Somali community organizer, Fatuma Hussein, quoted in the Lewiston abuse story, lobbies for more welfare for Maine migrants earlier this year. http://bangordailynews.com/2014/05/23/politics/maine-attorney-general-rejects-proposal-by-lepage-administration-to-bar-general-assistance-for-immigrants/
A pregnant Angolan asylum seeker was run down and killed on a Lewiston street last week by her angry ex-fiance and so this story is all about how African women should speak up so that the police can protect them from the cultural norms they brought with them from Africa.
Frankly I am sick of stories about cultural conflicts and problems in Lewiston, Maine, the ‘Little Mogadishu’ of the Northeast. So check it out yourselves (Portland Press Herald) titled:
Domestic violence often kept hidden by Maine immigrants, refugees
I don’t think the debate should be about how African women should speak up, it should be about why we are inviting so many to the US from cultures that are so diametrically opposed to our culture in respect to women’s rights (and a whole lot of other things).
By the way, Maine has become the go-to state for asylum seekers because the state gives welfare to them while the feds only give welfare to successful asylum seekers who have been granted asylum and been declared a “refugee.” Many of Maine’s would-be refugees arrive in the US illegally or overstay a visa, head to Maine, and then apply for asylum claiming they will be persecuted if sent home.
The African migrants flooding into Israelwant to stay there, but Africans overwhelming Bulgaria are there attempting to get through the tiny country and into more prosperous German, French and British cities. The European Union, however, requires that they register at their first stop in Europe (in this case Bulgaria where the Turkish government must have let them move through Turkey!). The policy thus sets up the very thing that happened here last month.
Standoff between police and African migrants in Sofia.
Most mainstream media accounts want to promote the idea that poor persecuted Syrians are being abused by Bulgaria, but why so little attention to the thousands of Africans getting all the way to Bulgaria? As a reader, I would like to know how they are traveling to that country and where they get the money to do it.
A series of videos surreptitiously filmed from the window of a refugee centre in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia last month shows a standoff between police and dozens of African migrants, who had been kicked out of the centre for staying there without permission. The men chant “racists, racists” at the police before being taken into custody. The scene captures how tensions are now regularly boiling over in a country grappling with a surge in asylum seekers. [Economic migrants!—ed]
[…..]
From 2011 to 2013, asylum requests have multiplied by eight-fold in Bulgaria, with over 7,000 people filing requests in the last year, according to the State Agency for Refugees. About 3,800 of them are accommodated in Bulgaria’s refugee centres; more than three-quarters of these are Syrian nationals. Another 3,700 registered asylum seekers are not accommodated at the centres. The registration process can take months, so there are also an untold number of migrants living in Bulgaria who are not accounted for in these numbers.
In the past few years, immigration both from Syria and from African countries has soared. Many are from regions that have been wracked by conflict, notably the Democratic Republic of Congoand Mali. Diana Daskalova, the founder of the Centre for Legal Aid, a nonprofit that helps migrants with legal issues in Bulgaria, says that about 80 percent of those who come to seek their advice are from African countries: “They have a lot more problems navigating the asylum-seeking process than Syrians, for whom it is more streamlined, and who have an easier time obtaining asylum status.” She says that in the past year, out of all the cases of Africans her organisation has worked on, only one person was granted asylum: “And it was a special case – she was a woman with serious health problems, which was a decisive factor.”
[…..]
Lately, protests at Bulgarian refugee centres have become frequent, both over dire living conditions and the slow pace of the asylum process. In November, Bulgarian police quelled a protest by Algerian migrants at a centre in the town of Lyubimets. That same month, Syrian refugees threatened to go on a hunger strike at a centre in Harmanli, in south-eastern Bulgaria.
The United Nation’s refugee agency recently urged European countries to hold off on returning any asylum seekers to Bulgaria – which they have the right to do if it is the first country they entered in the European Union – citing problems with registration delays as well as access to food and health care.
We hear Turkey has some beautiful refugee camps—-send them there! Add a little diversity! It will bring strength to those camps!
We have been following the plight of poor Bulgaria for months (click here for our complete archive).
The number of mostly economic migrants trying to reach Europe has gone through the roof since this time last year! Most are seeking asylum (of course) and most will not be granted ‘refugee’ status.
Note that of the 1,123 rescued, 1,000 are young men.
Italy’s navy has rescued 1,123 people from inflatable boats in the space of 24 hours, as clandestine migration from North Africa reaches record levels.
The latest migrants were found in eight boats and a barge about 120 miles (222km) south-east of Lampedusa.
They included 47 women, four of them pregnant, and 50 children, all probably from sub-Saharan Africa, the navy said.
[….]
Some 2,000 migrants landed on Italian shores last month, nearly 10 times the number recorded in January 2013.
[….]
According to the government, last year saw an “incessant and massive influx of migrants” with a total of 42,925 arrivals by sea, or more than three times as many as in 2012.
[….]
Once in Italy, the migrants will be assessed to see if they have legitimate grounds for claiming asylum.
They have to satisfy the authorities that they are fleeing persecution and would face harm or even death if sent back to their country of origin.
Nearly three out of four asylum applications in EU states were rejected in 2012. [But, are those rejected sent back to Africa or left to wander Europe?—ed]
Read it all. Also, check out the BBC’s Mediterranean migration route map we posted here. Note that Turkey (Istanbul) is a main hub for the illegal migrants.
Addendum: Arab Newssays ‘go after the people smugglers’ to stop the flow.
Searching around the world wide web one can find much being done in Tanzania and Africa generally in the mental health field. http://www.gmhi.org/
An appeals court in Richmond, Virginia has granted asylum to a man who says his treatment for mental health problems in Tanzania amounted to persecution. The general understanding of what constitutes a legitimate claim for asylum usually contains these elements:
The refugee/asylum seeker must demonstrate a “well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
No doubt the applicant in this case was fearful, but his complaint does not fit the definition. There is, however, an ambitious movement afoot by immigration lawyers to expand the definition beyond its original intent. One could conclude from this case that anyone treated badly for myriad reasons in their home country was eligible for asylum if they could get themselves into the US in order to apply.
One thing that struck me in this news is that the man was denied in lower courts and the Court of Appeals split, so one of the judges wasn’t buying the story and there must be much more to this case then we are being told.
RICHMOND, Va., Jan. 22 (UPI) — A federal appellate court panel has ruled a bipolar man who said he was repeatedly tortured in Tanzania should qualify for asylum in the United States.
The Homeland Security Department tried to deport Tumaini Temu back to Tanzania in 2010, four years after his temporary visa expired. [For what reason did we originally grant him a temporary visa to get into the US?—ed]
Temu applied for asylum and claimed he was persecuted in his home country due to his mental illness, which is considered demon possession in Tanzania, Courthouse News Service reported.
An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals denied his application, but a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., reversed the decision on a split vote.
[….]
Temu came to the United States after his family rejected him, and he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Get ready for a parade of crazy asylum-seeking Tanzanians in need of meds through Obamacare! And, just a reminder, once granted asylum these new “refugees” are given access to all of the social services (welfare programs) available to refugees.
Endnote: I just now searched around for more on the treatment of mental health problems in Tanzania and in Africa generally and note that there is much happening there, and throughout Africa, to help those with mental illnesses. We don’t need to be moving them to America!
See our Health issues category (here) for more on refugee mental health problems.
On the road to Beersheva before the violence broke out.
Israel built a new detention center for mostly African migrants who are claiming they are legitimate asylum seekers (as opposed to economic migrants looking for work). The facility (we told you about it here) is open for the inhabitants to leave during the day, but they must return at night. It doesn’t look like it’s working out for hundreds who got into violent clashes with police and now are imprisoned 24-7.
More than 100 African migrants/refugees left the newly instated open detention center in S.Israel and begun making their way to Beersheva in protest of the jailing of fellow refugees as well as governmental reluctance to respond to their asylum request.
The 130-strong march left the Holot detention facility for Beersheba Thursday, accompanied by police cars. The march eventually deteriorated and violent clashes with the police, as well as more then a dozen arrests, were reported.
According to the refugees, the protest was intended to demand the release of two of their compatriots who were arrested in a Jerusalem protest some two days ago. They further called from their asylum requests be reviewed individually.
Abdul, a Sudanese refugee, said “we are marching for our friends, for our freedom and for our rights. We request that the Israeli government examine our request individually, and treat us as refugees, not criminals.”
The two men whose arrest sparked Thursday’s demonstration are currently being held in the Saharonim Prison, a jail built to house asylum seekers held under directives which the High Court deemed unconstitutional.
The demonstration’s starting point – the Holot detention facility – was established as a response to the ruling and thus was built as an ‘open jail,’ from which asylum seekers can come and go during day time.
The demonstrators involved in clashes have now been sent to the real prison.
The cost of the Holot facility was roughly a million shekel and in light of the court’s ruling and recent events, it seems the State is adamant in its intent to deport African refugees who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
Photo is from this account of events at Jews for Justice.
