That’s what the Wall Street Journalis reporting, thanks to Jeff for sending the story.
The ‘stars’ of the WSJ piece landed in the UK, but I wonder how many are landing at an airport near you as we speak?
ISTANBUL—Somewhere over Europe, Kassem went to the airplane’s bathroom and flushed his fake Italian passport down the toilet.
When he landed in London’s Heathrow Airport a few hours later, Kassem presented his Syrian ID to U.K. immigration officials and requested asylum.The trip wouldn’t have been possible using his actual, Syrian passport—the country’s four-year civil war has turned it into a burden for anyone fleeing the conflict.
When asked where his passport was, Kassem told the officials: “It’s in the toilet.”
While hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees make the dangerous sea voyage to Europe followed by arduous treks across the continent, some of their countrymen have used fraudulent Western passports to board planes to countries where they can request asylum. Winter’s approach, turning seas colder, stormier and more dangerous, is expected to increase the practice.
Continue reading here.
This chart shows how many successful asylum cases were processed in 2013 in the US. Source:Migration Policy Institute. (I would love to know what countries are represented in that 7,776 (30%) from “other countries,” wouldn’t you?)
For new readers the difference between refugees and asylum seekers is that we fly the refugees in after the UN selects them for us and asylum seekers get in on their own steam—either illegally across a border or come legally on another type of visa—then ask for asylum, claiming they will be persecuted if returned to their homeland. Once granted asylum however, the asylum seekers get all of the same welfare goodies that refugees receive.
This is all I have and no time today to do a search. Since the letter is not linked, it may be older news that the reporter at the Washington Free Beaconhas just found and wishes to disseminate further. No matter because it gives me an opportunity to link a story about how Somalis skip around the world and end up on our southern border. Who is on the bus? Somalis caught at the border and moved to a detention facility. http://www.tpnn.com/2015/05/13/video-dhs-caught-moving-somali-muslim-illegals-into-california/ It was only ten days ago that we had a report of a busload of asylum-seeking Somalis being moved to a California detention center, here.
BTW, the difference between “refugees” and “asylum” seekers is that we pick up the refugees abroad and bring them here, and then sign them up for their social services. Asylum seekers get here on their own steam and either enter illegally or overstay a visa and apply for asylum (claiming they will be persecuted if they return home). Once granted asylum they are eligible for all the welfare goodies too!
Here is the Washington Free Beaconstory:
Congress is demanding that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) release documents detailing how many foreigners seeking asylum in the United States have been found to have ties to terror groups, according to a recent letter sent to the agency by leading lawmakers.
The letter comes on the heels of revelations by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that at least 638 aliens seeking asylum in America have been found to have connections to terrorists.
This “recent disclosure regarding the numbers of aliens found to have a ‘credible fear’ in cases where the terrorism bar to asylum eligibility may have applied raised the concern that hundreds of known and suspected aliens with terrorist connections may be attempting to take advantage of our country’s asylum system,” according to the letter, sent by leaders of four House committees on national security, the judiciary, and government reform.
When I wrote this post, I mentioned the globe-trotting Somalis who pay huge sums of money to get to our southern border. Reader Leo found this account of one Somali’s travel itinerary.
The first question I have is why didn’t the hero of this improbable tale ask for asylum in the first safe country he entered? That is the internationally understood method to request asylum. Instead, obviously with buckets of money, he traveled to the US Southern border. He is here now, has been granted asylum, and wants to bring the weeping wife and 12 kids to join him!
From The Other Phoenix:
Long sob story you can read yourself, then this:
Hilowle’s wife wept. She told her husband to escape, taking only the $80 and 20 Somali schilling in his pocket. At the time, a dollar was equal 35,000 schillings. Hilowle’s wife told him he had to leave, because if he died then the entire family would lose their financial support.
World traveler and now US refugee extraordinaire, Aden Hilowle, was initially cared for by Catholic Charities in Arizona.
It took eight days to reach Ethiopiaand contact his friends. His father sent him $14,000 from the sale of Hilowle’s house. [He had a house to sell? But what about wifey?—ed]
Hilowle contacted a human smuggler. For $14,000, he could get a passport and a visa to Italy, but for $7,000 he could get a visa to Cuba, from the smuggler. From Cuba, he could go to the U.S. Hilowle left Ethiopia on Sept. 15, 2009 for Cuba.
He said he flew to Dubai, Moscow, Cuba and finally Ecuador for another $2,000. From Ecuador he traveled to Columbia in the back of a semi-truck with 45 other people.
“I was nearly to die,” he said.
He traveled from Columbia to Panama, where he was detained for three months and learned Spanish.
Next, he traveled through Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala in the backs of commercial trucks.
Once, he thought he would asphyxiate. The entire truck was incredibly hot and the air was stifling. When the two drivers opened the back of the truck, Hilowle told them in Spanish he wouldn’t go back in the truck because he thought he was going to die. They threatened to leave him on the side of the road.
At the border check points the drivers locked Hilowle into a fold-up bunk bed. The room between the bed and the wall was so small Hilowle had to place his elbow against the bottom of the bed so he could breathe.
After enduring four check points, Hilowle refused to get back into the fold up bed. A police officer caught Hilowle, but the truck drivers bribed him, he said. The police officer took the money and offered to drive Hilowle to the border in his car. By the time they reached the border, they were friends. The officer said he too would like to go to America.
Hilowle traveled through Mexico from Guatemala via tourist bus, foot, plane and car. On March 3, 2010, around 5 p.m., Hilowle arrived in the border town of San Luis, Ariz., where he sought political asylum.
American border officials handcuffed Hilowle.
Like many political asylees, he was sent to a federal detention center. He refers to it as a prison.
“They give you food and shelter but no freedom,” Hilowle said. “You can’t adapt to prison.”
On Jan. 31, 2011 Hilowle was released from detention. He was granted refugee status, he said, and Catholic Charities resettled him in Serrano Village.
Surely by now wife and children have joined Hilowle and everyone lives happily ever after (on the US taxpayer)!
We are so gullible.
Surely you’ve seen the news by now (it is all over the internet) about the DHS bus in California carrying Somalis and other Africans apprehended at our southern border and now asking for asylum.
The story, that began as a video clip making the rounds of social media is fleshed out furtherhere at World Net Daily. Luckily broadcaster Anita Fuentes of ‘Open your eyes people,’was there to ask questions of the driver and to film the bus.
Go to World Net Daily for the full story and more about Somalis and asylum in the US.
For new readers, once an alien is granted asylum they may receive all of the social service benefits that a normal refugee gets, and they may get care from one of the federal resettlement contractors.
Asha Omar (19) granted asylum in El Paso, Texas in 2010, tells the improbable tale that she “made her way” by herself to America with a stop in Cuba before reaching the Mexican border. http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_17039428
This is not news to us!
We have been telling readers for years about the Somali trail from Africa to our southern border and a claim of asylum.
In 2011, we urged Congress to investigate the strange phenomenon of a supposedly impoverished young Somali traveling sometimes from Somalia to Syria to Russia to Cuba and then to Central America or Mexico and making it to the US border where a claim for asylum would be made with the help of immigration lawyers who seemed to be expecting them!
There are more posts on the same subject here at RRW, but no time to search for them right now.
I once saw a fantastic travel map for Somalis who ‘made their way’ to Russia and then flew to Cuba from there. Next stop was Mexico and the US border (wish I could find it to show you!).
Does no one ever ask? Who is helping these ‘youths’ and who is paying for it all? I’ve seen estimates that such a travel plan costs upwards of $10,000.
If only we had men like these leading America. Scott Morrison (left) and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott (right).
Maybe some of our Australian readers are not perfectly happy with everything the Abbott government does, but we sure are loving them.
Can you imagine the sputtering and fuming going on at the United Nations over the latest comments by Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison.
Keep in mind as you read this that international refugee law says that asylum seekers are to ask for asylum in the first safe country they reach, thus the mostly Muslim ‘asylum’ seekers should ask for asylum in Indonesia (a Muslim country***). But, of course, as we see in Europe every day, they are really ‘asylum’ shoppers (aka economic migrants) not truly persecuted people.
Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison Wednesday said he was “taking the sugar off the table” in announcing that Canberra was slamming the door on UN-registered asylum-seekers in Indonesia.
Morrison said that from July next year, asylum-seekers officially recognised by the United Nations refugee agency in Jakarta would no longer be eligible for resettlement in Australia.
The move, he said, was part of the government’s work to “strip people-smugglers of a product to sell to vulnerable men, women and children” and stop Indonesia being used as a transit lounge.
“We’re taking the sugar off the table. That’s what we’re doing,” he told ABC radio.
“We’re trying to stop people thinking that it’s OK to come into Indonesia and use that as a waiting ground to get to Australia.”
The giant northern neighbour is not a refugee generating country, but has become a key magnet for others seeking to reach Australia, often through treacherous boat journeys that have left hundreds dead.
Since the government came to power last year, its hardline immigration policy — to deny asylum-seekers arriving by boat resettlement in Australia and instead send them to camps in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific state of Nauru — has halted the flow.
The move to shut the door on even those registered with the UNHCR refugee agency in Indonesia is the next step, Morrison said.
“While nine of 10 months of 2014 have passed without a successful people-smuggling venture to Australia, we know smugglers continue to encourage asylum-seekers to travel illegally to Indonesia for the purpose of seeking resettlement in Australia,” he said.
I wonder how Obama felt in the presence of real men in Australia a few days ago?
By the way, if those ‘unaccompanied alien children‘ who traveled through Mexico to the US border were legitimate asylum seekers they would have asked for asylum in Mexico!
*** Another element to consider is whether the Muslim government of Indonesia and the UNHCR are helping to advance the Hijra (Islamic migration) by attempting to send more Muslims to non-Muslim countries.
Invasion of Europe continues as Germany falls all over itself trying to convince the world what good people they are!
The first part of this story is bad enough—opulent hotel bought by city of Cologne (site of those riots about ten days ago) for a refugee shelter for mostly Muslim asylum seekers. But it is ten paragraphs down before we get to the part that should make your head explode!
COLOGNE, Germany — With its wood-paneled piano bar and luxurious spa, the four-star Bonotel assures visitors paying up to $300 per night that it meets the “international standard of a first-class hotel.”
But starting next year, the hotel’s marble-and-mirrored lobby and “quiet, peaceful ambience” will play host not to indulgent travelers but desperate asylum seekers.
Germany’s fourth-largest city spent almost $7 million to buy the Bonotel this summer. Its doors will soon be shut and its 93 opulent rooms filled with asylum seekers, a move underscoring how Europe’s economic powerhouse has been overwhelmed by an influx of people seeking a better life amid a continent-wide border crisis.
According to U.N. figures, Germany received 109,600 applications for asylum last year — the most of any country in the world. The U.S. was second, with 84,400.
Read on and learn that German employees will be losing their hotel jobs.
Unbelievable! Somali asylum-seeker who came illegally to Europe across the Mediterranean has the audacity to say that the German government isn’t giving him enough stuff! And, WTH, look at the medical costs he is foisting on the German taxpayer.
Mubarak, a Somali refugeewho like others at the center [a different center in Cologne as the opulent hotel is not yet open—ed] declined to give his last name citing fears of retribution from German authorities for criticizing them publicly, told NBC News that conditions are so poor he has become disillusioned with his new home.
“I wanted to get to a place where I could start a different life,” he said, recounting his 18-month journey through African deserts and a treacherous voyage across the Mediterranean Sea — a route which has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 people this year. “But I don’t believe in Germany any more. The people in Germany are good to us, but we need more help.” [So if they survived the illegal boat trip across the Mediterranean they somehow deserve more welfare handouts?—ed]
He shows a doctor’s note from when he arrived in Cologne. It confirms that he suffered from tuberculosis, hepatitis B and post-traumatic stress disorder. It also states that because of illnesses, his living conditions should be improved.
But nothing has changed. Months later, he still shares a room with three others. Four metal bed frames with thin mattresses line the wall. Another stands upright in the corner, in case someone else needs to sleep here, although there is barely any floor space left. The communal bathrooms are at the end of the hallway. [Oh, boo-hoo!—ed]
“We live like animals, not like people,” said Maruf, a Somali roommate.
Just watch, the next thing we know Mubarak and Maruf will be given a room at the Bonotel!
Me thinks it’s time for another demonstration in Cologne.
See our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ series by clicking here.
