What would we do without readers who help us do our work by finding good stories for us? Again, ‘pungentpeppers’ has been busy reading.
Pretty much the same story we’ve been reporting for years except, of course, the pace has increased and the number of foundering boats and passengers seems to be growing exponentially. I guess they didn’t hear about the 300 plus who drowned only a few months ago.
The Italian navy has rescued more than 1,000 migrants in the 24 hours to Friday from boats trying to reach Europe, as an immigration crisis that killed hundreds in the last year showed no signs of easing.
Navy helicopters spotted four overcrowded boats struggling to stay afloat south of Sicily on Thursday and ships were sent to save them, the navy said in a statement.
The 823 men, women and children aboard the four vessels were from countries including Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq and Tunisia.
The navy also rescued 233 migrants from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia, Mali and Pakistan in a separate operation and took them to a port near Syracuse on Sicily’s eastern coast.
[….]
Over the past two decades, Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean island of Malta have the brunt of the migrant flowsand have urged a coordinated European Union response.
Type ‘Malta’ into our search function and learn about how the Bush Administration, and now the Obama Administration, have helped make Malta a magnet for illegal aliens hoping to get a ticket to America as we have turned hundreds of mostly Somali economic migrants to Malta into legitimate refugees for America.
This story is now a couple of days old, sorry I didn’t get to it yesterday, but Britain’s conservative party leader Nigel Farage has modified his earlier call that the UK should resettle Syrian refugees and says now it should only be the Christians.
And, coincidentally, Syrian Christians are talking to the media and reporting that they are not being resettled.
Members of the general public in the UK and in the US, if they are following this issue at all, are surely saying to themselves: we watch these Muslim vs. Muslim civil wars in the Middle East and in Africa and then we are expected to resettle Muslims to the West—WTH!
Here is Yahoo.Newson Farage’s U-turn (hat tip: Joanne):
Nigel Farage has retreated from his call for the UK government to take Syrian refugees into the UK, saying that only Christians from the country should be allowed in.
The Ukip leader caused a furious backlash from his party members over the weekend after saying that David Cameron had a duty to take in Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives.
The call put him at odds with the coalition government, who are refusing to take any refugees from the country.
However, in a U-turn which will lead to accusations of bigotry, he has now said that only Christians from the country should be admitted.
He told the Jeremy Vine Show that Syrian Muslims could flee to neighbouring countries.
“It’s bad enough for Sunni and Shia. At least there are neighbouring countries that will take them,” he said.
“Where on Earth are the Christians going to go? Christians are now a seriously persecuted minority.”
While Syrian Muslims are breaking into Western countries,* Christians playing by the rules in Jordan say they are not being allowed to apply to go to the West.
Christian Syrian refugees have found temporary shelter in Jordan, but their immigration requests have been rejected by Western countries.
Some of them have spoken to the Associated Press, but want to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
One Syrian refugee said, “Everyone sold whatever they owned in Syria in order to get here, so that we could apply for visas at an embassy. We were all surprised to be rejected on the basis that there was no reason for us to go to Europe.Their reasons were all false – nothing correct in them.”
Another man said that western countries “were supposed to support us, and they were supposed to facilitate our immigration process as Christians, and I’m very sad that they haven’t.”
* Here is one more case where Turkey facilitated the movement of illegal alien Syrians who went to Turkey. The “refugees” where allowed to leave Turkey for Morocco, then on to Guinea-Bissau where corrupt officials allowed them to board a plane to Portugal on false passports. Portugal has now stopped all flights between Guinea-Bissau and their country due to the controversy.
Sure looks like it is possible! And, it would be one explanation for why Turkey is a sieve and allowing Syrians to move through the country and out the other side into Greece and Bulgaria (both countries having enormous problems with illegal migrants mostly from Syria, but even from places like Algeria coming through Turkey!).*
BEIRUT: A corruption scandal in Turkey may see embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad outlast his Turkish adversary Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the latest sign Turkish foreign policy on Syria is undergoing a major recalibration, analysts say.
[….]
Former ally Turkey emerged as the most vocal opponent of the regime in Syria, which, after protests against Assad’s rule were brutally repressed by government forces, has become mired in an all-out civil war. Erdogan was one of the first international leaders to call for Assad to step down. Turkey also hosts some 600,000 refugees and has also provided safe haven and material assistance to Syrian military opponents.
Turkey opens door to radical Islamists?
Pals! Erdogan is considered to be Obama’s closest friend among world leaders.
More recently, Turkey’s apparent open door policy to rebels crossing the border to fight Assad has drawn criticism both at home and from its Western allies for allegedly providing a base and military assistance to radical Islamists affiliated with Al-Qaeda to launch their attacks. [Wasn’t there a suggestion that Obama was sending weapons for Syrians from Libya (Benghazi!) to Turkey?—ed]
[….]
Those concerns have seen Turkey adjust its policy on Syria by tightening border security and boosting intelligence operations, in what analysts say reflects an embarrassing about-face once it became apparent that Assad’s regime would not fall as quickly as Ankara had hoped.
Potential for anti-Syrian refugee rhetoric and hostility?
While the left-wing opposition remains weak in Turkey, the anti-intervention position on Syria is likely to gain traction and party support is strongly divided over the Syria refugee issue.
That raises the potential for a wave of anti-Syrian rhetoric and hostility toward the 600,000 refugees in Turkey, Ulgen said, similar to the backlash against Syrians that occurred in Egypt following the military’s post-revolutionary coup.
A public opinion poll conducted by EDAM to be released in January found that 86 percent of participants agreed that no further Syrian refugees should be allowed in the country, while only 11 percent believed Turkey should continue to take refugees.
Refugees taking jobs the Turks would like to do (it is the same the world over!):
Ozel (a newspaper columnist) added that he feared hostility toward Syrians would increase.
“The unofficial figures say there are 1 million Syrians here. They are scattered all over the place, they are dirt poor, they are working at a fraction of the price than the Turks doing the same job. Sooner or later it will cause social tensions and this government has done nothing to address that.”
There is a lot more in The Daily Star article worth reading.
*Type ‘Greece’ or ‘Bulgaria’ into our search function for more on the Muslim migration into those countries.
The Milwaukee JournalSentinelhas publish a feel-good story about how successfully Somali Bantus are settling in to Wisconsin. You can read the opening yourself about one boy who becomes the first Somali in Wisconsin to go to college. We are told that he changed his last name from Mursal to Mohamad.
The article follows with some nuggets of information on the program with a reference to Catholic Charities role in the resettlement.
According to the state’s Department of Children and Families, the first wave of Somali refugees began arriving in 1995. Since then the federal government has resettled approximately 700 Somali in Wisconsin, primarily in Brown, Barron, Dane and Milwaukee counties.
The largest population — about 400 people —lives in Milwaukee, said Joe Scialfa, communications director for DCF.
But Ussuf Mursal, Mohamad’s brother, who works at Catholic Social Services refugee program, thinks the actual number is considerably larger. He estimates as many as 1,300 Somalis are now living here.
There are about 250 families, he said, and most families have five or more children. For example, he said, he now has six children and his ex-wife has 11 children, including two of his.[I’m wondering if the ex-wife is an ex so that she can receive welfare benefits as a single mother?—ed]
With such large families, providing the necessary support is a strain, he said. And because so many Somali Bantu did not go to school, passing the U.S. citizenship test presents a problem. Still, many are getting established, buying homes and starting businesses.
Another Somali is quoted:
“We came here for security, education and a better life,” he said. He has 13 children, some grown, some who attend Riverside High School or Milwaukee Area Technical College.
And, he supports them all at his newly acquired halal grocery store.
Go herefor more on Catholic Charities and refugees in Milwaukee. Lutheran Social Servicesis their main competitor for contracts with the US State Department to bring refugees to this part of Wisconsin.
It wasn’t long after we first began writing Refugee Resettlement Watch (in 2007) that we saw the media, especially one reporter—Matthew Lee of the Associated Press—begin the drumbeat to bring large numbers of Iraqi refugees to the US. Here is our entire archive on Lee’s apparently personal mission.
USCCB’s Anastasia Brown: We want Obama to go over the 70,000 refugee cap to get more Syrians into your towns and cities.
Every month as only a “trickle” of Iraqis got in, Lee faithfully reported the number in the trickle and those in the refugee industry he quoted blamed that evil meany George Bush. It turns out though that the slow early arrival of Iraqis had a lot to do with security clearance issues (some terrorists did slip in with the huddled masses of supposedly poor people).
Now, Iraqis make up the largest number of any group getting into the US through the State Department’s Refugee program. 19,491 Iraqis came to the US in FY2013.
The drumbeat for Syrian resettlement had already begun, but when I saw these two companion stories at the Washington Post yesterday, I immediately figured — here we go again! There is a mention in these stories about concerns for security screening, but missing is any blame being heaped on Obama directly. Oh, there is mention of the Obama Administration, but not the man himself. Obama could, if he wanted to, expand the number of Syrians entering the US.
You can read the articles yourself, here and here.
From the article entitled, ‘U.S. says it hopes to offer asylum to 35,000, might include up to 2,000 Syrians,‘ there is nothing here we don’t already know.
The State Department said Thursday that the United States wants to bring in up to 35,000 permanent refugees from the Middle East and South Asia in fiscal 2014. The target would include vulnerable Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians and Pakistanis, as well as Syrians. [See Obama’s Presidential Determination for 2014, here—ed]
The U.N. refugee agency has set an ambitious goal of moving more than 30,000 Syrians into permanent or long-term homes abroad by next October. The United States might take as many as 2,000, although it is unlikely to meet its own target.
Catholics lobby for more Syrians, want to go above Obama’s 70,000 target for 2014
As we reported hereearlier in the month, the federal contractors (leading the pack is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) are lobbying to expand that number of Syrians and I suspect it is they who are behind getting stories like these planted in the Washington Post. And, if you are wondering, you should know the Catholic Bishops are not lobbying specifically for the Christian Syrians, they welcome and resettle the Muslim refugees as well.
Watch for more stories like these in the Washington Post critical of the Obama Administration’s apparent reluctance to open our doors to Syrians. Why they are so far reluctant is an interesting question.
