German officials are scratching their heads about why the recent large numbers of Russians from Chechnya (homeland of the Boston Bombers) are coming to Germany seeking asylum. See also “tensions rising”in German cities.
I was looking for a map that shows how far Chechnya is from Germany and this is the best I could find. If the ‘asylum-seekers’ went by land, and were truly desperate asylum-seekers, they would have traveled through many “safe” countries where they should have legally sought asylum BEFORE arriving in Germany (west of the circled Czech Republic).
The number of people seeking political asylum in Germany has soared, and the biggest group by far was from Russia.
In the first half of this year, just over 43,000 refugees applied to stay – that is 86% more than in the same period in 2012.
It is the highest level since 1999, when people fled Serbia’s Kosovo war.
Many this year came from Russia’s Chechnya region, they told German officials. Violence and human rights abuses plague Chechnya.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said that “in 2012, by far the most asylum seekers in the European Union came to Germany, and in the first half of 2013 we saw almost a doubling of applications.
“The number of asylum seekers in the first half of 2013 was the greatest since the same period in 1999.”
According to the interior ministry, 9,957 people came from Russia and claimed political asylum in Germany, compared with 4,517 from Syria and 3,448 from Afghanistan. [I’m sure Putin is thrilled to be relieved of them!—ed]
Perplexed analysts!
The figures for refugees from Chechnya are perplexing analysts because there has not been a perceptible deterioration of the situation there. No worsening of a vicious war has been reported in the North Caucasus republic.
Germany put the “sugar on the table!” (A commenter used that phrase recently and I love it!)
Seems that a logical explanation is that Germany offers asylum-seekers/refugees more taxpayer-funded goodies, and that is the draw. However, for Muslims it’s a twofer, they can fulfill their Muslim duty (Al-Hijra) by helping to build the Islamic caliphate and live fairly well doing it!
The BBC continues:
One theory being mooted in ministries to explain the surge is that, exactly a year ago, Germany’s highest court ruled that asylum seekers waiting for their applications to be processed should receive the same social benefits as Germans.
That led to higher payments for food and accommodation, as the different regions of Germany implemented the court’s strictures.
Svetlana Gannushkina, a leading human rights activist in Russia, says Chechens appear to have been motivated by rumours that Germany “has opened its doors to Chechens”.
In an e-mail to the BBC, she said “a rumour is circulating that in Germany each family is given a parcel of land and money to build a house”.
Update August 18th: A reader sent us this story from Der Spiegel about the “rumor” and the ramifications. People are desperate to leave Chechnya now being ruled by hard-line Islamists according to this story.
All of our posts on Germany and its refugee/asylum/illegal alien problems are here.
…. instead of seeking shelter in Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan or Egypt, which together have taken in 1.89 million Syrians, Nidal [featured refugee in this article—ed] decided to head across the Atlantic to Brazil, which has a big Syrian community. He was not the only one;Brazil has granted asylum to just over 200 Syrian refugees in the past two-and-a-half years and a further 50 claims are waiting to be processed. In April, the number of asylum-seekers recognized was up 50 per cent on the month before.
The Brazilian government has approved 100 per cent of the asylum claims presented so far by Syrian nationals, but many more people may have flown to the country and not bothered to seek asylum.
“We assume that the number of Syrians living in Brazil because of the conflict is much bigger than the figure revealed by the official statistics,” said Andrés Ramirez, UNHCR’s representative in Brazil. He said that this was because many of the new arrivals were staying with family or friends among the estimated 3 million-strong Syrian community, which is playing a key support role.
Syrian asylum-seekers had started arriving in Brazil from the very beginning of the conflict and officials said this was this was due to the strong historical links between the two countries and the big Syrian community.
No overt mention of what the predominant religion of the Syrian “community” is (after all this is a UN press release). Maybe this is where the Christians are going, but I really don’t know. Do you?
Reader ‘pungentpeppers’ alerts us to a new “pocket of resistance” to refugee resettlement and it’s in the ‘Peoples’ Republic of Massachusetts’ of all places!
Democrat Mayor Sarno hopefully has the fortitude to stand up to the criticism that will come his way from the Open Borders/Religious Left lobby! Photo: The Republican
Here is the stunning news. I say stunning because very few Mayors or local elected officials have the guts to do what Mayor Sarno has done. There have been a few others, most notably Mayor Gatsas from Manchester, NH, but most local officials believe they have no recourse against the federal government and the contractors—in this case Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and Jewish Family Services—and just have to take it!
Most also fear the political ramifications of being labelled a “racist” for saying they are overloaded.
One reform we should all be pushing for is to legally enable cities and states to say NO to the feds!
Note to the Mayor: I see you supported Ed Markey for the US Senate, you need to ask his office for help!
The State Department ( Office Population Refugees and Migration) is very aware that they have a problem finding “welcoming” communities for the growing number of refugees AND asylees they are trying to place. Earlier this summer we learned they and the Office of Refugee Resettlement were having secret pow-wows (ORR did not answer several requests from me to learn of the location of the July “placement” meeting) to jointly agree on what communities might be welcoming. This is what I learned in June (see Lancaster meeting):
….apparently in light of failed attempts to get new seed communities established, the feds are having ORR-PRM joint quarterly placement meetings. The next one will be in July. Before any new site is opened (usually because some contractor thinks it would be a good place), ORR-PRM will visit the site together and decide if it will be “welcoming.”
By the way, when you read the whole Springfield story, note that one contractor says they aren’t resettling so many in Springfield directly, but are spreading them out throughout the county—this is one of their tricks when they start getting heat.
From The Republican (emphasis is mine). We have seen this before—refugees placed in slums!
SPRINGFIELD — Mayor Domenic J. Sarno on Tuesday urged federal officials to stop the flow of refugees into Springfield, saying the influx has become “a pressing issue of public safety.”
Sarno, in a letter to the U.S. State Department, said Springfield has “a long and successful history” of taking in refugees, but the growing numbers have led to his concern “for the safety of both our citizens and the refugees themselves.”
Many of the refugees are being placed in substandard housing, and are placing burdens on the Code Enforcement, Police and School departments, Sarno said.
The Police Department has reported an increase in fraud, robbery and property crimes committed against refugees, Sarno said. In addition, the refugees are placing a strain on the school system, coming from around the world,*** he said.
In his petition, Sarno said he has become aware of “some startling facts” from reports he has received from city departments. That has included housing with “significant life safety violations” of the state building and sanitary codes that have included “rampant insect and vermin infestations, the absence of any smoke detectors,” and illegal wiring, broken doors, and blocked exits, he said.
“The fact that refugees are being placed into properties containing the reprehensible conditions, cited above, is compelling evidence that local agencies are not employing people with the necessary qualifications to conduct adequate safety and habitability inspections for potential settlement units, and are not properly utilizing the funding being provided by the Federal Government,” Sarno said.
Sarno’s four-page letter was sent to Barbara Day, chief of domestic resettlement, refuge admissions for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
“We have done more than our fair share,” Sarno said Tuesday in an interview. “It’s not fair to the refugees or Springfield.”
“I have to draw the line,” Sarno said. “The number of refugee children who have little to no English language skills has overwhelmed the very limited interpretation capabilities of our public schools, and funding that was intended for use in assisting existing pupils.”
The mayor and some of his department heads met in July with organizations involved in the refugee resettlement efforts — Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and the Jewish Family Services.
Read on to hear what Jewish Family Services said about shifting refugees to the county. There was no comment from the Catholics or the Lutherans.
The numbers do not represent those who might have come to a town or city as ‘secondary migrants’ (refugees resettled elsewhere but who have gone to certain cities to be with their own kind of people).
Springfield has “welcomed” 1,712 refugees since 2001 from the following countries:
Afghanistan
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Bhutan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Burma
Burundi
Dem. Rep. Congo
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Iran
Iraq
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Liberia
Moldova
Russia
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
An afterthought: I wonder does the Mayor know that the Refugee Resettlement Program run by the State Department was the brainchild of former Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy?
Stories similar to this one come and go across my desk from time to time and most I have no time to mention. This one caught my eye for a couple of reasons. First, the Jamaica news account lists the countries the pair traveled through before reaching Jamaica. International refugee law requires that legitimate “asylum seekers” ask for asylum in the first safe country in which they land—not skip across the globe ‘shopping’ for asylum.
Syrians touring the Caribbean and looking for asylum (they say!)
Thus, by the way, those other than Mexicanswho presented themselves at the US border last week, here, should have sought protection in the first country they arrived in that was not the country that had “persecuted” them.
And, the second troubling thing about this story is that the Jamaica report says the couple was headed to the US, but a Cayman Island report says they arrived earlier in the Caymans from the US!
Here are the pertinent parts of the story from Jamaica’s The Gleaner:
A Syrian couple who arrived from the Cayman Islands, en route to the United States early August, has asked for asylum in Jamaica.
Responding to queries from The Sunday Gleaner, the Ministry of National Security last week identified the couple as Fadi Al Lababidiand Hayat Hejazi.
“They arrived in Jamaica from the Cayman Islands on Sunday, August 4, but were denied permission to land,” the ministry said.
The Sunday Gleaner understands that Jamaican immigration officials became suspicious after the two were found to be carrying Syrian passports, with both having the same January 1 birthday.
Check out their travel itinerary! No immigration and customs official in all those countries saw anything amiss??? And, imagine the cost of those flights!
According to the ministry (Jamaica Ministry of National Security), the couple’s itinerary indicated that they “travelled from Syria to Beirut, Moscow, Havana, and Grand Cayman and from there to Kingston. They stated that they did not seek asylum in Lebanon or Russia because they felt these countries were friendly with the Syrian government”.
The ministry said arrangements have been made to accommodate the couple while the Refugee Eligibility Committee makes the determination of their status.
Adding to the mystery is that the Cayman Islands paper says they left the US! One thing is for sure, immigration in the Cayman Islands did not initially detect the pair as frauds and allowed them to proceed to Jamaica.
(CNS): A Syrian couple who managed to get through the Cayman Islands on what appear to be forged passports are claiming asylum in Jamaica, the local press is reporting. Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security has revealed that Fadi Al Lababidi and Hayat Hejazi arrived in Cayman from the United States early this month before they then flew from this jurisdiction to Jamaica on Syrian passports, both of which carried the same 1 January birth date. Immigration officials in the neighbouring country were suspicious and the couple were denied permission to land after claiming they had reservations at a Kingston hotel, which proved not to be true.
The story basically says—-If only the uneducated boobs among the public were better informed they wouldn’t fear that their country was being “invaded.”
Shipment of Syrians (?) arriving on Malta’s shores.* Nah! No invasion here, nothing to see, move along!
Longtime readers know that we have been following the plight of the tiny Mediterranean island nation of Malta as it has been overwhelmed for years with boat people (asking for asylum) from Africa—-most recently the flood is a result of the glorious Arab Spring and the US-supported (US-driven!) ouster of Gaddafi in Libya.
Our interest in Malta is two-fold. First, as much as I hate the worn-out phrase ‘canary in a coal mine’ that about sums up what Malta represents, and secondly the US State Department (egged on by their Jesuit friends on Malta) is transforming Malta’s illegal aliens by the hundreds into “refugees” destined for your town!
Seems that a major news outlet on Malta—-Malta Today—did a survey and found that shock-of-shocks, the general public is feeling invaded.
Here is a bit of the story:
MaltaToday survey indicates that a majority of respondents (55%) support the pushback policy. [Go here for some of our coverage last month of the proposed push-back policy.—ed]
The MaltaToday survey held this week reveals that the greatest concern the Maltese people have about migration by ‘boat people’ is the fear of being ‘invaded’ or seeing their country ‘taken over’ by migrants.
The survey indicates that a majority of respondents (55%) support the pushback policy considered by the new Labour government in July, before the European Court of Human Rights stopped any such action. It had already ruled such a policy illegal when practised by Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing government in Italy.
Support for pushbacks is particularly strong among Labour voters and those lacking a tertiary education.
LOL! It is my experience that the less-formally-educated country class (working class) on whole are much smarter when it comes to mass immigration then their “tertiary-educated” and politically-correct fellow citizens.
The photo is from this story, although there is no caption, this must be the boatload of Syrians referred to in the article.
* Correction, a reader has reported this boat actually landed in Sicily. Malta has only gotten a few Syrians, most arriving there are Africans.
