Category: women’s issues

“Victim visas” available for abused Muslim women

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Oh brother, what other visa programs do we have that we don’t know about (yet)?

There are a couple of messages in this story to ponder.

First, no doubt we feel sympathy for Muslim women abused by the men in their lives.   But, is it our duty to save each and every one whose husband, brother or father thinks ‘his’ woman has not behaved properly according to their ‘faith?’

And, take note that we are importing this behavioral mindset to the US every day through myriad legal immigration programs, including refugee resettlement, when we admit immigrants from Muslim countries?   Who will save the women when the US is paralyzed by pressure from multiculturalists urging us to respect diversity.  Believe it or not, we have occasionally heard ‘cultural relativism’ arguments that go like this—-who are we to say female genital mutilation is an evil practice?

Now, hat tip David, here is the story from Al Arabiya entitled, ‘Saudi women get U.S. ‘victim visas’ following family disputes‘:

Five Saudi women living in the United States replaced their student visas with “victim visas” following disputes with male members of their families.

The women, whose change of status renders them ineligible for financial support from Saudi Cultural Bureau in Washington DC, were accompanying their families to the United States and went to court after they got into fights with their husbands or brothers, the Saudi edition of al-Hayat newspaper quoted a source from the bureau as saying.

One of those women, the source explained, is a student currently living with her children in an orphanage because of a dispute with her husband.

After the American court with which she filed a complaint ruled in her favor, she was not able to go back to her husband and since there were no guarantees of her safety if she returns to Saudi Arabia, she preferred to stay in the United States. She is now financially supported by the American government.

Let me know, if any of you find out which agency administers “victim visas!”

California: Fishy Iraqi “hate-crime” story was well, fishy!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We now have learned that the “hate crime” story from El Cajon* that I reported here in April in the wake of the Trayvon Martin “hate crime” story turns out to be wrong.  No kidding!  The Iraqi husband has been arrested for killing his own Iraqi wife.  It was a hate crime alright—Iraqi man on Iraqi woman hate.

This is how I began my post in April:

CAIR and the Muslim grievance lobby are trying oh-so-hard to elevate this tragic murder of a young Iraqi mother in California to be on par with the Trayvon Martin circus in Florida.   I’ve been reading about the case elsewhere and there is something fishy about it.

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has the updated real story, here:

It was all a lie – There was no hate crime…

Back in March, Kassim Alhimidi appealed to the local community to help find his wife’s killer. The family told reporters the mysterious killer snuck through the garden and into the back door and murdered Shaima Alawadi in a hate crime.

A note left with the woman’s body read:

“Go back to your own country. You’re a terrorist.”

Fast forward to November….

Police yesterday arrested Kassim Alhimidi on suspicion of murder.
He killed her while the kids were getting ready for school – then blamed it on whitey.

The local CAIR office now calls it a “family tragedy.”  Where is the apology?

* For new readers, El Cajon is a refugee resettlement “welcoming” community.  Type ‘El Cajon’ into our search function for more on the problems they have there.  Also check out our category on ‘Iraqi Refugees’ with its over 500 posts!  Maybe we need to give that category a subtitle—Iraqis gone wild!

Immigrants bringing ‘female genital mutilation’ practice with them to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those beautiful things that multiculturalism brings to America!  Right?

From the Huffington Post:

BOSTON (RNS) The one thing that Afrah Farah will tell you about her genital cutting experience is that it happened. She doesn’t want to say how old she was, where it happened, or who was or wasn’t with her.

Yet, despite the painful memories that the experience evokes and her concerns about people’s reactions, Farah, said she knows she has to speak out.

“It’s basically a traumatizing experience. It’s traumatizing for every young girl that goes through that. It’s something that sticks in your memory, and physically,” said Farah, a Somali immigrant who came to the Boston area by way of Kuwait and Germany in 2007, and now works as a drug developer in a Massachusetts laboratory.

“There are millions of people who are affiliated with this procedure — parents, grandparents, people in the community — and to label them all as bad people or barbaric, that’s wrong. You will push them away. To solve a problem like this, you need to approach people with respect.”

Because of its severity and prevalence, female genital mutilation (FGM, or “cutting”) is arguably one of the most important human rights issues in the world. It’s also become increasingly important in the U.S. as the number of immigrants from countries where it is practiced grows.

The African Women’s Health Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston estimated in 2000 that almost 228,000 females in the U.S. had either undergone or could undergo the procedure, although some anti-FGM activists dispute that figure.

[…..]

The WHO estimates that nearly 140 million women in the world have undergone the procedure, while another 2 million women undergo the procedure annually — about 6,000 per day.

[…..]

Activists also worry that some girls in America have the procedure done here or are sent back home, usually over summer vacations so they have time to heal. To stop this, activists are organizing behind the Girls Protection Act, which would make it illegal to send girls abroad for genital cutting. Penalties would include a five-year prison term and fine.

Good, send them to jail!

There is lots more, read it all.

Court of Appeals: Are pretty, single, Albanian women persecuted?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, should they then be granted asylum in the US?

Immigration lawyers have been working overtime to expand the definition of “asylum.”  Earlier this month we told you about expanding the definition to include women who were the victims of domestic violence anywhere in the world, now its pretty women!

Here is the story from Seattle PI:

NEW YORK (AP) — They were two young women living alone and in fear in Albania, where they say they were ripe targets for sex traffickers notorious for kidnapping their victims and forcing them into prostitution in other countries.

Both fled to the United States, and now appeals courts in Chicago and New York are confronting a vexing question about their fate: Should their claim that all young single women living alone in Albania face persecution qualify them for asylum?

So far their answer is no.

But, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is considering one of the cases.

To win asylum in the United States, someone who has fled another country must establish a well-founded fear of persecution based on religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Appropriately defining a social group is where the Albanian women have fallen short in the courts’ eyes.

[…..]

Although fewer than 10,000 asylum applications were granted from 1990 through 1993, they have ranged between 20,000 and 30,000 in the last decade, with about 25,000 being granted in 2011. The number of Albanian applicants granted asylum has fallen from 894 in 2002 to 156 in 2012.

By the way, a large number of asylum seekers actually come into the US illegally (as one woman cited in this story did) or overstay a visa and then come up with some reason to ask for asylum.   An abundant supply of US immigration lawyers are waiting to help them with their claims.

Once granted asylum, these new immigrants get all the benefits (welfare goodies) available to refugees.

Expanding the use of asylum to include wife abuse?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A California Law School is working hard to convince the Dept. of Homeland Security that women who claim domestic violence by their husbands anywhere in the world can be granted asylum by the US.   Although we have sympathy for abused women where their country’s government won’t help them, I doubt few of these cases involve women from Muslim countries where wife beating is permitted by law (see Janet Levy on that point yesterday).  Most other countries have laws to protect women to one degree or another.

Also, I can see how hard it would be for someone to prove to a judge (or for the judge to believe the story!) that their hubby beat them, perhaps years before they undertook a dangerous and expensive journey to get across our borders in order to ask for asylum (by hooking up with an immigration attorney who teaches them how to ask).

Here is the story:

The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies has been instrumental in helping women gain refuge from domestic violence.

This summer, in cases that made national headlines, two women whose legal teams were supported by CGRS won asylum after suffering years of abuse and lack of protection from authorities in their home countries.

Aruna Vallabhaneri lived first with abuse from her husband in Hyderabad, India, and then with the threat of deportation when she fled to the U.S. She initially filed for asylum and was denied in 1998 and ordered deported. But after hearing testimony of the abuse in her arranged marriage, she was granted asylum on the basis of domestic violence in June 2012.  [India doesn’t have laws to protect people against violence?—ed]

[…..]

Under current U.S. law, individuals should be granted asylum if they have suffered persecution or have a well-founded fear of persecution for one of five reasons — political opinion, race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group. Domestic abuse claims most often fall under the statutory ground of particular social group, the murkiest and most contested category.

Until recently, the Department of Homeland Security, which both adjudicates some asylum claims and prosecutes others, has not supported domestic violence claims, and regulations promised in 2000 have yet to be issued. In April 2009, the department filed a legal brief in a domestic violence case known as L.R., taking the position that women who are victims of domestic violence may qualify for asylum. Despite this recognition, the brief is not binding on immigration judges, and many Homeland Security attorneys have continued to fight domestic violence cases.

[…..]

Of the 619 domestic violence asylum cases for which the center has provided counsel between 1994 and 2011, 422 women were granted asylum, and 192 were denied.

So, what are they complaining about.  Accepting 2/3rds of the claims and rejecting 1/3 doesn’t sound all that bad of a record.  Do these lawyers expect the judges to approve 100% of the claims?

By the way, once asylum is granted these new “refugees” become eligible for all of the social services refugees get—food stamps, subsidized housing, health care, etc.