallup poll that has determined that, of all the countries in the world, most migrants want to get into America!

Here is Sailer:

The Gallup organization just released the results of a poll of 500,000 people worldwide. It turns out that America is the first choice destination for 138 million adult would-be immigrants. (Their children would no doubt add scores of millions more, bringing the total up to around, say, 200,000,000.)

And America Jr. (i.e., Canada) is the first choice of 37 million adults, and America’s nephew Australia is the first choice of 26 million. Most of those would likely go to America instead if they could get in.

138 million want in while the present US population stands at just over 315 million!  

Here is the Gallup Report and the top countries most desired by would-be migrants.

I hate to break it to the 29 million who want to get into Saudi Arabia, but they don’t allow their Muslim brethren in except for limited slave labor.

Then here are the nationalities of those trying to escape to America and the West:

There is more, read Sailer’s whole commentary.

The Chinese are coming!

No wonder the Chinese are the largest group of asylum seekers slipping into the US.  Here Jason Dzubow writing at The Asylumist tells us why.   Babies!  They want to have babies, lots of babies and for that reason we grant them asylum.

Here is Dzubow (emphasis mine):

A new report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“UNHCR”) shows that asylum claims in industrialized countries have increased 20% from 2010 to 2011.  The United States continued to receive the most asylum seekers among the countries surveyed: approximately 74,000 asylum seekers in 2011.  This compares to approximately 55,500 asylum seekers for 2010, a 33% increase (among all countries, South Africa received the most asylum seekers).

The increase in asylum seekers to the U.S. is due largely to higher numbers from three countries: China (+20%), Mexico (+94%), and India (+241%).

The U.S. receives more asylum seekers from China than from any other country.  In 2010, we received 12,850 asylum seekers from China.  In 2011, we received 15,450 asylum seekers from China, an increase of 2,600 people or about 20%.  The large numbers are probably due to special provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act that provide for asylum for victims of forced family planning–these provisions were created specifically to assist people from China, and they certainly seem to have encouraged Chinese nationals to seek asylum here.  Indeed, of the 24,400 Chinese asylum seekers worldwide, the U.S. received about 63% of all cases.  This is a very high number, given our physical distance from China.

For new readers:  The Refugee Resettlement Program and our Asylum Program are two sides of the same coin.  The difference is that with refugees certain nationalities are usually targeted for resettlement—right now the top groups we are taking are Iraqis, Bhutanese/Nepali, and Burmese.  They are screened and flown here and placed in your towns by US State Department contractors.

Asylum seekers get here on their own steam (usually helped by traffickers and paying large fees) and then ask for asylum at our borders or other ports of entry.  Immigration lawyers are ready and waiting for their business—to help them prove they are persecuted for an ever-growing list of complaints (including spousal abuse, sexual orientation and because they want to procreate)!

Update:  Asylum seeker numbers rise sharply in Australia, here.  (I have too many potential posts backed up, so am just linking this story here so as not to lose it).