Category: Who is going where

Why are we taking “refugees” from Austria…..

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and Turkey, Sweden, France, Malta, Germany, India, Israel, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam among others?

We couldn’t possibly be taking the Pakistanis and Afghanis who have been demanding asylum in Austria by camping out in Catholic Churches? Could we? http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/23/us-austria-refugees-idUSBRE90M0Z820130123

Since when do those countries have a war or other disturbance going on that would justify the US taking off their hands THEIR immigrant problems? 

Readers, legitimate refugees/asylum seekers are those who leave their country where they are supposedly persecuted and seek asylum in the first safe country in which they land.   There isn’t supposed to be some pass through opportunity to go to America!

Just now I had a look at WRAPSNET (US State Department) where the statistics are kept about which refugees are coming to the US.  Actually at WRAPS there are only a few data bases available to us, the taxpayers, most are password-protected and only available to the special people working in the refugee industry.

One database tells us from what country refugees have arrived in America in the first 4 months of this fiscal year (FY2014) and I was shocked to see we took 572 REFUGEES from Austria in 4 months, but who the heck are they?  Austria is a prosperous safe country!  Are they illegal aliens who entered Austria and to help them out we said, ‘What the heck, we can take them off your hands?’

The statistics don’t tell us the nationalities of those we took from safe countries!  Also, you should know that WRAPS does track the religions of the refugees, but won’t release that information to you (or me!).

We’ve been telling you for years how all this got started—the Bush Administration bent the rules and the US began resettling illegal aliens from Malta.  I see from the stats we have taken 136 off Malta’s hands in the first 4 months of this year alone.  Why is this in our NATIONAL INTEREST?   See our extensive archive on Malta (note to any real investigative reporters out there, we have done your research for you!).

Although we have only taken a tiny number (why isn’t it zero?) from Sweden, France, Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, check out the large number we took-off Turkey’s hands—1,781, South Africa (aka the rainbow nation, the model for the world!)—167 (and you can bet they aren’t persecuted white people), India—138, and the UAE—92.   WTH!

By the way, the big number for Kenya (1,336) probably represents the Somalis we are taking from Dadaab.

Bulgaria update: African migrants and police clash in Sofia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The African migrants flooding into Israel want to stay there, but Africans overwhelming Bulgaria are there attempting to get through the tiny country and into more prosperous German, French and British cities.   The European Union, however, requires that they register at their first stop in Europe (in this case Bulgaria where the Turkish government must have let them move through Turkey!).   The policy thus sets up the very thing that happened here last month.

Standoff between police and African migrants in Sofia.

Most mainstream media accounts want to promote the idea that poor persecuted Syrians are being abused by Bulgaria, but why so little attention to the thousands of Africans getting all the way to Bulgaria?  As a reader, I would like to know how they are traveling to that country and where they get the money to do it.

From France24:

A series of videos surreptitiously filmed from the window of a refugee centre in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia last month shows a standoff between police and dozens of African migrants, who had been kicked out of the centre for staying there without permission. The men chant “racists, racists” at the police before being taken into custody. The scene captures how tensions are now regularly boiling over in a country grappling with a surge in asylum seekers.  [Economic migrants!—ed]

[…..]

From 2011 to 2013, asylum requests have multiplied by eight-fold in Bulgaria, with over 7,000 people filing requests in the last year, according to the State Agency for Refugees. About 3,800 of them are accommodated in Bulgaria’s refugee centres; more than three-quarters of these are Syrian nationals. Another 3,700 registered asylum seekers are not accommodated at the centres. The registration process can take months, so there are also an untold number of migrants living in Bulgaria who are not accounted for in these numbers.

In the past few years, immigration both from Syria and from African countries has soared. Many are from regions that have been wracked by conflict, notably the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mali. Diana Daskalova, the founder of the Centre for Legal Aid, a nonprofit that helps migrants with legal issues in Bulgaria, says that about 80 percent of those who come to seek their advice are from African countries: “They have a lot more problems navigating the asylum-seeking process than Syrians, for whom it is more streamlined, and who have an easier time obtaining asylum status.” She says that in the past year, out of all the cases of Africans her organisation has worked on, only one person was granted asylum: “And it was a special case – she was a woman with serious health problems, which was a decisive factor.”

[…..]

Lately, protests at Bulgarian refugee centres have become frequent, both over dire living conditions and the slow pace of the asylum process. In November, Bulgarian police quelled a protest by Algerian migrants at a centre in the town of Lyubimets. That same month, Syrian refugees threatened to go on a hunger strike at a centre in Harmanli, in south-eastern Bulgaria.

The United Nation’s refugee agency recently urged European countries to hold off on returning any asylum seekers to Bulgaria – which they have the right to do if it is the first country they entered in the European Union – citing problems with registration delays as well as access to food and health care.

We hear Turkey has some beautiful refugee camps—-send them there!  Add a little diversity! It will bring strength to those camps!

We have been following the plight of poor Bulgaria for months (click here for our complete archive).

Federal contractor, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, lectures Israel

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Invasion of Rome! Been there, done that!
http://www.artclon.com/paintings/genserichs-invasion-of-rome-study-1833-1835_23625.html

I have a question for Mark Hetfield, CEO of one of nine major federal refugee resettlement contractors:  Is there any number of “asylum seekers” or “refugees” that is too many for you?   If 60,000 migrants wanting to stay in Israel is not very many in your eyes, where does it stop?  Would 100,000 be the upper limit?  How about a quarter of a million?

Is there any number of infiltrators that is too many?

Or, should Israel simply do away with borders altogether and let any Africans (or Arabs) who wish it, go to tiny Israel?

I get so ticked-off by these do-gooder big mouths telling another country what to do, whether it’s Israel, Bulgaria or tiny Malta.  Do those countries and their citizens simply say—come one and all and destroy our country?

Here is Hetfield at the Washington Jewish Week last month (Jewish values*, refugees, lost opportunities):

Nearly 60,000 Africans fleeing war, oppression and violence have sought refuge in Israel, a prosperous and democratic country established in 1948 by refugees themselves.

These asylum seekers were not just fleeing from oppression, but to a prosperous and
democratic country. While Israel’s courts have protected them and new Israeli friends have defended them, the welcome asylum seekers have received has been less than warm. In fact, the official government term for these individuals is “infiltrators,” and they are unofficially known as “illegal work migrants.” Concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods, supporting themselves by working only on the gray market, labeled a threat by the government, and living on the margins of society, their treatment has exacerbated social tensions in places like South Tel Aviv.

The Israeli government’s response was to build a fence to prevent new unauthorized border crossings. By all accounts, the fence has been a success, with crossings now close to zero.

The success of the fence, by limiting the potential for new arrivals, presented Israel with an opportunity to demonstrate the Jewish values of human dignity, refugee protection and treating the stranger among us as thyself. The Israeli government could have pursued this opportunity simply by ceasing to call asylum seekers “infiltrators,” and by allowing those already in Israel to remain and work legally, until it is safe to return home.

There is more if you care to read it.   And, Hetfield knows damn well they will never go “home” to Africa!

Come on Mark, what is YOUR upper limit?  And, where is your editorial about Saudi Arabia, did I miss it?  They deport tens of thousands of Africans weekly we are told.  Got a lecture for them too?

I wonder how many ‘leaders’ like Hetfield it took to bring down the mighty Roman empire.

For our complete archive on Israel and the problems it is having with economic migrants (faux asylum seekers), click here.

* LOL! Have you noticed that the latest hip word for the open borders crowd is “values.”  Grover Norquist used it here just this week as well.  “Jewish values!”  “American values!”  Blah, blah, blah!

Maine: Asylum seekers being lured to Lewiston, Mayor says STOP!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

More problems for Lewiston, Maine which became the Somali capital of New England more than ten years ago now (see Somali Migration to Maine: It’s the welfare magnet!)

Now we see that the asylum racket has Maine by the short hairs as one of the few states that gives welfare benefits to “asylum seekers.”   Most asylum seekers are illegal aliens or people who came to the US on a visa of some sort (tourist visa, student visa etc.) and claim that if they go home to their country they will be persecuted.  The federal government only provides welfare to those who successfully are granted asylum (they become ‘refugees’ with all of the taxpayer supported benefits).   We learned just a few days ago that 70% or more of successful asylum seekers may be frauds.

Mayor Robert MacDonald: “All these people are is they’re tourists.” We can’t afford them all!

Maine’s governor is attempting to take away the carrots, here, but immigrants are protesting.

In the meantime, Africans headed to Maine!

From WGME.com  (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’) Emphasis below is mine:

LEWISTON (WGME) — They’re called asylum seekers; people who entered the country on a visa, then declared they can’t go home. In Maine, asylum seekers are eligible for General Assistance funds. But Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald says they are gobbling up too much of his city’s budget. And he wants a local pastor to stop helping asylum seekers relocate to Lewiston.

Mayor Macdonald says “We can’t support them like that.  We don’t have that kind of money.” Mayor Macdonald says asylum seekers are costing the city too much money. He’s asked Rev. Jean-Pierre Tshamala, a former refugee of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to stop encouraging asylum seekers to move here. He says it’s “really putting a financial strain on this community.”

Maine is one of the few states that help asylum seekers, by making them eligible for General Assistance. In the past six months alone, The City of Lewiston has helped more than 100 asylum seekers with expenses like food, rent, utilities and prescription medicines. The state does partly reimburse Maine cities and towns for the General Assistance funds they provide.

The federal government provides financial assistance to refugees who got approval in advance to enter the U.S. Asylum seekers are people who enter the U.S. with a visa, then say they’re unable to go home. So the feds give them nothing. Macdonald says “All these people are is they’re tourists. They’re tourists that have overstayed their welcome, I mean, overstayed their visa.”

Mayor Macdonald says Rev. Tshamala talked about bringing 60 asylum seeking families, now living in Portland hotels, to Lewiston. The mayor says if that happens, he’ll be forced to either cut services or raise property taxes. Mayor Macdonald says “We can’t do this to people. And I’ve told him, I’ve told the reverend this.”

Interesting that it’s a Congolese ‘refugee’ in Wyoming attempting to open that state to refugee resettlement.  And, just a reminder, last spring the State Department announced it will admit 50,000 Congolese to the US during the next couple of years.

We have an extensive archive on poor Lewiston, here.

Refugee resettlement a controversial issue among “humanitarian workers”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Saudi Arabia deports hundreds of Ethiopian asylum seekers daily. http://ethiopianewsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67724

Holy cow!  Did you know that!  Did you know that some “humanitarian workers” believe that the drawbacks to resettlement outweigh the advantages?  That is what “Relief Web” says in this stunning admission.

And, shock of shocks they criticize Saudi Arabia for ‘welcoming’ NO refugees.

Relief Web (skipping down through the section which says how it helps refugees, gets them out of danger, etc).  Emphasis is mine:

And yet resettlement is a controversial issue amongst humanitarian workers, a significant proportion of whom consider that its drawbacks equal or outweigh its advantages. The resettlement process, they argue, is labor intensive, expensive, and increasingly slowed by the extensive security checks undertaken by resettlement countries.  [US relaxed security checks this week!—ed]

Furthermore, because the demand for resettlement places is so much higher than the supply, bribery and corruption can easily arise in the refugee selection process. It is often suggested that those refugees chosen are not the most vulnerable, but rather the most entrepreneurial and assiduous in navigating the procedure. [Like the Chacha family!—ed] And even those people often find that the going is tough when they arrive at their destination, unfamiliar with its language and culture.

Finally, critics of resettlement point to the fact that so few countries are prepared to make this solution available to the world’s refugees. In the Syrian context, for example, countries such as the U.S. and UK are under mounting pressure to resettle refugees from politicians, advocacy groups and the media.

We, at RRW, suggest resettlement in Saudi Arabia and rich Gulf states all the time!

Yet few people have even raised the possibility of resettling Syrian refugees in nearby Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. As Amnesty International recently pointed out, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council “have not offered a single resettlement to refugees from Syria.” Indeed, far from welcoming refugees, Saudi Arabia recently expelled a massive number of foreigners, including 200,000 from Yemen and 150,000 from Ethiopia, two countries which are poorly placed to absorb such an influx.

Coincidentally? Our second most visited post this week is this one from earlier in January about Saudi Arabia deporting their fellow Muslims—Somalis.   Our most-read post this week was on Wyoming considering opening its doors to Muslims from Africa and the Middle East (among others).  Wyoming thinks it will control who comes to Wyoming—no it won’t, the US State Department and its contractors decide.