Rohingya drums and Rambo

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You can hear the drumbeats, a little here, a little there.   We’ve told you about them before, Rohingyas are Burmese Muslims and the agitation has begun to bring them to America.   Take a minute and go back to my original post of a few weeks ago.  

Now comes another beat on the drum to find a “durable solution” in third country resettlement.   A Mr. Zafar Ahmad, President of Myanmar Ethinic Rohingyas Human Rights Organization Malaysia wrote this past week to the Geneva head office of the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner on Refugees) with his “demands.”

We, Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Right Organization Malaysia
strongly demand on behalf of all that Frontier UNHCR’s Representative Head
Officer Dr.Volker Turk to tackle continuously and its recognized Rohingya
refugees may solve before his transfer . We Rohingya are forgotten
people on earth and well-founded fear of persecution subjected to Race,
Religion and Political opinion.

 Then Mr. Zafar Ahmad goes on to say:

This current situation pointing
that Rohingya have only a way of permanent solution to 3rd country
according to Refugees convention due to facing various as origin of the
persecution in the host.

That third country is going to be the United States, or some country in western Europe, maybe Australia.

I bet you are wondering how I have Rambo involved in all this.   Well don’t you know in his latest ‘blow ’em away’ flick he goes after the Burmese military junta to help save the Christian Karen people.   The Burmese Karen are one of the latest wave of refugees coming to America.   Rambo got guidance from the United Nations on his choice of human rights violators to film.   The UN will be slipping those Rohingyas by us as one more of Burma’s ethnic minority, just mark my words!

Incidentally there is speculation about why Rambo didn’t go after Al-Queda.    Actor Sylvester Stallone said in an interview I happened to catch that it was because he didn’t want to look tougher than our military men and women.  LOL, I will bet anything he didn’t want to be seen blowing Islamic radicals away, probably not good for his career (or personal safety).

President Bush signed Iraqi refugee bill earlier this week

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The President quietly signed into law the “Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act” as part of the 2008 Dept. of Defense Authorization Act.  We’ve written on many occasions about this amendment which was attached in the dark of night to the Defense authorization bill without hearings or public discussion because Senators know that if these things are done in the light of day people would be furious.   The bill calls for 5000 special visas to be made available for Iraqi refugees each year for the next 5 years, but presumably this is in addition to the 12,000 the administration already plans to bring in FY 2008 alone.

I planned to bring your attention to another pro-immigration group (another place to find information on refugees and asylees) tonight and just happened to find their joyful press release dated today.   The group is called Human Rights First, but if you are a middle class taxpaying American citizen your human rights will not be first.

And, if you are an American who has lost a loved one in Iraq, fighting to give freedom to the Iraqis, this law is going to be a bitter pill to swallow when an able-bodied young Iraqi Muslim man is living next door to you.

New English Review: Interview with Shelbyville, TN reporter Mosely

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

 Update:  See Judy’s excellent points about this interview here.

Stop whatever you are doing, and read this great interview on Somalis in Shelbyville by Jerry Gordon of New English Review and reporter Brian Mosely!    Here is a part of the introduction.

We have written extensively about the problems of assimilation of émigré Somalis in cities like Nashville, Minneapolis, Lewiston, Maine and another Tyson Foods locale, Emporia, Kansas with a Somali meatpacker work force. The problems in those communities have included issues such as TB, public health, drug dealing, petty crime, in some cases massive unemployment, federal Medicare and Medicaid fraud and separation of Church and State provisions.

——-

One of the few members of the Fourth Estate, who has covered the problem of assimilation of legal Somali humanitarian émigrés in the US, is Brian Mosely of the Shelbyville Times Gazette.

——-

In a series of hard hitting articles in the Shelbyville Times Gazette, Mosely has vividly portrayed the problems of what happens when hundreds of Somalis with a strong tribal culture and Muslim faith come to a small community in America’s heartland. What threads through Mosley’s series is the Somalis demonstrable lack of discernable public health standards and minimal education, plus their rejection of US cultural standards of tolerance and offers from community outreach groups.

——-

In this interview with Mosely, we discuss the background that led to the Times Gazette Somali series, the reaction of the community to his reports and opinion pieces, comments by readers, and the attempt to muzzle his free speech rights under our Constitution.

Read it all here.  It is fascinating.

Note:   We have a very good search function at RRW and have covered the Shelbyville issue extensively, just search for the word “Shelbyville.” 

100 Foreign workers missing in Alabama tonight

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Coming right on the heels of the anger at Tyson’s Food for disrupting communities by bringing Somali refugees in large numbers to small American cities, comes the news that another big business has lost 100 Nepalese workers this week.   

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — About 100 people who came from Nepal to work at a north Alabama factory seemingly vanished from a pair of apartment buildings, along with a lot of furniture and appliances, and can’t be located, officials said Tuesday.

______

Immigration agents are trying to determine what happened to the Nepalese workers, among hundreds brought to the United States to work at a DVD factory operated by Cinram Inc., said Lauren Bethune, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Homeland Security.

_______

“We do not in any way consider it a security threat, but we do think it is important,” she said.

The AP article goes on to say that the workers were part of a group of 1350 foreign workers brought to the Cinram plant.  Missing along with the people are hundreds of thousands of dollars of furniture, TV sets, and kitchenware.   The Homeland Security agent went on to say maybe they went home.  Yeh right, they just loaded all the loot on commercial flights and headed back to Nepal!  (Hat tip: Lori)

More:  Blulite sent us a link (in comments) to a story in the Huntsville Times a day earlier that adds more to this shocking story.   These aren’t refugees admitted under the Refugee Resettlement program.   But, this further points to the need for someone to do a blog on other immigration programs that allow foreign nationals to enter the US from troubled parts of the world.

Somalis definitely leaving Emporia, KS

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to the Emporia-Gazette, news was received today that the Somali refugees who have been the center of much controversy are leaving Emporia.  They are among the 1500 workers who will be unemployed shortly.

City Manager Matt Zimmerman told city commissioners at today’s work session that the Somali community had decided to leave Emporia following Tyson Foods’ decision to shut down its Emporia slaughter operation, according to a refugee coordinator from the state.

You need to go and read the citizen comments at this article to know how much this Kansas city was disrupted first by the secretive arrival of hundreds of Somalis presumably lured by Tyson’s to Emporia, and now their abrupt departure with the plant closure.    The Tyson’s Food company and its quest to keep wages low  is primarily to blame for all the hard feelings and upheaval among the long time residents. 

And, a share of the blame goes to resettlement agencies like Catholic Charities who seem to latch onto any employer no matter how unscrupulous their business practices.   The bottomline is that if they don’t get these refugees employed quickly someone might just suggest we are bringing too many low skilled workers to the US and their gravy train and ‘good’ works would be halted.

Although we have sympathy for unemployed people whoever they are, the Somalis compounded their problems in Emporia by making no apparent effort to assimilate.  And, I will bet they were never seriously told they must assimilate by whatever agency resettled them in the first place. 

Residents asking questions from the get-go are now subject to comments like this one from Joe_Strummer:

Just wonder what all these poor Klansmen are gonna do on their Saturday nights now that there’s no one to whine about.

But, then JayJazz has a comeback:

Damn! I just washed my hood again with my red underwear… I hate it when that happens.

That’s right Jay, keep your sense of humor and laugh at those claiming this is all about racism in a so-called “unwelcoming” city.   They will throw the blame for bad government policies, mismanagement by volags and ruthless business practices by a large corporation back on citizens.  Resist! 

If you are new to this controversy and have the stamina, visit our category called  Emporia, Ks controversy and start at the beginning.  We have written 25 posts on this topic.