The beautiful Svalbard islands. According to wikipedia, “the midnight sun lasts 99 days and polar night 84 days.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard
I have so much to do on the farm today, I shouldn’t take a minute to post this, but it made me laugh and I hope it perks you up too!
Read this, and imagine now how the Leftists (normally eagerly “welcoming” refugees) must be reacting to the news that a pristine area with many national parks might be a great place to temporarily house 10,000 Syrians! The resistance to resettling Syrians is not just in the US, but all over the western world citizens have had enough. FrP politician Christian Eikeland: Let’s build a camp in Svalbard! Learn about the Fremskrittspartiet here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_Party_%28Norway%29
From The Nordic Page:
While the Conservatives (Høyre) and Frp oppose the idea of accepting 10,000 refugees for next two years due to hosting capacity in municipalities, FrP politician Christian Eikeland proposes an extra ordinary solution.
– If the Parliament accepts that Norway should accept 10,000 refugees by rejecting the capacity argument, then we can create a refugee camp in Svalbard, says Eikeland to NRK.
He notes that the camp can be used to host refugees from Syria for a temporary period till other munuicipalities offer a place.
Christian Eikeland is aware of the challenges related to the harsh weather and social conditions in Svalbard, but still believes it is possible.
Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Situated north of mainland Europe, it is about midway between continental Norway and the North Pole.
[….]
The archipelago features an Arctic climate, although with significantly higher temperatures than other areas at the same latitude. The flora take advantage of the long period of midnight sun to compensate for the polar night. Svalbard is a breeding ground for many seabirds, and also features polar bears, reindeer, the Arctic fox, and certain marine mammals. Seven national parks and twenty-three nature reserves cover two-thirds of the archipelago, protecting the largely untouched, yet fragile, natural environment. Approximately 60% of the archipelago is covered with glaciers, and the islands feature many mountains and fjords.
We’ve suspected that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the US State Department are working to bring Rohingya boat people, who arrive illegally in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to America, but yesterday we learned that 1,000 of them have come recently.
A Rohingya-packed boat adrift in Thai waters last week. The breakdown of borders is happening all over the world.
The mostly Christian Burmese are one of the largest (if not the largest) ethnic group of refugees we have resettled since 2005 (I checked the datafrom January 2005 until May 1, 2015).
This is what I learned: We resettled 140,812 Burmese refugees since 2005.
This surprised me: In that number were 12,615 Burmese Muslims! The word Rohingya is not used, but most certainly the Rohingya represent a large portion (if not all) of that number.
According to activists, the UN is not moving the Burmese Muslims out to third countries fast enough! And, there are 45,000 of them registered with the UN and expecting to be moved to the West.
Here is what we just learned, from the Borneo Post:
ALOR SETAR: A Rohingya welfare body in Malaysia is pressuring the United Nations (UN) to expedite re-settlement of Rohingya refugees to third countries.
Rohingya Society in Malaysia (RSM) chairman Dr Abdul Hamid Musa Ali said as of today, about 2,000 of the tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees residing in the country had been successfully placed in several third countries.
He said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) should play a role in safeguarding the welfare of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia.
“It is very disappointing as many questions are being raised on how just only 2,000 Rohingya refugees have been successfully relocated to third countries, from about 45,000 refugees registered with the UNHCR.
“This does not include the 60,000 to 70,000 Rohingya immigrants in Malaysia who are still not registered with the UN agency for refugees until now,” he told Bernama here today.
Abdul Hami, who is a Rohingya refugee and UNHCR card holder, said until today, just over 1,000 Rohingya refugees were re-settled in the United States, and the rest in several European countries.
There will be a regional summit on May 29th in Bangkok, Thailand in order to try to figure out what to do for the thousands of boat people arriving from Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh. Be sure towatch the film clip here and see that one refugee says—THEY ARE LOOKING FOR A MUSLIM COUNTRY IN WHICH TO LIVE. That is great! There are many to choose from (including Indonesia, Malaysia and heh! how about Saudi Arabia?).
Get used to that ‘R’ word—Rohingya—listen to pronunciation here.
It appears that the PR push is on and that as we express our concerns about Syrian refugees arriving in the US in large numbers, the Rohingya are being quietly resettled here along with the thousands of Iraqi and Somali Muslims each year.
See our Rohingya Reports category here (it includes 177 posts and extends back almost 8 years). Here is one postfrom 2008 where we said that as early as 2002, Time Magazine linked Rohingya refugees to Islamic terrorist groups. You might be interested to see this post as well. In 2012 a reader alerted us to the fact that the US State Department had removed from a terror watch list a group linked to Rohingya.
The next time you hear one of your friends or some dumb politician say that ‘LEGAL immigration is good,’ remember that this is legal!
The Irish Times has published one of those touchy-feely articles about how the Rohingya, who have already arrived in Ireland, are faring. Articles like this one are meant to ‘educate’ readers in advance of a new wave of Muslim migrants coming in from countries where warring factions are producing ‘refugees’ by the millions. Changing Ireland! The Islamic Cultural Center of Ireland was “funded by the al-Maktoum Foundation of Dubai and has a Sunni orientation. It was officially opened in 1996 by President Mary Robinson and Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum.” http://curiousireland.ie/islamic-cultural-centre-of-ireland/
We are told that Ireland had some problems (the Times calls them “hiccups”) with Muslim teenaged boys and young men who didn’t want to stay in school, but that generally the Rohingya are doing well. However, they aren’t happy with the modest mosque they found in their new town:
There were other problems. Assured that by the Irish authorities that Carlow had a mosque, and imagining a full minaret, the new families arrived to find just a house used by the town’s tiny Muslim population. For orthodox Sunnis who had escaped religious persecution in Burma it was a disappointment.They now worship at an apartment in the town.
Rest assured, as more arrive from throughout Asia and the Middle East, some rich country (United Arab Emirates? Saudi Arabia?) will build them a lovely mosque. The mosque will then draw in more Muslims (take note Carlow!).
You can read the whole article here.
The Irish Times does admit this:
Some aren’t so sympathetic. This week an Irish Times poll found that 52 per cent of Irish people are against taking in fleeing Mediterranean migrants.
And, see this onefrom earlier in the week about the next batch of mostly Muslim refugees on the way.
But, at the end of the story published today, there is a useful summary of where Ireland stands now with the arrival of migrants (thanks to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees) as part of the ‘Invasion of Europe.’
Ireland is one of only 30 states that take part in the refugee resettlement scheme, a United Nations programme.
Since it began here, 15 years ago, 1,198 programme refugees, from 27 countries, have been resettled in Ireland.
The UN declares them refugees before they arrive in Ireland, and they do not go through the direct-provision system for asylum seekers.
Three hundred refugees are due to come to Ireland under a new EU scheme. Civil war in Syria and the large numbers of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean in dangerous boats have made the need even more pressing.
Buddhist monks want to keep the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) out of Burma (Myanmar) as it tries to insert itself into the Rohingya controversy there. The OIC has great influence in the United Nations which is picking most of Ireland’s refugees.
In 1999, Ireland agreed to take 1,000 Kosovan refugees; they were resettled in Millstreet, Co Cork; Killarney; Waterford; and Wexford. Many later returned home.
In 2006, 180 Iranian Kurds who had been living in refugee camps in Jordan for 25 years were resettled in Carrick-on-Shannon and Dublin under a UNHCR programme.
In 2007, 100 Burmese Karen people were resettled in Ballina and Castlebar, after coming from Thailand under the UNHCR programme.
In 2008, 71 Sudanese were resettled in Kilkenny city, after transferring from Uganda, also under the UNHCR.
In 2009, 13 Burmese Rohingya families – 64 people in all – were resettled in Carlow town from Bangladesh, under the auspices of the UNHCR.
In 2013, 31 Afghans and four Iraqi Palestinians were admitted from Syria.
In 2014, 90 Syrian refugees fleeing their country’s civil war were resettled from Lebanon with relatives and friends around the country.
This year, 13 Syrian refugees of a projected 100 have arrived; 120 more people, also mainly Syrian, are due next year.
Ireland has separately agreed to admit 114 other refugees under a Syrian humanitarian admission programme.
See our entire ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive by clicking here.
Also, for more on Rohingya then you ever wanted to know, see our Rohingya category herewith 176 previous posts. There is a newly energized push to get Rohingya Muslims moved to first-world countries.
Every time I see one of these articles about the “persecuted” Rohingya without any mention of the atrocities perpetrated by the Rohingya against the Buddhist Burmese, my blood boils. I have followed the issue in Burma and Bangladesh for years and know that the Rohingya are not pure-as-the-driven-snow and have been Islamist supremacist agitators and killed many Burmese, but that is NEVER mentioned by the likes of the Irish Times! To my Irish friends: See this youtube clip about this blog and how I got into all of this…..it is now over a half a million views!
Two nights ago I spoke with a group in Michigan—Southeast Michigan 912 Tea Party— and in advance did some digging into the data bases to see how the state was doing. I was shocked to discover that over 18,000 Iraqis (among other refugees) have been resettled there since 2005. Note that these stats are from 2014. At this rate of resettlement, Michigan will get 40,000 refugees in the next ten years compared to the 29,000 it received in the last ten years. Indeed in the last ten years, 29,141 refugees were resettled in Michigan and 18,505 were Iraqis.
I wondered what had happened to the US State Department’s 2008 ‘decision’ to slow the flow to Michigan?
Here is a headline and story from the Detroit News in October of 2008:
Iraqi refugees overwhelm Michigan relief program
Michigan’s economy is so bad that the State Department is sending fewer Iraqi refugees to the area because of concerns that their future would not be bright. [Never mind your future!—ed]
After a request by relief workers, the policy of bringing Iraqis to metro Detroit if relatives or friends live in the area was changed to allow only those with immediate family to settle here, according to the State Department.
“The State Department has taken the measure of things and decided it would be better to send them somewhere else, where they might be self-sufficient, instead of coming to Michigan, because the economy is very bad here, and we have the highest unemployment in the country,” Belmin Pinjic of Lutheran Social Services of Michigan said.
[….]
State Department officials said the policy change was implemented in late June partly because relief workers were having difficulty finding the refugees jobs.
But, see here, just a couple of months ago—despite high unemployment, refugees are still being poured into the state. And, then most recently of course we reported that a dumb idea was floated by the New York Times to resettle 50,000 Syrians (mostly Muslim) refugees in Detroit. How did we go from (2008) too many refugees would strain the economy, to 2015—refugees will cause the economy to recover? Kentucky Iraqi terrorist bust slowed the flow slightly in 2011
As I searched the data bases I noted that there was never actually any slow down in the number of refugees resettled in Michigan despite the 2008 promise by the US State Department to do so.
There was a noticeable drop in Iraqis in 2011, but LOL! that was because the US State Department and Homeland Security discovered they had admitted at least two Iraqi refugee terrorists (caught in Kentucky—oopsy!) and thus security re-screening slowed the flow that year.
Here is what I learned about the number of refugees arriving in Michigan.
Of the total refugee load since 2005 (29,141), Iraqis topped the list by far at 18,505. Previous research concludes that about 3/4th of all Iraqis entering the US are Muslims. Religious minorities make up the other 1/4th.
After the Iraqis, the next too ethnic groups are Burmese (4,261) and Somalis (1,431). Of the 800 or so Syrians resettled so far in the US, 49 went to Michigan. The Somalis were mostly resettled in Lansing and Grand Rapids.
Then this really surprised me—Iraqis were resettled (“seeded”) in 98 towns in Michigan! Here are the top ten Iraqi resettlement cities in the state (since 2005):
Southfield (4,427)
Sterling Heights (3,860)
Troy (1,998)
Warren (1,355)
Madison Heights (947)
Lansing (720)
Dearborn (626)
West Bloomfield (554)
Ann Arbor (297)
Detroit (289)
Six of the top nine federal resettlement contractorsare operating in Michigan (falling all over themselves!). They are: Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (we bring only a tiny handful of Jews to the US as refugees, so they are resettling large numbers of Muslims, go figure!), Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, and the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. Find their office contact information here.
Readers, remember two things. First there is “secondary migration” (here page nine) which means that in refugee resettlement lingo, refugees move within states and from state to state after initial resettlement. And, secondly, there are other LEGAL immigration programs that are bringing refugees from the third-world, and from terror hotspots, to America. I’m going to write about one of those this morning—the Diversity Visa lottery. So, it becomes very difficult to get a really good idea of who is living next door!
Want to write a book? We have 660 previous posts on Iraqi refugees, click here to begin your research! Go here for everything we have said about Michigan.
For new readers: this is an update of the two-month-old controversy about the secretive decision to place refugees in Spartanburg, SC. See all of our previous coverage by clicking here. We are all waiting to see what Rep. Trey Gowdy, who represents the district and just so happens to chair the House subcommittee responsible for the Refugee Admissions Program, will do.
In the meantime, the Spartanburg County Council is obviously trying desperately to get out of any responsibility for this all important decision for the future of the community. If they had a little backbone, they could help, not only themselves, but every town in America facing (or soon facing) an edict from the federal government to “welcome” needy third-worlders to town without any local government involvement or community input.
This is the crux of the problem:
Local communities MUST have a discussion and some decision-making authority and not leave decisions about refugee resettlement to the UN, the US State Department and a bunch of government contractors masquerading as non-profit “religious” charities!
Spartanburg County Council: Leave us out of this mess! We don’t want to stick our necks out or make difficult decisions! http://www.co.spartanburg.sc.us/govt/depts/cc/
Here is the news (at GoUpstate.com) about Monday night’s meeting of the Spartanburg County Council:
Spartanburg County Council announced it plans to take no action on a proposal to bring refugees to Spartanburg and is holding steady for U.S. Congressman Trey Gowdy’s findings concerning the resettlement program.
World Relief, a faith-based organization, plans to bring 60 refugees to Spartanburg this year to assimilate into the community, as part of a U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program. [The reporter apparently doesn’t know that the word “assimilate” is now a forbidden wordamong those working to seed American towns with migrants!—ed]
After several people spoke on the issue during a Monday evening council meeting, Chairman Jeff Horton said the County Council had no involvement in the matter and urged residents to be patient until all of the information has been gathered.
He pointed out that the state Senate adopted an amendment in its budget prohibiting state funds from being used for the refugee program until the county council approves the resettlement.The legislation originally stated that it was a decision for the legislative delegation, not the county council.
Horton said the amendment is wrong and should be “stricken immediately.” [In other words, he says, we don’t want this hot potato!—ed]
Christina Jeffrey, a citizen activist who spoke before the County Council on Monday, is concerned about security and wants public involvement in decisions about refugee resettlement. https://www.facebook.com/christinajeffrey
[….]
In April, Gowdy announced he had 17 questions about the program and asked Secretary of State John Kerry to put refugee resettlement plans on hold until questions are answered. Some of those questions revolved around security, education, funding and health care issues.
[….]
Christina Jeffrey, a former candidate for Congress, has voiced opposition to refugees resettling in Spartanburg and said during Monday’s council meeting that refugees cannot be adequately screened. She said the resettlement of refugees in the U.S. is a disservice to taxpayers, the education system, the job market and the safety of people.
She said the department of homeland security cannot ensure safety since screening is difficult, particularly for those coming from countries such as Syria and Iraq.
World Relief local director Jason Lee also attended the meeting and said the refugee resettlement program has traditionally not been a county council issue.
This last statement by Lee is telling. The US State Department and their cabal of contractors DO NOT WANT ANY LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE!
We must work to change that ‘tradition’ by making it the law to include local citizens and local governments in the decision-making process that involves adding more poverty and potentially changing a town’s culture forever.
It is too bad that the Spartanburg County Council apparently doesn’t have the spine necessary to look at the bigger picture.
