We report all the time about the Mediterranean boat people trying to reach Europe from Africa (many dying in the process), or the many boats full of mostly Muslim migrants trying to reach Australia, but this is the first time I’ve become aware of Haitians in large numbers employing people smugglers to get to the US.
30 died and 110 saved from this overloaded boat just last month. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images
The US Coast Guard has prepared a Public Service Announcement in hopes of halting the practice.
MIAMI – Following dozens of known drowning deaths at sea this year, the U.S. Coast Guard and Haitian-American community activists unveiled a public service campaign Thursday urging Haitians to avoid immigrant smugglers. They’re also asking Haitian family members in the United States to refrain from financing the smuggling operations, because they are so dangerous.
“Do not go to the sea. Do not put yours lives in the hands of these ruthless smugglers,” said Captain Mark Fedor, Chief of Law Enforcement for the Seventh Coast Guard District in Miami.
[…..]
In the last year, U.S. officials have seen a dramatic rise in the number of Haitians being smuggled in small, often-overcrowded boats across the 80-mile-wide Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth.
So far this year, the Coast Guard and other law enforcement officials have apprehended 2,265 Haitians crossing the Mona Passage. That compares to just 188 Haitians caught there in the previous eight years.
It is not clear what is done with those “rescued.” Are they returned to Haiti? Or do they get taken care of under a program called the Cuban Haitian Entrant Program where at least 20,000 Cubans and Haitians become eligible for taxpayer support every year in a program pretty much run by federal contractors—the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and Church World Service—but paid for by you.
We haven’t written much about Haiti lately, but I see we have 52 previous posts on the subject, largely related to the temporary protected status they have available to them.
Photo is from this story. By the way, what happened to all the celebrities who were rushing to Haiti after the Earthquake to bring them aid? Did they get bored and go home? Move on to the next humanitarian photo-op?
A few months back, benevolent Sweden (we are the world’s good people!) opened its doors to any Syrian refugees who could make it to their borders, but it now seems that they may have an extreme case of refugee overload and there is consequently a lot of whining going on.
Soedertaelje Mayor Boel Godner said system was breaking a year ago. Imagine what it is today!
Here is the news at the Global Post (Sweden struggles with the surge). Emphasis is mine:
Sweden, as the only country to give Syrian refugees automatic residence, has struggled to house them and faces warnings of a coming surge in arrivals.
Josef Ariss and his mother Reina fled Aleppo in northern Syria three months ago when their family’s clothing factory was flattened by shelling.
Although relieved to escape the violence, he is far from happy with the situation in Sweden — living in cramped conditions with relatives, like many of his countrymen.
“We’re staying at my aunt’s house — eight people in 90 square metres (900 square feet),” the soft-spoken 20-year-old told AFP.
Speaking at a crowded Syrian cultural centre in the outskirts of Stockholm as new arrivals streamed out of a Swedish language class, he added: “If you need help from the Migration Board to find a place they throw you in the north where it’s far below freezing. We can’t live there.”
14,000 Syrians have arrived in Sweden this year!
“We came here with big hopes of starting over — of having our own place to stay,” she said.
Sweden has seen a sharp increase in Syrian refugees — about 8,000 have arrived since it threw the doors open in September, bringing the total number this year to more than 14,000 — of a total of 50,000 refugees. [The US takes an average of 70,000 refugees* a year, so you can see that Sweden cannot survive this number—ed]
The Migration Board offers everyone temporary accommodation in a growing network of refugee centres scattered around the country.
Refugees in Sweden at 20-year peak with few places to live.
About 8,000 refugees with residence permits live in reception centres, currently having to wait an average of six months for permanent accommodation, according to migration authorities.
The queue is expected to double next year with up to 69,000 more refugees, the highest level since the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
Mayor would like to say NO! Unemployment rate at 14%!!!
In Soedertaelje, the situation has already passed crisis proportions, according to Social Democratic mayor Boel Godner.
[…..]
“If we had the power to check we would say ‘no, it’s too crowded here’,” she said. “Children have it tough at school… learning Swedish when everyone around them speaks the same (foreign) language.”
“And it’s hard to get jobs, which creates a lot of poverty and frustration. Many refugees would be better off if the whole country helped out — there are districts that have not accepted a single refugee.”
Let the whining begin! The rest of the article focuses on finger-pointing. Not all communities in Sweden are doing their fair share, not all countries in Europe are doing their fair share, and it’s all the fault of the “anti-immigrants” in the Sweden Democrats Party who want no more immigration to Sweden (say what?).
Bottomline, it appears, is that the Swedish humanitarians (with a death wish) would have the country crash economically and socially as they pat themselves on the back for being known as the world’s good people.
Photo is from this Radio Sweden story from last December.
* When you add in Cubans/Haitians and Asylees, the US number is actually over 100,000 but officially they say 70,000 “refugees.”
We’ve been led to believe that the majority of the asylum seekers coming across from Turkey into an overloaded Bulgaria are Syrians, so how the heck did Algerians get there too? Algeria is in Africa after all.
Most migrants are entering Bulgaria through Turkey, so why is Turkey allowing them to cross their country on the way to Western Europe—is it the Hijra?
The UN yells at Bulgaria for xenophobia, for detaining asylum seekers, and for trying to stem the tide of migrants into their country, but why aren’t they telling the Turks to stop the hordes at the Turkish border?
Here is the news about the riots. The Algerians were protesting because they want to be free to roam Bulgaria and perhaps move farther West into Western Europe. Just like those “refugees” in Norway, these aren’t destitute men looking for a roof and a meal, they are criminals!
Emphasis is mine:
Bulgarian police used batons to put down a protest by Algerians at a temporary refugee centre in the town of Lyubimets on November 30, the Interior Ministry in Sofia has confirmed.
Confirmation of the incident came in an Interior Ministry statement on December 7, following local media reports.
The Algerians began a protest over frustration at being kept for a long time at the centre, embarking on a hunger strike and trying to prevent refugees from other countries eating, Interior Ministry officials alleged.
There were clashes when police sought to intervene.
Two migrants had broken arms and another a head injury after the clashes. The three were given medical treatment and were returned to the centre.
In the course of the rebellion, property was damaged, television cables were ripped out, doors broken down, safety grilles pulled off radiators and metal bedsteads used to make barricades to prevent police entering.
According to the Interior Ministry, police had to use force after attempts at negotiations failed and there was “fierce resistance”. The ministry said that two police also were injured.
UNHCR reprimands Bulgaria for trying to save itself from invasion!
“We are alarmed by a recent increase in xenophobic violence such as a reported attack on three asylum seekers, including two Syrian men, in Sofia this past week,” UNHCR said.
“We urge the authorities to take steps to stem the rising tide of xenophobia in Bulgaria. We are concerned by reports the authorities are planning to increase the use of closed facilities for asylum seekers, particularly single men.
“And we urge the authorities to find alternatives to detention. Seeking asylum is not a crime, and the use of detention should be a last resort.”
The deployment of about 1400 police officers along the Turkish border and the construction of a 30km fence there have already reduced the numbers of people able to enter Bulgaria, the statement said.
The UNHCR said that there have been “concerning reports” of Syrians being pushed back at the border in recent weeks – contrary to the principles of international law. It is important that people fleeing for their lives are allowed access to a safe haven and are able to seek international protection, the statement said.
They are coming across from Turkey. Turkey is a safe haven! so why isn’t the UNHCR telling Turkey to keep the refugees?
I think its because the UNHCR and the government of Turkey are perfectly happy flooding Europe with Muslim migrants! It is called al-Hijra and Turkey is in the Caliphate re-building business.
Germany announced its intention to offer shelter to 5,000 additional Syrian refugees on Friday, as its annual autumn meeting of the nation’s 16 state interior ministers in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony came to a close.
[…..]
Germany’s state interior ministers, who share responsibility for housing refugees, have already pledged to accommodate 5,000 refugees from the war-torn country.
[…..]
Around 1,000 refugees have already arrived in Germany as part of the government’s official resettlement program. But according to the German Interior Ministry roughly 24,000 more have made their way to the country independently, many entering illegally.
This move will be used to pressure the US to take more than 2,000.
See our Germany archivewhere we have posts about tensions rising among the German citizenry who question the resettlement of refugees in their towns.
Fiscal year 2014 has been underway since October 1st, and in his Presidential Determination, Obama says he wants 70,000 refugees to be admitted to the US in this fiscal year.
Only about 2,000 Syrian slots have been mentioned, however it seems that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and other contractors are lobbying for the President to go above the 70,000 ceiling to accommodate a larger number of Syrians due to the “extraordinary situation.”
USCCB’s Anastasia Brown: We want Obama to go over the 70,000 refugee cap to get more Syrians into your towns and cities.
I don’t know if Obama can do this without Congressional consultation, but even if he has to at least tell Congress, historically Congress hasn’t paid one bit of attention to how many and from where refugees are admitted. Maybe they would pay attention if readers here contacted their US Senators and Members of Congress on the subject of Syrians.
One stumbling block in the Catholic Bishop’s scheme is the material support of terrorism bar discussed here by Anastasia Brown, the USCCB’s point person on the refugee program.
With an estimated 6.5 million Syrians — one-third of the country’s population — displaced from their homes, aid agencies are scrambling to meet needs that go beyond traditional emergency assistance.
[….]
As to the next steps for Syrians, Aleinikoff said groundwork has been laid for permanent resettlement for some refugees in other countries, including the United States.
During 2014, the UNHCR, which manages the initial screening and referral of refugees to host countries, hopes to find new homes for 30,000 Syrians. That 30,000 would be in formal, permanent resettlement, such as to the United States.Additional people would be relocated temporarily outside the Middle East, he said. Germany, for example has offered to take in thousands of Syrians temporarily.
“Of 2 million, that’s not a huge number,” Aleinikoff admitted. “But it’s part of the way for other countries to share the hosting burden.”
Anastasia Brown, the director of resettlement services for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, told CNS the UNHCR met in October with representatives of agencies that resettle refugees to begin planning for processing Syrians.
Where in the US will the Catholics resettle Syrians?
More than a year ago, MRS began assessing where it might place Syrian refugees in the U.S., she said. MRS typically handles about 26 percent of all refugees brought to the United States, she added.
The U.S. typically does not commit to a firm number of refugees it will accept from a given situation, Brown explained. In October, President Barack Obama signed off on a commitment to accept 70,000 refugees worldwide in the 2014 fiscal year. That’s just about the number of refugees who were settled in the country in 2013, which had the same 70,000 cap.
Catholics: we want more than 70,000 this year!
Brown said because of the long vetting process for refugees to be admitted, there are already plenty of people “in the pipeline” to meet that number, without accounting for more than a few Syrians. She said MRS and other advocacy agencies are encouraging the U.S. to admit Syrians without regard for the 70,000 limit because of the extraordinary situation.
Fly in their ointment: security screening!
Brown said she’s also concerned about how the U.S. will apply its policy of not accepting immigrants and refugees who are found to have given “material support” to individuals involved in a very broad definition of terrorism.That might exclude someone who gave her son a coat, Brown said, if that son was found to have been part of a revolutionary organization.
Do you feel more confident to learn that the UN does the initial screening? Gee, don’t you wonder how those Kentucky Iraqi terrorists got through the “vetting process?”
Syrians to be given refugee status will first be referred by the UNHCR to a host country, which then will apply its own vetting process. In the United States, that means background security checks, a personal interview and other steps, Brown said. The process from UNHCR referral to a refugee arriving in the United States generally is no faster than nine months, she said.
In case you are wondering, I should note here that the USCCB is NOT going to tell Obama they only want the Christian Syrians brought to the US—-Muslims of all varieties are as welcome to them as are the suffering Christians.
Photo is from this 2012 story about Brown going to Australia (a trip you most likely contributed to because the majority of the USCCB’s budget is paid by the US taxpayer).
