Tag: Europe

Are We Testing Refugees Entering the US for Covid-19 Infection ?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments
Do you see that big red spot in the center of Africa? That is the DR Congo where the largest group of US-bound refugees have been coming from in recent years.

 

Since we are now blocking Europeans from entering the US, the logical next question is are refugees being blocked from entry, or are they at least being tested?

(By the way I recommend a great post today at Gatestone on the extent of the virus crisis in Europe.)

As of three days ago the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that so far there had been no cases of refugees being infected with Covid-19, but all that has changed as at least one refugee In Iraq and another on the Greek island of Lesbos are reported infected.  (And, I suspect we are not hearing the full story).

Here is the UNHCR on Tuesday:

“To date and based on available evidence, there have been no reports of COVID-19 infections among refugees and asylum seekers.”

But, just 48 hours later here comes news from Zerohedge about the first Iraqi camp resident testing positive.

Nightmare Scenario: Iraq Detects Suspected Covid-19 Cases In Overcrowded Refugee Camp

And, here is a story from The Guardian that was published only a day after the UNHCR spoke.  Lesbos is a Greek island overrun by Middle East refugees.

Lesbos coronavirus case sparks fears for refugee camp

I’m sure there will be more reports like these in the coming days and weeks.

In the US, the first question I’ve seen about whether refugees are being tested comes from Tennessee where the criticism against Republican Governor Bill Lee has been intense for his eagerness to welcome more impoverished (costly for taxpayers) refugees to the state.

From the Dailyrollcall.com:

Are Bill Lee’s Refugees Being Screened for Coronavirus?

Good question!

So dear Mr. President, are we testing refugees coming into the US since much of the world is now infected?

Editor’s note:  As RRW approaches its 13th birthday, there are over 10,000 posts archived here at Refugee Resettlement Watch. Unfortunately, it is just me here with no staff and so it has become virtually impossible to answer all of the basic questions that come into my e-mail inbox or to RRW’s facebook page every day. I don’t want to appear rude—I simply haven’t enough hours in the day.

Please take time to visit RRW (don’t just read posts in your e-mail) and use the search window in the right hand sidebar and see if you can find the information you need.  Also see my series that I wrote in recent months entitled Knowledge is Power which explains some basic principles of how Refugee Resettlement is carried out in the US.

And, lastly, I don’t write that much every day, so if you made a habit of reading my posts here on a daily basis, you would eventually catch on to what is happening because I do link back to previous posts as much as possible. LOL!  Thank you for helping me not go crazy!

While All Eyes Focused Elsewhere, Turkish Leader Renews Effort to Invade Europe with ‘Refugee’ Army

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 1 Comment

Invasion of Europe news….

Turkish President Recep Erdogan may have seen his opening as the world fixates on the spread of the coronavirus and American media can’t shut up about the lackluster Democrats and their campaign to defeat Donald Trump.

So, we follow the shiny objects the media has chosen for us as the next phase (will it be the final phase?) of the war on western civilization is unfolding at the Greek/Turkish border.

There is an excellent piece by Jared Peterson at American Thinker that explains how many European leaders are digging their graves because they don’t get it—Century after century, Islamic supremacist desires never rest.

 

I told you a week ago that it had begun….

Fighting the Muslim Re-Conquest of Europe on the Greece-Turkey Border

As Americans remain riveted to the corona virus and the nauseating vicissitudes of the Democrats’ battle to choose a presidential nominee — a choice now apparently winnowed down to the Marxist or the moron — this writer’s thoughts once again are drawn to events in Europe. The critical situation now unfolding day by day on the Greek-Turkish border may at first seem of minor concern to America, but in fact it’s a critical part of the overall struggle by patriots on both sides of the Atlantic to preserve Western Civilization.

The same forces working here to dissolve American civilization through mass migration and deliberately inculcated cultural self-loathing are busy in Europe pursuing the same goal by identical means. And the same traditional, patriotic segment of the population, guilty of the crime of loving their civilization and wanting to preserve it, resists cultural dissolution in both Europe and America. The commonality of the struggle is striking.

European patriots, however, face worse odds. Their governments are more ruthless in condemning patriotism and love of country (who knew those feelings made one a Nazi?), and Europeans’ history of submission to authority, and consequent ingrained passivity, make them less inclined to risk social condemnation to save themselves.

[….]

In 1683 Christian Armies defeated the Ottoman Turks at the Gates of Vienna saving Europe for Christendom.  The Polish winged Hussars led what is described as the largest cavalry battle in world history destroying the Muslim hordes led by Kara Mustafa. Erdogan has not forgotten.

Last Saturday, the futility of a purchased peace with Islamist governments was once again revealed with striking clarity: Recep Erdogan explicitly cancelled the 2016 agreement and announced that his government would no longer halt or hinder the estimated 3.5 million non-Turkish Muslims already living in Turkey, and the hundreds of thousands more migrants who will now enter Turkey across its eastern border, in their westward movement across Turkey into Europe, via Greece.

Little more than a week after Erdogan’s announcement, scenes of chaos and violence just short of war are unfolding on the Greek-Turkish border. In the ancient Greek province of Thrace, where Turkey’s European-side province is separated from Greece by the River Evros, Greek soldiers and police, behind fences and barbed wire, face off against would-be border crossers numbering, depending on source, anywhere from 13,000 to 30,000, to 75,000. The numbers of would-be invaders and violence increase daily.

[….]

German language alternative web sites report that the mobs at the Greek border have not had to engage in all that much “trekking” across Turkey, that unmarked buses headed west — as many 5-6 per hour — depart from migrant camps in eastern Turkey, and that Erdogan’s state railroad assists with transporting the invaders to the Greek/EU/Turkish border.

Clearly, this second 21st century Muslim invasion of Europe is Turkey’s child.

[….]

After the amazing governmental capitulation and public passivity in Germany during 2015, Erdogan is smart enough to perceive that now is his chance to dramatically advance through migration what Kara Mustafa failed to achieve in 1683 through direct military invasion: The gradual but relentless Islamization of Europe.

It is a long article, but take a few minutes to focus on something other than viruses and Democrats and read it !

My complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive is here.

 

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Middle East Migration: Could it Hasten the Spread of Covid-19?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to a report at The New Humanitarian, moving populations of people in conflict zones and where governments are weak are particularly vulnerable to a critical health crisis like the coronavirus.

Pakistan has closed its border with Iran

Of course, The New Humanitarian is most concerned with the refugees themselves and less concerned with the citizens of the countries where the migrants may end up.

Countries that seal their borders may be able to ward off the worst of a potential crisis.

I just told you in my previous post this morning, that Turkey is opening borders to allow ‘refugees’ to move through to Europe.

I wonder, is the US screening refugees and asylum seekers especially those from hotspots like China and Iran?

From The New Humanitarian:

How the coronavirus outbreak could hit refugees and migrants

A surge in coronavirus cases outside China has raised concerns the outbreak could be particularly devastating for vulnerable refugee and migrant populations in countries hobbled by conflict.

Over the last week, cases of the illness known as Covid-19 have escalated dramatically in Iran, and new infections linked to the cluster have emerged in more than half a dozen other countries in the region including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon.

 

Very cool interactive map! Go here to see it: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/map-watch-the-coronavirus-cases-spread-across-the-world/2303276/

 

At least 12 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) live between Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey – countries linked to Iran by either frequent travel, irregular migration routes, shared borders, or all three. Iran itself hosts nearly one million refugees, mostly from neighbouring Afghanistan, and an estimated 1.5 to two million undocumented people.

The effects of armed conflict “fragment the public health system and the infrastructure that enables governments to actively perform surveillance of diseases”, said Dr. Mohammed Jawad, a researcher at Imperial College London who studies the impact of conflict on public health.

Dr. Adam Coutts, a public health specialist at Cambridge University who focuses on the Middle East, said refugees are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus or other diseases, due to ”high geographical mobility, instability, living in overcrowded conditions, lack of sanitation and WASH (waters, sanitation and hygiene) facilities, and lack of access to decent healthcare or vaccination programmes in host communities”.

But refugee populations are often left out of disaster and epidemic preparedness planning at the best of times. And simply reaching marginalised refugees and migrants with information is also a challenge.

Politicians in Italy and Greece have already started using the spectre of asylum seekers and migrants carrying the virus across international borders to drum up support for hardline migration policies. But public health experts believe the real risk is to refugee and migrant communities themselves, who face instability, sporadic access to healthcare, and now the growing threat of stigmatisation.

Much more here.

This post is filed in my ‘health issues’ category along with 300 plus additional posts.

Note to PayPal donors!  I want to thank all of you who send me donations for my work via PayPal. I very much appreciate your thoughtfulness. However, PayPal is making changes to their terms of service and I’ve decided to opt-out beginning on March 10, 2020.

Europe: Landmark Case Confirms European Countries Can Stop Migrants Illegally Crossing Their Borders

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

Invasion of Europe news….

Too bad that this decision is at least ten years too late.  But maybe just in time.  Perhaps one of the primary driving forces that saw the UK vote to get out of the European Union was a desire to control their own borders.

And, when I say it might be just in time, when I saw this news from Gatestone this morning all I could think of was what the heck is Europe going to do if the Coronavirus spreads to Africa—will panic set in and will millions (more) try to make it to Europe where medical treatment would surely be better?

Here is Soeren Kern at Gatestone:

The case involved Africans breaking into Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish territory that joins Morocco.

Spain: European Court Approves Summary Deportations of Illegal Migrants

In a landmark decision that will have potentially seismic implications for immigration policy in Europe, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Spain acted lawfully when it summarily deported two migrants who illegally tried to enter Spanish territory.

Attempting to set foot on European soil, African migrants have been for years rushing the border fence between Morocco and Spanish territory.

The Strasbourg-based court — which has jurisdiction over 47 European countries, and whose rulings are binding on all 27 member states of the European Union — ruled that in order for migrants to benefit from certain human rights protections, such as access to lawyers, interpreters and the right to remain in Europe, they must first enter European territory in a legal, as opposed to an illegal, manner.

The ruling, which effectively authorizes European governments summarily to deport illegal migrants immediately at the border, transfers some decision-making powers on immigration back to European nation states.

The ruling is being viewed as a major victory for those who believe that sovereign nation states have the right to decide who is and is not allowed to enter their territory.

Continue reading here especially to see that the human rights industry is not happy.

Coronavirus as a driver of mass migration?

I’ve been thinking about this in recent days so this is a good time to mention it.  What happens if (when) the Coronavirus reaches Africa (beyond Egypt), will panic set in? Will there be a rush to find better medical care?

See where it is this week (and notice that it is not contained to only cold places of the world, since it is hot in Australia at the moment).

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-map-confirmed-cases-2020-n1120686

 

See my archive on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ that extends back for about a decade.

More Evidence Mark Steyn was Right: Europe is Going Down the Tubes

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 1 Comment

Invasion of Europe news….

Although it’s becoming a bit overused, there is no better phrase than ‘demography is destiny’ and Mark Steyn’s now famous book, ‘America Alone’, published twelve years ago next month, nailed it.

https://www.amazon.com/AMERICA-ALONE-End-World-Know/dp/1596985275

Taking a little break from wandering through the weeds of the US Refugee Admissions Program severely curtailed by President Trump’s policies that include a significant reduction in refugee admissions to the US, we see that the Migration Policy Institute (a leftwing Washington DC think tank) has opined that Europe will be picking up the slack left by the US under the Trump administration.

If Europe does indeed pick up that slack it will only hasten the basic premise of Steyn’s ‘America Alone’.

Can you see the day a few decades into the future when westerners will try to flee to America to escape the demographic hodge-podge (and economic decline) being created in the heart of the birthplace of western civilization?  I can.

From the Migration Policy Institute (promoting the accelerated demise of western civilization):

The Future of Refugee Resettlement: Made in Europe?

Europe’s refugee resettlement programs are at an inflection point. Since 2017, more than 40 percent of all refugees resettled globally through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have found new homes in Europe, a sharp uptick from the 8 percent share the continent represented a decade ago.This is the result both of the dramatic growth of resettlement capacity in Europe—places have more than doubled since 2014 as countries such as Croatia and Slovenia have begun resettlement operations—alongside the dramatic shrinking of the U.S. resettlement program under the Trump administration. Beyond the numbers, Europe has increasingly become the center of gravity for innovation in resettlement. Today, new ideas for how to grow and strengthen resettlement are born in Europe.

These developments mark a potentially important shift in agenda-setting power from what have been the “Big Three” resettlement programs (the United States, Canada, and Australia). As national and EU leaders consider a new European migration agenda this spring, they face a choice: to claim a leadership role in shaping the global resettlement space, or to fall into this position by default.  [Have at it Europe, set the agenda and leave the US alone—ed]

There is talk of “innovation” to get more migrants placed in Europe including using the Canadian model of private sponsorship that recently came under fire in a piece published in a Canadian policy magazine entitled: ‘The Cracks in our admired private refugee sponsorship program.’

It would be wise for European policy makers to see what is going wrong with the Canadian model before they pronounce it the greatest thing since sliced bread!  And watch for the private sponsorship theory to become a flavor of the month here too.

MPI continues:

A New European Stamp on Resettlement?

While Europe’s innovative turn was driven primarily by internal needs, with less attention to how these actions will influence the resettlement space beyond its borders, it may offer much needed and timely inspiration at the global level.

As resettlement countries globally seek to fulfill the commitments of UNHCR’s three-year resettlement strategy, adopted in June 2019 under the Global Compact for Refugees, resettlement programs must learn and evolve. They will need to prove themselves able to extend their processing and reception capacities to welcome greater numbers of refugees without sacrificing the quality of support they provide.

The US did not sign the Global Compact for Refugees, see here at the Center for Immigration Studies.  However, if any Dem wins the White House in November expect to see the US jump on lickety-split.

And they must find ways to address legitimate questions and concerns on the part of communities resettling refugees regarding how newcomers will be integrated. More than ever, it is European resettlement countries that are proving themselves to have the creativity and adaptability to address these challenges. As the availability of resettlement spaces on the global level continues to dwindle, due in large part to the deep cuts to resettlement commitments made by the United States, this energy and creativity will be needed more than ever.

[….]

Resettlement programs in Europe have advanced rapidly over the last decade. European countries now occupy a significant share of resettlement space globally and have developed a robust and innovative resettlement infrastructure.These programs have a great deal to offer in support of resettlement on the international level—if European leaders are willing and able to seize the opportunity.

Read it all here. And, kiss (much of) Europe as we knew it, good bye.

Can you see the consternation at the United Nations some day when it comes to white Europeans asking the UN to help them get into the US as refugees!

See my complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.