Mostly men from Central America ‘saved’ from Houston “stash house.” http://www.click2houston.com/news/photos-more-than-100-immigrants-in-suspected-stash-house/25055884
Surely you heard the news about 100 plus Central American illegal aliens held in a “stash house” in Houston this week. The story broke a couple of days ago, coincidentally about the same time that Human Rights First announced its new legal office would be opening in, wait for it, Houston!
You can bet most of these 100 ‘persecuted’ Central Americans will be looking to file asylum claims—a growing worldwide racket! Human Rights First will be there to help.
We wrote about the invasion of Europe this week, this is the invasion of America!
Asylum seekers in Houston come from dozens of countries – from Honduras to Congo, from Belarus to Bhutan. They are victims of torture, survivors of genocide, women fleeing the threat of rape, honor killings and sometimes brutal domestic violence, former political prisoners, or minorities persecuted because of their race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. The United States has a well-deserved reputation for welcoming persecuted refugees. But we fall short when they are left to sort out their legal status without the help of a lawyer.
Some 75 percent of immigrants detained in Houston have no legal representation; the rate is only somewhat better for those who are not detained. This in a system where having a lawyer can mean all the difference. Houston’s eight legal service providers are overstretched, and most do not specialize in helping refugees seeking asylum.
To help meet this urgent need, the nonprofit Human Rights First is bringing its award-winning pro bono operation to Houston. Human Rights First has more than three decades of experience in this field. Through a proven partnership with private law firms, it recruits and trains attorneys to represent asylum seekers on a pro bono basis. Often, the relationships between refugees and their lawyers are mutually beneficial – lifesaving for refugees, and life-changing for lawyers.
Houston’s generous civic spirit and the array of leading law firms makes it a perfect place for Human Rights First to expand. And South Texas College of Law in downtown Houston is the perfect place for Human Rights First’s newest home.
More clients for Human Rights First! Syrians andSomalis are on their way!
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) one of four Members looking for answers on the cost to the taxpayers of asylum fraud.
Last night I was going through news I’ve missed lately and found this excellent Newsmaxstory by Cheryl Chumley. Besides the encouraging news about a GAO study in the opening paragraphs, the article is a thorough source of information on what is happening with asylum and how asylees relate to resettled refugees.
Our present asylum system came out of the Refugee Act of 1980 (Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter), so refugee resettlement and asylum are two sides of the same coin. We, with the UN, select refugees and fly them here. Asylum seekers get into the US often illegally, or overstay a visa, and then ask for asylum. Once granted asylum, the asylee gets all the welfare goodies that refugees receive (and can avail themselves of the services of the contractors). See our fact sheet, here.
Although to be commended for asking for a GAO study, if Goodlatte, Gowdy and others really wanted to do something they would hold hearings on the entire Refugee Program with the eye to reforming it! (Never been done!)
Four Republican congressmen have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the U.S. asylum process after a leaked Department of Homeland Security report showed that up to 70 percent of cases contained proven or possible fraud.
“Once individuals are granted asylum in the U.S., they become immediately eligible for all major federal welfare programs. And if, as it appears, asylum fraud is rampant in the system, American taxpayers could potentially be defrauded out of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars each year,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia wrote to the GAO. [Letter is here—-ed]
Also signing the letter were House Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, and Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas and Jason Chaffetz of Utah.
“For years, there have been reports of abuse in the asylum program; we are troubled by a continued lack of appropriate oversight by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the component of the Department of Homeland Security that administers the asylum program,” Goodlatte said in an introduction to the letter.
Goodlatte referred to a report from DHS written in 2009 that was recently obtained by the House Judiciary Committee, revealing that 70 percent or more of affirmative asylum cases from 2005 showed signs of fraud.
Speaking of GAO studies, a few years ago then Senator Lugar of Indiana requested a study on the Refugee Resettlement program that had overloaded the state of Indiana with needy third-worlders. That study produced some useful information, but I’m sure the resettlement industry just ignored it. Or worse, used it to demand more federal $$$ for resettlement in over-loaded communities.
Mugshot for Gasim Manafov from NC (assume this is our man)
We don’t know how many of the seventy fraudulent asylum claims were actually approved, but yesterday the ring leader, Gasim Manafov,was sentenced to a measly 18 months in prison for his role in helping them prepare their lies for immigration rulings. Two co-conspirators got one and three months respectively. No mention of the deportation for the criminals after release from prison.
And, I wonder who were the immigration lawyers Manafov must have worked with!
Just a reminder: once someone is granted asylum they become “refugees” with extensive welfare benefits available to them. They also can avail themselves of the ‘services’ of the refugee resettlement contractors.
BALTIMORE, Md.- An Ocean City Man was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison followed by a year of supervised release for conspiring to commit immigration fraud, federal prosecutors announced.
According to his plea agreement, 36-year-old Gasim Manafov, both of Ocean City, and Charlotte, N.C.. worked with others in assisting about 70 people in fraudulently applying for asylum benefits from 2007 to 2012.The plea agreement stated Manafov gave fake stories, complete with fake foreign documents, to describe how the person’s family was hurt or killed due to their political or ethnic background. Court documents show Manafov prepared the applicants for interviews and then attended the interviews.
The plea agreement also stated Manafov referred applicants to a co-conspirator knowing that they would engage in a fraudulent marriage for immigration purposes.Court documents also said Manafov suggested a woman apply for immigration benefits to avoid further trouble and coached her on how to lie when asked about it. The agreement said Manafov received $210,000 from those who fraudulently applied for asylum benefits.
Two other conspirators previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the conspiracy and were sentenced to one and three months in prison, respectively.
Every time I see a story like this one I want to know where the criminal is from and how he came to be legally in America. It is a very rare story that ever mentions that (this one does not).
Checking around for the name Manafov, look at this very cool graphic I found! It is only the web popularity of the name, but check it out here. There is also a similar graphic for the name Gasim and it is a first name in several Muslim countries.
Asylum fraud is turning out to be one of the hottest immigration topics going these days. See some of our recent posts on the crooks and cheats by clicking here.
Can you believe that headline at the New York Times of all places! Earlier this morning, we reportedon the Wall Street Journalstory about questionable asylum-seekers (Syrians), and now this! Are we reaching a tipping point—when even the NEW YORK TIMES writes about asylum fraud? Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers.’
Just make it up!
Emphasis below is mine:
A Chinese woman walked into a law office in New York’s Chinatown and asked to see her lawyer. She had applied for asylum, claiming that she had been forced to get an abortion in China to comply with the country’s family-planning laws, and she was anxious about her coming interview with immigration officials.
She had good reason to be worried: Her claim, invented by her lawyer’s associates, was false.
But the lawyer, John Wang, told her to relax. The process, he said, was straightforward, and as long as she memorized a few details, everything would be fine. “You are making yourself nervous,” he said in Mandarin. “All you would be asked is the same few rubbish questions.”
“Just make it up,” the lawyer added.
The conversation, in December 2010, was secretly recorded by federal officials conducting a wide investigation of immigration fraud in New York’s Chinese population. The inquiry has led to the prosecution of at least 30 people — lawyers (including Mr. Wang), paralegals, interpreters and even an employee of a church, who is on trial, accused of coaching asylum applicants in basic tenets of Christianity to prop up their claims of religious persecution. [Do-gooder-itis!—ed] All were charged with helping hundreds of Chinese immigrants apply for asylum using false tales of persecution.
The transcript of the conversation in Mr. Wang’s office, which was disclosed in a recent court filing, offered a rare look at the hidden side of the Chinese asylum industry in New York.
Professor Peter Kwong: To asylum-seekers, “it’s not an issue of right or wrong. It’s an issue about whether they can get it and their means to get it.”
To asylum-seekers it’s not an issue of right or wrong:
Though the prevalence of fraud is unknown, federal officials appear to regard the applicant pool in New York with considerable suspicion. In fiscal year 2013, asylum officers around the country granted 40 percent of all Chinese asylum requests, according to government data. In New York City, asylum officers approved only 15 percent.
Peter Kwong, a professor at the City University of New York and an expert on the Chinese population in New York, said it was an open secret in the Chinese community that most asylum applications were at least partly false, from fabricated narratives of persecution to counterfeit supporting documents and invented witness testimony.
To asylum-seekers, he said, “it’s not an issue of right or wrong. It’s an issue about whether they can get it and their means to get it.”
In my post on Syrians coming across the Mexican border, I mentioned an AP story that blames the backlog of cases in the immigration courts on the government shutdown (blame the Republicans), but here the NYT report says that the sheer volume of fraudulent cases is to blame.
The volume of petitions has clogged the federal bureaucratic machinery, overwhelming asylum officers and judges. The deputy director of the New York asylum office blamed fraud, in part, for the deluge, and said she had tripled her team of asylum officers to dig out of a two-year backlog of cases.
The schemes “wreaked havoc on the asylum system as a whole,”the official, Ashley B. Caudill-Mirillo, wrote in a letter to a federal judge in November.
Asylum fraud cuts across all immigrant groups (I still can’t believe this is the NYT reporting this!).
False asylum petitions are among the most common forms of immigration fraud, in part because they are difficult to detect, experts said. Since many claims are based on events that took place amid armed conflict or political turmoil, the narratives and supporting documents can be hard for the American authorities to verify.
And while the Chinese asylum pool has drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years, asylum fraud cuts across all immigrant groups, officials say, cropping up among populations from societies in turmoil such as Guineans seeking refuge from political upheaval, Afghans fleeing war, Russians looking for sanctuary from homophobia and Mexicans running from drug violence.
There is much more, so much more that I didn’t know where to stop excerpting! Read it all.
Chinese make up the largest percentage of asylum seekers granted permission to stay in the US
Go to Table 6, page 6 of the Department of Homeland Securities 2012 Annual Flow Report. Here are the stats for Chinese given refugee status (after arriving in the US on their own either illegally or as visa overstays).
2010: 6,693 Chinese granted asylum (31% of the total)
2011: 8,585 (34%)
2012: 10,151 (34%)
Remember! Once granted asylum, the asylee is then able to access all of the welfare programs open to refugees who were brought in by the US State Department. Fact sheet here.
Now we see that the asylum racket has Maine by the short hairs as one of the few states that gives welfare benefits to “asylum seekers.” Most asylum seekers are illegal aliens or people who came to the US on a visa of some sort (tourist visa, student visa etc.) and claim that if they go home to their country they will be persecuted. The federal government only provides welfare to those who successfully are granted asylum (they become ‘refugees’ with all of the taxpayer supported benefits). We learned just a few days ago that 70% or more of successful asylum seekers may be frauds.
Mayor Robert MacDonald: “All these people are is they’re tourists.” We can’t afford them all!
Maine’s governor is attempting to take away the carrots, here, but immigrants are protesting.
In the meantime, Africans headed to Maine!
From WGME.com (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’) Emphasis below is mine:
LEWISTON (WGME) — They’re called asylum seekers; people who entered the country on a visa, then declared they can’t go home. In Maine, asylum seekers are eligible for General Assistance funds. But Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald says they are gobbling up too much of his city’s budget. And he wants a local pastor to stop helping asylum seekers relocate to Lewiston.
Mayor Macdonald says “We can’t support them like that. We don’t have that kind of money.”Mayor Macdonald says asylum seekers are costing the city too much money. He’s asked Rev. Jean-Pierre Tshamala, a former refugee of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to stop encouraging asylum seekers to move here. He says it’s “really putting a financial strain on this community.”
Maine is one of the few states that help asylum seekers, by making them eligible for General Assistance. In the past six months alone, The City of Lewiston has helped more than 100 asylum seekers with expenses like food, rent, utilities and prescription medicines. The state does partly reimburse Maine cities and towns for the General Assistance funds they provide.
The federal government provides financial assistance to refugees who got approval in advance to enter the U.S. Asylum seekers are people who enter the U.S. with a visa, then say they’re unable to go home. So the feds give them nothing. Macdonald says “All these people are is they’re tourists. They’re tourists that have overstayed their welcome, I mean, overstayed their visa.”
Mayor Macdonald says Rev. Tshamala talked about bringing 60 asylum seeking families, now living in Portland hotels, to Lewiston.The mayor says if that happens, he’ll be forced to either cut services or raise property taxes. Mayor Macdonald says “We can’t do this to people. And I’ve told him, I’ve told the reverend this.”
Interesting that it’s a Congolese ‘refugee’ in Wyoming attempting to open that state to refugee resettlement. And, just a reminder, last spring the State Department announced it will admit 50,000 Congolese to the US during the next couple of years.
We have an extensive archive on poor Lewiston, here.
