Tag: asylum seekers

Big lie! US detaining large numbers of asylum seekers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
23,000 Mexicans sought asylum in the US in first nine months of 2013 https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2013/10/25/more-than-23000-mexicans-sought-asylum-in-us-this-year-so-far/

One of many myths that the open borders crowd is trying to peddle is the notion that large numbers of poor persecuted asylum seekers are being locked up in American jails for years waiting for a court date for their asylum case.  Not true!

Just a reminder, there are two categories of “refugees.”  The term “refugee” is usually reserved for those largely designated by the UN around the world as in need of third country resettlement.  In other words, they have left their own country looking for refuge and the UN then determines they need to be sent to a Western country (or Australia/New Zealand).  The lions’ share of resettled refugees goes to the US.

Then there are the asylum seekers who get into the US on their own steam, either by overstaying a visa (tourist, foreign student etc.), or they come across a border by land, by sea, or by air and ask for asylum (usually after first being apprehended).  They are still illegal aliens!  If granted asylum, they become “refugees” for the purpose of getting taken care of through taxpayer funding, just like the refugees picked by the UN/US State Department.   Of course, as we know, a few states—-Maine for one—-give asylum seekers financial support even before they have been granted asylum/refugee status.

And, don’t forget we just learned that 70% or more of those granted asylum may be frauds!

The immigration lawyers, like those at the ACLU, are working overtime to make you think that large numbers of these asylum seekers are rotting away in American jails, but earlier this week, in one more story about Obama relaxing security screening for refugees and asylum seekers, comes this important bit of news!

Fox News:

Lawmakers, though, specifically cited a newly uncovered Immigration and Customs Enforcement document that showed thousands of asylum seekers were released while awaiting a decision. The document, obtained and reviewed by FoxNews.com, showed that in fiscal 2012, just 2,508 of the more than 24,000 asylum seekers were kept in custody.

[…..]

The ICE document showed that a total of 22,000 were released that year, though a few thousand were actually deported and a small percentage had their asylum requests granted. But thousands more were released on bond, released under supervision, or released under some other status. The document also indicates that officials may have lost track of some asylum seekers. Several hundred individuals are listed in a category that includes people who escaped.

Remember this number—20,000 and increasing each year are illegal aliens seeking asylum and are free to wander America and maybe show up for a court date.

Maine: Asylum seekers being lured to Lewiston, Mayor says STOP!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

More problems for Lewiston, Maine which became the Somali capital of New England more than ten years ago now (see Somali Migration to Maine: It’s the welfare magnet!)

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.

Secret internal government audit: at least 70% of asylum claims are fraudulent

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Poster boys for fraud in US asylum system—Boston Bomber Tsarnaev brothers!

Update February 13th:  CIS reported on the House hearing on asylum fraud, here, on Tuesday.

That is what the Washington Times reported this week here (hat tip:Erich):

At least 70 percent of asylum applications showed signs of fraud, according to a secret 2009 internal government audit that found many of those cases had been approved anyway.

The 2009 fraud assessment, obtained by the House Judiciary Committee and reviewed by The Washington Times, suggests a system open to abuse and exploitation at a time when the number of people applying for asylum in the U.S. has skyrocketed, particularly along the southwestern border.

Another report obtained by the committee suggests that the government isn’t detaining most of those who apply for asylum, including those awaiting a final judgment. [As we learned this week, lawyers like those at the ACLU, are working hard to keep more asylum seekers out of detention!—ed]

Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said the documents taint the credibility of the asylum system, which is designed to provide an outlet for foreigners who face real risks of being harmed if they remain in their home countries.

“Asylum fraud undermines the integrity of our immigration system and hurts U.S. taxpayers. Once individuals are granted asylum, they receive immediate access to all major federal welfare programs. Our immigration system should be generous to those persecuted around the globe, but we must also ensure our compassion isn’t being abused by those seeking to game the system,” Mr. Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, said in a statement to The Times.

“Because our immigration laws are so loosely enforced by the Obama administration, we should not be surprised to see so much fraud in the system,” he said. “President Obama’s continued refusal to enforce our laws on the books encourages more illegal immigration and invites fraud.”  [This asylum fraud was going on in the Bush years as well, the report says it looked at claims made in 2005!—ed]

[….]

The investigators said even the 70 percent combined fraud number may be low because some of the other 30 percent of cases had problems that weren’t detected.

The report was labeled “Draft” and apparently was never released.

There is more, read it all.

Checking some numbers!

Go to the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘Annual Flow Report’ for 2012.  Just a reminder, and one the Washington Times story mentions too, refugees are brought into the US through the US State Department, but asylum seekers ‘find their way’ to America on their own steam (they might be visa overstays, or illegal border crossers) who then ask for asylum and claim they have a “credible fear” of persecution if they go home.

In 2012 we brought 58,179 refugees to the US and there were 29,484 aliens granted asylum.  Assuming a 70% fraud rate, that means that 20,638 individuals lied or cheated and are now on the way to US citizenship.  And, in the meantime they are dipping into taxpayers’ wallets.

Sri Lankan illegal alien poster boys for critics of US asylum system

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Judy Rabinovitz, the men’s ACLU attorney, is concerned for the US taxpayer! Sure she is!

This story makes my blood boil, but not in the way the New York Times hopes it will.  Five Tamils (Sri Lankans, are they Tamil Tigers?) paid smugglers $55,000  each to get them to the US where they planned to apply for asylum.  Instead they were caught, placed in detention where they languish supposedly because we have a screwed- up asylum system.

First question of course is where did poor struggling ‘refugee’ fishermen get $55,000 each?  And, since we learned they traveled through Dubai, Moscow, Cuba and Haiti why didn’t they ask for asylum at their first stop, second stop, third stop?  Legitimate asylum seekers are to ask for asylum in the first safe country in which they land!   (Amazing that the reporter seems not at all interested in answers to these two important questions!)

Readers, this is not the first time we have read about the Moscow to Cuba route for illegal alien smugglers to get people to America!  And, it is just assumed in every report I have read that it is aok just to work one’s way across the world with the US as the target destination.  Some of them go from Cuba to Mexico and then across our land border.

Here is some of the story, but read all of it!  From the New York Times via NDTV (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

New York:  Five Sri Lankan men left hometowns reeling from the remnants of a ruthless civil war and embarked on a months-long human-smuggling journey that spanned seven countries.

They each paid $55,000 for a ride by air and sea to a fresh chance in the Americas. They were captured within hours of their arrival in South Florida and served as witnesses for the FBI in the investigation of their smugglers, cooperation that the men were led to believe would work in their favour as their cases made their way through immigration courts.

Three years later, they are still waiting for their cases to be resolved.

Captured in Florida:

The fisherman said that in Sri Lanka he was being extorted for money, received telephone death threats and was forced to quit his job with an opposition party. After contacting a wealthy smuggler known as Mohan, he left his wife and toddler and fled on a five-leg flight: Sri Lanka to Dubai to Moscow to Cuba to Haiti.

In Haiti, he met Mohan, and the other Tamil immigrants who would become his companions in a years-long court battle. They left Haiti for the Bahamas, then embarked for Florida on Dec. 5, 2010.

They were brought to a safe house, another Sri Lankan in the group, whose first initial is R., said in an interview at the Krome Service Processing Center, an immigration jail in Miami at the edge of the Everglades. He said they were given a warm meal, a hot bath, and an extortion demand for an additional $6,000 from each of them.

A few hours later, the FBI woke the men from their slumber.

Boo hoo!  They got the wrong immigration judge:

The men applied for political asylum, each with a personal story of the persecution they suffered as Tamils.   [likely a made-up story prepared before leaving home—ed]

Had their cases been heard one county south, said Ferreyra, the former federal prosecutor, their asylum claims would more likely have been accepted.

Are US immigration lawyers at the ACLU keeping them here for their own selfish reasons—as poster boys for their media/political goals?

“This just all shows how irrational and unjust the correctional immigration system is,” said Judy Rabinovitz, a lawyer for the men and the deputy director of the ACLU’s immigrant rights project. “How much have U.S. taxpayers paid to keep these people locked up?”

The men are torn between their lawyers’ insistence on fighting for asylum and their desire to go home, even if to a dangerous and uncertain future.

I agree with Rabinovitz on one thing—don’t keep them locked up at taxpayer expense!   Deport them sooner than later!

In the past we have written a good bit about Sri Lankans breaking into Canada, check out some of those posts here.

Israel: deceptive headline about African migrants

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Press conference January 22 in Tel Aviv
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/rights/last-days-freedom-african-migrants-israel

Here is the headline of a story about Israel’s problems with over 50,000 illegal African migrants in the country:

African Migrants In Israel Asked To Leave The Country — Or Report To A Detention Center

I thought, wow, they are getting serious.  The headline left me with the impression that they were rounding ’em up by the tens of thousands.

Then this:

This month alone 1,700 African asylum seekers living in Israeli cities were ordered to report to the Holot facility, according to the Jerusalem Post. But very few have done so.

So, how many showed up at the detention center?

Only 26 African migrants arrive at detention facility as 30-day deadline expires

Israel is also offering a payment of $3,500 for any economic migrant willing to leave the country.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

New readers:  See our category ‘Israel and refugees’ for more.