Bad News for Europe: Turkey Will No Longer Stop Migrants from Crossing into Greece

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Invasion of Europe news….

If Europe doesn’t have it bad enough already, it looks like a new wave of migrants from Syria is on the way to the west.  And, they aren’t all Syrians!

In 2016 the Turkish government, in a deal with the EU, agreed to not permit border crossings into Europe, but it looks like that agreement is now out the window.

At a time when the whole world is focused on the movement of sick people, here is an example of how vulnerable every country that doesn’t seal its borders is to the transmission of deadly pathogens.

From Deutsche Welle:

Turkey will not stop refugees ‘who want to go to Europe’

No caption to indicate where or when the photo was taken but note the two on the left in face masks.

 

Hundreds of Europe-bound migrants have begun heading to northwest Turkey towards Bulgaria and Greece. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party said the refugees began their journey after a Syrian attack in Idlib.

Turkey is “no longer able to hold refugees” following a Syrian attack that killed 33 troops in Idlib, Omer Celik, a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, said on Friday.

The announcement comes as some 300 migrants walk through northwest Turkey towards its borders with Greece and Bulgaria on Friday, according to DHA news agency.

“As a result of the attack, the (refugees) in Turkey are heading towards Europe, and those on Syrian territory are heading towards Turkey,” Celik told CNN Türk shortly after midnight Friday morning. “Our refugee policy is the same as before, but we are now in a situation where we can no longer hold them.”

Demiroren news agency said the group of migrants, including women and children, embarked on their journey from Turkey’s Edirne province toward borders with Bulgaria and Greece — two European Union nations — at around midnight. Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Pakistanis and Moroccans were among those in the group.

[….]

According to EU figures, Greece saw more than 60,000 asylum seekers arrive from Turkey on the shores of its Aegean islands in 2019, and it expects more than 100,000 more in 2020.

More here.

See my Invasion of Europe archive where I’ve been filing stories for a decade on the topic.

***Update***

Don’t miss my follow-up post this morning:

Middle East Migration: Could it Hasten the Spread of Covid-19?

 

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Missouri: Somali Teen Walks After Charges Dropped in Brutal Attack on Neighbor

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 5 Comments

And, if the violent attack wasn’t sickening enough, a staff attorney at juvenile court determined that his IQ was so low that he wouldn’t be able to help in his defense. The case was dropped.

From KSDK St. Louis (h/t Amy):

‘I’ve been failed by the system’ | Teen walks free after neighbor says he broke her nose, left her in bruises

ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis woman feels like the judicial system failed her, after she said her teenage neighbor attacked her and walked away free.

 

Alicia Clarke said exactly a week ago she went for a quick run outside her south city home. When she came back, she noticed her shoes had been moved to a different spot and her cell phone was gone.

From there, she used Find My iPhone to search for it. The location said it was on her property grid. She used her work phone to call it.

“I open my back door to call it and I hear it in my neighbor’s backyard behind me,” Clarke said.

Clarke said she hopped the fence to get it and jumped back over to her yard. Another neighbor yelled out to her and said, “Hey, I told him, ‘I know you did this and I’m calling the police!'”

Clarke said that’s when the 6-foot teen jumped the fence and tackled her.

After the initial assault, he came back with a weapon (a screw driver), continue reading to see what happened next.

Clarke thought the fight was over. But when she went to juvenile court a few days later, she learned his case was dismissed.

“The most hurtful thing of all of this, is the dropped charges. That was much more hurtful than the physical assault,” Clarke said.

A juvenile court official said a staff attorney dropped the case before even going to the judge. The courts weren’t able to comment specifically on this incident, since it involves a juvenile. Clarke said she was told her accused attacker was found incompetent to aid in his own defense because he has an IQ of 49.

[….]

Alicia has a broken nose, staples in her head and stitches to the puncture wound under her eye.

Clark’s sister who wants the story told far and wide posted this additional information on her facebook page.

Hassan is a 15 year old refugee from Somalia who lives with his family. He is 6’ and approx 175lbs, much larger than my sister. He has broken into Alicia’s car 3 different times and broken into another neighbors house. The police were involved every single time and reported that nothing could be done since he was a minor. Surely this time would be different, though.

Read the whole sick story, here.

There will continue to be many more cases like this one as we admit refugees who are mentally unstable and violent.

Actor Ben Stiller Joins Chorus: NY Taxpayers Must Shell Out for Refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

My first thought when I saw this news was, everywhere we are told by the likes of Michael Bloomberg’s New American Economy that refugees are working and bringing economic boom times to dying cities, so why do they need more taxpayer dollars?

And, my second thought was, why can’t a bunch of entertainers like Stiller pool their excess cash and donate the $5 million. Why should the hardworking families of NY state, scrimping and saving for their kids’ college educations, have to pay anything for refugees?

Oh, but it isn’t really for the refugees, it is to keep the phony-baloney non-profit groups afloat.

From the NY Daily News:

Actor Ben Stiller joins advocates urging aid for New York refugees

ALBANY — Actor Ben Stiller’s latest role is no laughing matter.

The “Zoolander” star joined lawmakers and advocates Tuesday in the capital in calling for more money for a state-funded refugee program.

Stiller is an ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. How many refugees has he welcomed to his home?

“New York has a great history of doing this,” Stiller said. “These programs need to keep going. There’s institutional memory that needs to stay alive and as the refugee flow is lower right now at some point it’s going to come back up and these institutions need to be up and working when it happens.”

He means that they expect to oust Trump and then go back to full steam ahead with 100,000-200,000 annual refugee admissions (compared to Trump’s 18,000 this year).

And, as for this next bit, in my analysis of six of the nine major federal resettlement contractors, five are doing financially as well or better under Trump as they did under Obama.

Federal funding for refugee resettlement services has dropped significantly in recent years as Trump administration policies restricted the number of people being granted asylum or refugee status each year.

[….]

The New York State Enhanced Services to Refugees Program has received $2 million each year in the budget since it was formed in 2017 in response to the changes at the federal level.

But advocates say the state needs to step up and ensure funds are available to non-profits assisting the thousands of refugees already here.

[….]

The 14 resettlement agencies in the program, the Fiscal Policy Institute, and the New York Immigration Coalition joined Stiller, Ryan, and other lawmakers in calling for at least $5 million set aside for the program.  [They have salaries to pay, after all!—ed]

Gov. Cuomo included no funds for the measure in his fiscal proposal earlier this year.

Cuomo trying to balance his budget to slow the bleed of taxpayers leaving the state?

But, heck, a state full of fully employed refugees and immigrants paying taxes should keep the state budget flush, right?

 

Australia Dumb Deal News: Over 600 of Australia’s Rejected Asylum Seekers are Now in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t seen much news lately about the “dumb deal” that Obama made to admit over a thousand asylum seekers that Australia had been holding for years in offshore detention camps, until this story from Saturday.

In 2017 news leaked about a phone call with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull in which Trump called the refugee swap arrangement a “dumb deal.” Gee, don’t you wonder who leaked that call! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/02/02/australia-deal-not-a-sure-thing-after-word-that-trump-yelled-at-australian-prime-minister/

Of course, even as President Trump described the deal as a “dumb” one, he went along with it supposedly with extreme vetting determining who we would admit and who we would reject.

This story from the Brisbane Times is mostly about how one Rohingya escaped the detention camp and ultimately made it to Canada where he was granted asylum.

There is a bit at the end updating readers on where the number being sent to your US towns and cities stands today.

‘Never heard of anything like this’: Advocates stunned by Manus escape

Toronto, Canada: Refugee advocates have described a Rohingya asylum seeker’s escape from Australia’s offshore processing centre on Manus Island, and successful resettlement in Canada, as unprecedented and extraordinary.

Jaivet Ealom, 27, has spoken publicly for the first time about his high-risk and secretive journey to freedom in a series of interviews with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Canada.

[….]

Political activist who used social media to pressure the Australian government, Iranian Behrouz Boochani, has permission to come to America as a refugee.

The department said 699 refugees have been resettled in America under the deal with the US government while another 26 have been resettled in other countries.

In November, Iranian asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani, author of the award-winning No Friend But the Mountains, travelled from PNG to New Zealand for a literary festival and overstayed his visa.

He said he had been offered resettlement in the US but was also open to resettlement in a third country.

More here.

Feeling guilty, Australia expats set up support group for the mostly Muslim Australian-rejected asylum seekers as they arrive in America.

From Marie Claire:

Meet the Aussie Expats Fighting to Give Asylum Seekers A Fair Go

When entrepreneur and former fashion designer Fleur Wood heard that 1250 asylum seekers from Australia’s off-shore detention centres were being resettled in the US, she was struck with empathy.

Wood (in Chicago) with a Rohingya ‘refugee’ who had been held in detention by the Australian government after trying to illegally enter Australia by boat. He is now on his way to US citizenship. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-05/ads-up-co-founder-fleur-wood-with-rohingya-refugee-rahman-mojub/10775128

It was 2016 and the men, women and children who had spent years languishing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island would now be transferred to a country on the other side of the world as part of a deal between the Australian government and the Obama administration. After so much uncertainty and despair, this was their chance to start over – but not without enormous challenges.

[….]

Wood began building a network of Australians living in the US who were keen to help out, and in 2018 she co-founded the not-for-profit Ads-Up (Aussie Diaspora Steps Up) with fellow Australian Ben Winsor.

Their aim was to do what the Australian government would not: provide a social network and financial assistance to help refugees begin their lives in a new country.

[….]

For volunteers, connecting with refugees provides a chance to make amends in some small way for Australia’s inhumane treatment of asylum seekers. Says Wood, “Regardless of where you stand on the immigration issue, or whether you think these people should be allowed into Australia, you can’t deny the incredible human rights violations that they have suffered.”

The Australian government doesn’t provide regular information about Nauru and Manus Island, but according to the Refugee Council of Australia, 632 people have been resettled in the US.

[….]

Last June, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said the target of resettling 1250 refugees wouldn’t be met, hindering the Coalition’s goal of closing down the detention centres. US President Donald Trump was also famously scathing of the deal.

More here.

But Trump went along with the deal for over 600 detainees (so far) that Australia would not allow on its own soil.  600 plus is just as “dumb” as 1,250 in my view.

The practice of taking another (safe) country’s rejects is outside the normal accepted international resettlement procedure and should never have been encouraged.

See my extensive archive on the ‘Australia dumb deal.‘