Category: Where to find information

Arizona: Iraqi woman arrested for beating daughter who talked to a boy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here we go again.  Did no one tell the Iraqis they had to leave certain portions of their Muslim culture behind when they came to America?

Remember it was only last spring that another Iraqi in Arizona was sentenced to 34 years in prison for murdering his daughter because she became too westernized.

Here is the latest story from Reuters:

(Reuters) – An Iraqi woman has been arrested in Arizona accused of beating her daughter and padlocking her to a bed in outrage after she spoke to a male student at school in violation of the family’s traditional values, police said on Friday.

Yusra Farhan was taken into custody after a struggle with officers on Wednesday at a Phoenix hospital where her 19-year-old daughter was being treated for minor injuries, Phoenix police spokesman James Holmes said.

By the way, I saw another account of this arrest and struggle in which an expert on Islam said the reason she likely struggled so hard is that it is against their religion also for women to be touched by men (presumably it was male officers arresting her).  I can see it now—CAIR will swoop in and demand that all arrests of women be done by female police officers.  And, readers that is how Sharia law will creep into America.

The incident started on Tuesday, when the daughter was spotted by her father talking to a 19-year-old man at a high school parking lot in Phoenix. Police said her father became angry and took her home, striking her several times.

The mother arrived home later and admitted to hitting her daughter with her hands and a shoe, and tying her to the bed with a rope around her waist that was secured with a padlock, court records showed.

Farhan told police she hit her daughter because she “was speaking to a male subject and her Iraq culture states a female is not allowed to be having contact with males because females are not allowed to have boyfriends,” court records said.

Here is a reference to the honor killing I mentioned above:

The arrest follows another high-profile case involving an Iraqi immigrant. Last April, an Arizona judge sentenced Faleh Hassan Almaleki to 34-1/2 years in prison for murdering his daughter in what was described as an “honor killing.”

Almaleki struck and killed his 20-year-old daughter Noor with his vehicle in a Phoenix valley parking lot in 2009 for becoming too Westernized and violating what he said were Iraqi and Muslim values. He also injured her boyfriend’s mother before fleeing the scene.

Is Farhan one of thousands of Iraqi refugees resettled in Arizona in recent years?  The article doesn’t use the R-word, but the odds are pretty good that she and her family came to the US in the last few years through the Refugee Resettlement Program of the US State Department.

By the way, back in 2010 the state refugee coordinator for Arizona begged the State Department and its contractors to NOT send more Iraqis to Arizona, here.  And, you might find it interesting to see the letter to the editor in 2008 from an Iraqi teen in Tucson explaining how Iraqis aren’t prepared to live in America, here, because someone has set their expectations too high and they end up angry.

How many Iraqi refugees have been resettled in your state?

The numbers are here at the State Department’s refugee processing center.  The second link to a spreadsheet is for “Cumulative Arrivals by State for Refugee and SIV’s for Iraq.”   Click on it and find your state.

You might also go to “Arrivals by destination city” and look up your town or city and find out what nationalities came to your town through this program over the last ten years.

Want to know more about Iraqi refugees—we have written 517 posts on the subject, here since 2007.

Archbishop of Miami: bring more refugees….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..we need the money!  He didn’t say that last part, but I have become so cynical that is how I read his plea.  Boo hoo! Only 54,000 last fiscal year.

Here at Local 10 News:

This is the reality experienced today by the ever growing numbers of migrants and refugees throughout the world. Indeed, the United Nations estimates that there are today in the world 11 million refugees – most surviving in desperate circumstances. And, truth be told, many fail to survive at all. Yet, in spite of this profound human suffering, doors are shut in the faces of those looking for a durable solution to their plight in a third country. For example, last year the United States admitted barely 54,000 refugees for resettlement, down from 74,000 the previous year. This is a disturbing trend in light of the enormous need internationally.  [If we brought 150,000 refugees, I have a feeling the good Archbishop would be saying he wanted 250,000.  Whatever the number it wouldn’t be too many!—ed]

[….]

Congress has authorized the admissions of up to 75,000 refugees in 2012 fiscal year. Security concerns should not be used as a “smoke screen” to mask bureaucratic inertia which threatens to leave these slots unfilled.

With good will, good management, and sufficient resources, it is possible to expand our admissions with no danger to our security.

“Sufficient resources” of course come through the federal government directly from the taxpayer and to the Catholic Church.

And, as if Florida doesn’t have enough refugees already!  It is in the top 6 refugee receiving states in the US.  Here is a good survey from the Migration Information Source dated August 2011 about recent refugee resettlement.

Just a reminder, we have a category entitled ‘where to find information’ and I’ve posted this story there.

Will Nigerians be next?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Will they be the next batch of needy people needing to get to the US through the Refugee Resettlement Program.  You watch there will soon be a drumbeat—maybe its already begun!   Here is a Nigerian writer, writing in the wake of the Muslim church bombings, to suggest a “refugee crisis” is looming.

And, by the way, we have plenty of Nigerians in the US through other legal programs (some probably have stayed beyond their visas too and are now illegal), but we haven’t taken any great number of Nigerians in the refugee program yet.

Check out WRAPS

Reader ‘Mowplsu’ sent us this link to the Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing Center where the US State Department tracks refugee movements and arrivals.  I keep forgetting about this site, so thanks to ‘Mowplsu’ for bringing it to our attention.   The average American citizen can’t see all the statistics kept at WRAPS so I have tended to forget about it.

Where to find information is a category we long-ago created here at RRW.  You might want to check it out from time to time, there are all sorts of links to agencies, reports etc. that you might find useful.

To new readers

~ Ann Corcoran

If you are new to Refugee Resettlement Watch (we had a big jump in readers yesterday from google searches), you might want to use our search function (top of the upper left hand column) to learn more about the problems with the Refugee Resettlement program of the US State Department, other issues relating to legal immigration, and more about refugee/asylee issues generally around the world.

We have written 3,922 posts since July 2007 and even I need to periodically search for things I’ve written (and forgotten!) that tie in with new issues that come up.

You might also be able to find information using our categories.  I find the one called ‘where to find information’ the most useful.  It’s full of reports, data, and website sources.

And, you might want to check from time to time to see what are the most read posts in the last week or so—see ‘top posts’ in the lower right hand column.

Welcome if you are a new reader, and welcome back to previous visitors!

US immigrant population at 40 million….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and the last decade saw the largest increase in US history.

Steven Camarota at the Center for Immigration Studies released his latest findings in a new report today.  (I heard him present these numbers at immigration meetings in Washington, DC this past weekend).

From CIS:

New data from the Census Bureau show that the nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal), also referred to as the foreign-born, reached 40 million in 2010, the highest number in American history. Nearly 14 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country from 2000 to 2010, making it the highest decade of immigration in American history. This is the case even though there was a net decline of jobs during the decade. In contrast, from 1990 to 2000 job growth was 22 million and 13.2 million new immigrants arrived. Immigrants come for many reasons, such as a desire to join relatives or to access public services. As a result, immigration remains high even during a prolonged period of economic weakness.

I recommend that readers check out the charts and see how your state is doing.  I notice that Wyoming remains the state with the lowest immigrant population and not surprisingly it is the only state in the Nation that does not accept refugees and participate in the refugee program with the US State Department….hummm!

New readers might wish to visit our “where to find information” category for other documents, reports, statistics.