More corrections needed: Asylum seeker vs. Refugee

10/12/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Let me say that I am glad to see that new readers arrive here daily, but long time readers, please accept my apologies for repeating information you already know.

Commenter ‘Kansasdudess‘ said this yesterday in a comment to my post on about Twin Falls, Idaho, here.

“id like to point out that in every country except the us refugees are not placed into actual communities..they are housed in refugee camps..geeze if they knew they were going to live in camps and not in sociey with full benefits they wouldnt come..who the hell decided they need to be placed in regular society???!!!! when did refugee status become perminant status? refugee means they go home too…”

Refugees

First, here at RRW we are mostly focused on the present US Refugee Admissions Program established by law in 1980—The Refugee Act of 1980.

Ted and Joe — “Who the hell decided?” asked our commenter. Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden with other Democrat Senators decided in 1979. The Refugee Act of 1980 was then signed in to law by President Jimmy Carter. Congress and the President decided 38 years ago, and if you want to change it now, Congress and the President must decide.

Briefly, refugees, as defined by the Act’, are people we have located abroad (mostly with the help of the UN now) who claim they would be persecuted if returned to their home countries—persecuted for their race, religion, political views and so forth.

We fly them to the US and through US State Department resettlement contractors (nine non-profits) we place them in hundreds of US towns and cities. They are here legally (permanently) and they are on a track to US citizenship.

You are not to be faulted for being confused about the word ‘refugee’ because the Leftists and No Borders activists around the world have done their best to make you think that anyone on the move around the world for any reason is a refugee deserving of special treatment. They are not. Most are economic migrants, some are getting away from civil wars at home, and some are criminals.

But, here the word refugee has a very specific meaning and is used for those who are legally here through the US Refugee Admissions Program.

As for Kansasdudess’s assertion that around the world “refugees” are in camps. Yes, in some places they are, but the vast majority of migrant asylum seekers (they are NOT legal refugees yet) are free in many countries until their asylum claim has been processed—think Germany, Italy, France, the UK etc. etc. There they live mostly in special housing and are free to move about in the community. (There is increasingly more talk in Europe about building detention centers.)

Asylum seekers and Asylees

So what is asylum? That is when migrants of some sort go to another country on their own initiative and then ask for asylum claiming they will be persecuted in their home country if they are returned.

The asylum process is being abused around the world.

All of those Africans and Middle Easterners flooding Europe are not refugees. Some may be able to prove (through an asylum process) that they should get the first class treatment afforded legitimate refugees, but most are economic migrants looking for a better life. I repeat: they are NOT refugees until they are given asylum status.

Here in the US our immigration system is being scammed now as thousands cross our borders and ask for asylum. If they get through the asylum process and are judged to be legitimate refugees, we call them asylees. And, then, just like the refugees we flew in, they can stay and take advantage of the many benefits life in America will give them (including ultimately citizenship).

(I explained asylum here and here, just a few weeks ago!)

So in summary, the word ‘refugee’ used at this site refers to a class of LEGAL immigrant. They are flown here by our government. They are here to stay. They can work. They can get welfare. They will eventually become US citizens.

And, if an asylum seeker can make his or her case through a legal process, then that person can say they are a refugee as well.

Bottomline: words matter!

Don’t fall for the Left’s broad definition of refugee. Everyone on the move around the world is NOT a refugee.

Fact sheet on asylum is very useful; largest number of ‘new’ Americans are Chinese

09/21/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A couple of days ago I reported on the Asylum process which is part of the Refugee Act of 1980. The difference from the US Refugee Admissions Program is that these wannabe ‘refugees’ are already in the US usually illegally and they claim they will be persecuted if returned home.

It is a huge backlog of cases that is concerning the Trump Administration and is why they say that a 30,000 cap on the refugees the UN/US State Department bring in to the country is all we can handle. I assume they are expecting more than the 20,000-30,000 asylum seekers who have been approved each year for the last ten will grow with their stepped- up processing.

I have no time to snip this Fact Sheet from the American Immigration Council on ‘Asylum in the US,’ but you will find it answers many of your questions.

Although AIC is a non-profit legal advocacy group promoting more immigration, the facts seem pretty straight forward.

Take note of the definition of ‘refugee’ and see that they still pretty much stick to the original definition that doesn’t include a lot of expansions.

Oh, and for those who have asked, asylum seekers, who often wait years for an asylum hearing (while free in America), are permitted to work after a certain time.

What I didn’t mention the other day was where most of the asylum seekers who are approved come from.

Total Asylum Grants by Country of Nationality, Fiscal Year 2016

asylum_in_the_united_states_figure_2-620x397 — From the American Immigration Council Fact Sheet

I’m urging all of you to start paying attention to the tens of thousands of ‘refugees’ being approved as your new neighbors after they got in to the US illegally, or came in on an approved visa and then asked for asylum.

The Boston Bombers got in through the asylum system.

AG Jeff Sessions carrying out Trump immigration restriction agenda

09/20/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….and boy are the Leftwing Open Borders agitators steamed!

Former US Senator and now Attorney General Sessions, who you will recall got on the Trump train in the earliest days of the campaign, is quietly carrying out an immigration restriction agenda at the Justice Department and in the courts.

The primary reason we elected this president in the first place was to get immigration under control and Sessions is doing that!

Trump and Sessions 2 — If the President foolishly pushes Jeff Sessions out of the Justice Department, the Senate will never confirm a replacement who would carry out the immigration control agenda that Sessions has undertaken.

Yesterday, I told you about the asylum scam, here, and today we bring your attention to Mother Jones with this headline:

Sessions Is Poised to Make It Vastly Harder for Asylum-Seekers to Get Out of Detention

A new decision from Attorney General Jeff Sessions is likely to make it dramatically harder for tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to get out of detention.

How many asylum-seekers are in detention and how many are free to roam America while waiting for a decision? I don’t know the answer, but when I find it, I will let you know. But, know that thousands of wannabe refugees are simply free across America. Vast numbers of them will never show up for their asylum hearing.

On Tuesday, in a now-familiar tactic, Sessions used his broad authority over America’s immigration courts to refer a case to himself. The move will allow him to reinterpret a 2005 decision from the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals that gives some migrants the ability to get out of detention on bond. Sessions now appears likely to strip many detained immigrants of that right.

The self-referral comes two weeks after the Trump administration proposed a rule that would allow it to detain migrant families indefinitely. Combined, these two moves would make families seeking asylum much more likely to spend months or even years in detention.

And, what should be done now is a massive public relations campaign by the US throughout Mexico and Central America about how asylum seekers will be detained maybe for years. Such an effort could have a chilling effect on the hordes hankering to move north.

Mother Jones continues…

Under current law, asylum-seekers who cross the border without authorization are entitled to bond hearings before an immigration judge if they establish a credible fear of being persecuted in their home country. In a strange twist, asylum-seekers who request protection at official border crossings—the government’s preferred route—must ask Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to grant them parole, rather than asking a judge to grant bond. That distinction matters because ICE has shown an almost complete unwillingness to grant parole under Trump.

Eleanor Acer, the director of the refugee protection program at Human Rights First, says eliminating bond hearings would have an “absolutely devastating impact” on migrants because of the difficulty of being granted parole by ICE. “This is just not who we are as a country,” she says. “This should not be a country where people are thrown into jails and not even allowed to see a judge who decides whether or not they could be released from detention or not.”

Sessions’ decision to review the case is the latest step in the Trump administration’s systematic crackdown on asylum-seekers. In June, Sessions all but eliminated gang and domestic violence as grounds for asylum after referring a different case to himself. Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed a rule to terminate the Flores settlement agreement, a two-decade-old court settlement that prevents the government from detaining migrant children for more than about 20 days. The proposal would allow the Trump administration to detain families indefinitely.

By the way, this is very significant—eliminating fear of violence back home as a grounds for gaining refugee protection and ultimately US citizenship!

We have told you over the years how the Open Borders Left is systematically eroding the definition of who is a refugee. A legitimate refugee, under the 1951 UN Convention, must be able to prove that he or she (personally!) would be PERSECUTED for one of several reasons including race, religion, political views, if returned to their home country. There is nothing in the definition about escaping violence or even war.

In recent years we have been allowing border-crossers to claim they are escaping gangs and abusive husbands to gain a legal foothold in America. Sessions is forcing adherence to the original law and not allowing this expansion.

Continue reading Mother Jones here.

If Sessions is forced out, you can be sure that the likes of Eleanor Acer and MS-13 gang members will be whooping with joy!

And, Trump will have signaled that he is abandoning an immigration control agenda.

For me, how we manage immigration is the only issue that matters for the future of America.

If you agree and are looking for something to do, let the President know that you like what AG Sessions is doing on the only issue that matters!

So what is this asylum issue the Secretary of State mentioned?

09/19/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Several people have asked me about the statement made by Secretary of State Pompeo when he announced the Administration’s intentions of capping refugee admissions at 30,000.

Intelligence Chiefs Testify To Senate Committee On World Wide Threats

According to the New York Times, Pompeo mentioned a backlog of 800,000 asylum cases piled up in immigration courts and the NYT is quick to point out that the number is too high.

It is ONLY 320,000!

(And, remember readers that those waiting for their asylum hearing are mostly free to roam the USA, relatively few are in detention!)

See here:

“This year’s refugee ceiling reflects the substantial increase in the number of individuals seeking asylum in our country, leading to a massive backlog of outstanding asylum cases and greater public expense,” he added.

Nazanin Ash (left) speaking for refugee contractor the International Rescue Committee: “In justifying its policy intention, the administration has pitted those seeking asylum against refugees.”

Mr. Pompeo said refugees had to be weighed against a backlog of 800,000 asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision by immigration authorities about whether they qualify as in need of protection under United States law and will be granted status to remain.

But he vastly overstated the numbers, while making a linkage between two groups of immigrants that are not the same and are processed differently.

As of the end of June, the Department of Homeland Security reported just under 320,000 people who had claimed asylum — meaning they had passed an interview conducted to verify that they met the “credible fear” threshold to be considered — and were awaiting a decision from the department about whether they could stay.

About 730,000 additional immigrants were waiting for their cases to be resolved by immigration courts, according to the Justice Department…

In other words Pompeo is saying that the Trump Administration is going to focus first on a huge backlog of asylum claims.

So what is this asylum issue?

Perhaps we haven’t talked about it enough over the years, but asylum is the other side of a two-sided coin for ‘refugee’ admissions to the US.

The cap we are talking about refers to the refugees who are found abroad, are accepted for admission and are flown here at taxpayers’ expense and turned over to one of the nine refugee resettlement contractors for care.

Asylum seekers are people who got to the US on their own dime and upon entering the country across a border illegally (or sometimes with a legal visa) they request asylum claiming they would be persecuted if returned home. They then go through a legal process to determine if their claims are legitimate or not. (Another can of worms involves the question of how many of those whose claims of asylum were rejected actually leave the country!)

If granted asylum they are called Asylees and are eligible for all of the social service goodies we give to the refugees we fly in. Therefore, US taxpayers’ generosity is not only to the smaller number of refugees we flew in, but potentially to tens of thousands more each year!

The asylum system here and in Europe has been massively scammed where worldwide millions are claiming asylum when in fact most are economic migrants or just plain crooks.

There are so many that they are overwhelming our legal system and that is why Sec. of State Pompeo says we are prioritizing—getting those hundreds of thousands processed.

(See Jim Simpson’s chart in this post to see how many had successful asylum claims for each of the last 10+ years. Total is over 266,000 since 2008!)

Refugee Industry thrilled with Asylum avenue to America!

In 2010 I attended the 30th anniversary celebration for the Refugee Act of 1980 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and was struck by the focus speakers were placing on the asylum process.

Doris Meissner 2 — At the Georgetown anniversary event, it was Doris Meissner (who apparently had a role in crafting the Refugee Act of 1980) who said with obvious pleasure: We only expected the odd Russian ballet dancer to use the asylum process, but now (yippee!) large numbers of migrants are using it!

They were downright giddy that so many migrants were now showing up at our borders seeking asylum. In fact, they seemed to be conscious of the fact that there were limits to the numbers they could get in to the US in the normal refugee admissions process even before Trump ever appeared on their radar screens.

In 2011, after seeing more stories about asylum seekers arriving at our borders from far flung places like Somalia, I wrote this post:

Is there a conspiracy by NGO’s to bring asylum seekers to US borders?

I said this at the time about the Georgetown shindig after calling for a Congressional investigation.

I was also struck at the conference by how much emphasis the pro-refugee, pro-open borders activists and speakers were placing on our asylum program. They wanted to educate more asylum lawyers and hire more asylum judges (apparently the refugee program itself wasn’t bringing immigrants in fast enough!). One speaker even said that the original idea behind the program was to rescue the odd ballet dancer seeking asylum from some repressive regime, but had now expanded to thousands every year.

You can read the whole post here, but the gist of it was that I believe the international open borders Leftists are actively involved in pushing migrants to first world countries’ borders (maybe even paying their way!) where, having been previously coached, they know how to ask for asylum. Of course that is exactly what we are seeing now here and in Europe.

By the way, check out the whole NYT story. The reporter says that Secretary of State Pompeo wanted to keep the CAP where it was at 45,000, but Stephen Miller in the White House pushed for an even lower ceiling.

See my post yesterday where I say it should have been ZERO!

Desperate to separate men from boys, Germany now pushing forward with new age test for asylum seekers

09/06/2018 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The news is in the science magazine Nature (thanks to reader James for sending it).

And, why are they getting desperate? Being registered as an asylum seeker under the age of 18 is a ticket to the good times in Europe and in the US! The great flood of “unaccompanied minors” across the world, many of whom are grown men claiming to be teens, is one of the greatest scams being perpetrated on ‘welcoming’ countries such as Germany.

But horrible murder cases, where the victim is a German woman (young or old!), has caused the heretofore complacent Germans to get out of their comfort zones and into the streets.

abdul D — Just this week Abdul D was sentenced to only 8 and 1/2 years in prison for the brutal murder of his German girlfriend Mia. When he entered Germany in 2016 he claimed asylum as a 14-year-old! Vlad Tepes blog has the whole sad story here: https://vladtepesblog.com/2018/02/21/germant-mias-killer-is-20-years-old/

Here is a bit of what Nature says:

European scientists seek ‘epigenetic clock’ to determine age of refugees

When local authorities in Hildesheim, Germany, didn’t believe an asylum seeker who claimed to be under 18 years old — and thus eligible for privileged treatment — police turned to a blood-based age test sold by a California company.

The test, offered by Zymo Research in Irvine, uses chemical modifications to DNA that accrue over a lifetime, called an ‘epigenetic clock’, to determine a person’s age. Forensic scientists — aware of its potential benefits but also of its current lack of precision — sounded an alarm.

In a paper published online1 in May, a team led by forensic-medicine specialist Stefanie Ritz-Timme of the University of Dusseldorf in Germany said that these tests were not ready for use in sensitive forensic evaluations.

But now, in the charged political atmosphere that has accompanied the arrival of millions of refugees to Europe, forensic scientists across the continent are joining forces to improve epigenetic-clock-based tests — with a focus on whether they might be used to help determine the age of refugees whose claims to be under 18 are disputed.

They hope that, with time, such tests could replace existing methods, which assess the maturity of bones or teeth to determine an individual’s age but are imprecise, and can be controversial.

“The race is now on to develop a more accurate clock that would be more predictive than the anatomical tests — and also more practical for use in forensic science,” says cell biologist Wolfgang Wagner at the University of Aachen, Germany. He has teamed up with other German forensic scientists to overcome these challenges, not only for the test’s use on refugees, but also for other forensic uses.

A call for sensitivity (really!)

Mia is dead and they are calling for sensitivity toward suspected liars?

The development of scientific methods that could feed into decisions about who is granted asylum and how refugees are treated are likely to elicit criticism, says Denise Syndercombe-Court, a forensic geneticist at King’s College London. She says that some scientists, herself included, are wary of these efforts.

But Niels Morling, a forensic geneticist at the University of Copenhagen who is running a national epigenetic-clock programme, defends the development of tests that are more accurate. Given that the law treats those under 18 very differently from adults, he says, then “you have a duty to make sure that it can be implemented fairly”.

[….]

Since 2014, Europe has received around 4 million refugees, many of whom arrived without identity documents. More than 1.5 million refugees have sought asylum in Germany, around one-third of whom are registered as minors. In Europe, minor status usually leads to better care and an increased chance of being granted asylum. Minors also have a higher chance than adults of gaining permission for family members to join them. And, if convicted of a crime, people under 18 usually receive shorter sentences — served in special prisons for juveniles.

Much more here.

I sure do hope we are using this test in America!

Go here for my complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ files.