Editor: I hope you had a great day giving thanks with loved ones yesterday.
Much to my surprise the post I wrote on the day before Thanksgiving about 88 mayors demanding more refugees went off-the-charts viral, so if you didn’t see it, check it out.
And, thank you dear readers for continuing to follow RRW and special thanks to the donations from many of you that have made it possible for Refugee Resettlement Watch’s renewed presenceon the internet.
On a trip to Japan a few days ago Pope Francis learned first hand that Japan steadfastly maintains that it wants to keep its unique language and culture and not become a multiculty polyglot nation as so many European nations have become.
Pope’s message of openness to refugees prompts backlash in Japan
TOKYO – A visit to Japan by Pope Francis and his dream of a nuclear-free world drew largely positive headlines this week in Japan. But when he tried to gently encourage the Japanese to extend a hand of friendship to refugees, the backlash on social media was significant.
Japan has some of the toughest policies toward refugees and asylum seekers among the world’s richest nations, and a reputation for being relatively closed toward outsiders.
The pope’s effort to preach a more accepting message was not universally accepted.
[….]
The story was one of the most read on the TV Asahi website on Tuesday and Wednesday and tweets with the words “accept refugees” were trending.
But the response seemed more negative than positive.
“Do that first in the Vatican,” tweeted @Ryounagasugi7, a tweet liked by 14,600 people and retweeted 4,700 times.
[….]
“I am sorry. We’ve seen how European countries have failed terribly. Even so, do you still say that? First of all, we are not a country where Christians are dominant. Would you please ask other ‘Christian countries’? Such as America, or America, or America,” tweeted @no_problem666.
Response by a bunch of No Borders activists: Shut down the refugee-phobia on Twitter!
After seeing the flood of negative comments, a group of volunteers who support asylum seekers detained at a facility in Ushiku north of Tokyo called on Twitter to act.
“Tweets that would inflame refugee-phobia, xenophobia are growing, @TwitterJP should deal with it as its own platform has been used to inflame xenophobia,” they wrote on their account @freeushiku.
Citing Japan, Israel and Denmark, Ann Coulter muses, hereat The Hill about why some countries aren’t being widely blasted as “racist” for not welcoming masses of Middle Easterners and Africans to their tiny bits of the world.
But, we are expected to open the flood gates to America!
Ann Coulter: Can’t America have a little self-respect on immigration?
Couldn’t America have a little self-respect? Japan, Denmark and Israel do.
A must read!
Year after year, for decades, America has accepted more refugees than the rest of the world combined. No country we admire does anything close to this.
Score one for Donald Trump: In 2017, after he became president, our refugee admissions finally dipped slightly below “more than every other country in the world combined.” Go USA!
These aren’t immigrants the host country specifically wanted. We’re not saying, “You know, this country could use some people who know how to restore 17th-century woodwork” or “Wow, this guy and his wife are both neurosurgeons!” Refugee admissions to America are so reckless that this country has taken in Iraqis who deployed IEDs against our own troops and, in at least one case, one of the perpetrators — not victims — of the Rwandan genocide.
[….]
The New York Timesexplained Japan’s highly restrictive immigration policies as proceeding from “a desire to preserve their culture, a goal echoed by some conservative groups in the United States.” (Duh.)
And National Geographic clarified that Japan’s policy was simply a matter of the Japanese preferring “a racially unique and homogenous society.”
Luckily for the Japanese, they aren’t white, so this utterly logical, natural position on immigration didn’t trigger “white nationalist” alarm bells in our mainstream media.
I’m delighted to be able to say, see all of my posts going back nearly a dozen years on Japan,IsraelandDenmark.
You will learn that those three countries do get a lot of criticism for their restrictive refugee policies, but mostly from the international Leftists and the UN.
Endnote: If you are a new reader see ‘About’at the top of the page!
Japan will consider accepting more Asian refugees from 2020, with an eye to doubling the current annual ceiling of about 30 to strengthen its response to regional humanitarian needs, government sources said Monday.
The government will review its current policy of receiving refugees only from Myanmar under the third-country resettlement program led by the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, while promoting their settlement not only in Tokyo and surrounding areas but in other parts of the country, according to the sources.
Every year the UN High Commissioner for Refugees goes to Japan to nag them about resettling refugees.
Tokyo is expected to convey the idea to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, who is scheduled to visit Japan from Wednesday, the sources said.
Rohingya! For years I’ve been reporting that Japan was being sensible and saving itself from turmoil by not admitting Muslim refugees. Oh well.
Since 2010 under the third-country resettlement program, Japan has accepted a total of 174 Myanmar refugees, or 44 families, including some Rohingya Muslims from the western Rakhine State who had been persecuted and moved to neighboring Thailand and Malaysia.
Japan is known for its tight immigration policy. In 2017, the country accepted only 20 of about 20,000 people who applied for refugee status and allowed 45 to stay in the country on humanitarian grounds, according to the Justice Ministry.
Security concerns, yes. But, will their desire for cheap labor cause them to throw caution to the wind?
But some members of the LDP division expressed caution over the new status, pointing to a possible deterioration in public safety resulting from an increase in the number of foreigners in the country.
Shigeharu Aoyama, an Upper House member, said he absolutely opposes the law revision, stressing that the employment of Japanese people should be increased first to solve the nation’s labor shortages. One participant called for the division to spend sufficient time examining the legislation.
They plan to spread the new migrants out to the rural areas of the country.
Invasion of Europe news…. Members of German Special Forces in Muenster yesterday. Still no official report on the deadly attack. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/muenster-attack-several-dead-after-car-drives-into-crowd-in-germany-a3808266.html
I bet Japan Timesis eager to show the citizens of Japan what a mess one’s country becomes when the migrant tide is invited in!
From Japan Times:
BERLIN – A scuffle over immigration has marred the first weeks in office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fourth coalition, promising anything but smooth sailing in the years ahead for the loveless left-right alliance.
Conservatives among Merkel’s Christian Democrats are keen to restrict as heavily as possible so-called family reunifications that would allow some of the million-plus migrants and refugees who have arrived since 2015 to bring in relatives.
That has stirred the ire of Social Democrats (SPD), the reluctant junior partners who helped Merkel into office to end the longest period of post-election limbo in post-World War II German history.
A thousand a month! Chancellor Merkel and Interior Minister Seehofer
Japan Timescontinues…..
In their painstakingly negotiated coalition deal, the parties agreed that up to 1,000 people per month could enter Germany under family reunification, with only immediate relatives eligible.
New Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is eager to tighten the screws further, with a draft law that would prevent people dependent on social benefits from bringing in family members and further restrict which relations are eligible, including ruling out siblings.
Now that is an idea! The US should be doing that too! If the family already here is on welfare, they can’t bring other family members over. Gee, I bet that is already a law we don’t follow!
Many people who arrived in Germany as refugees are yet to join the labor market, undergoing job training or language classes, and would therefore not qualify.
Seehofer is a former leader of the ultra-conservative CSU, the smaller Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s more centrist CDU.
[….]
“If the Social Democrats don’t cooperate, the ‘grand coalition’ would be over” less than a month after Merkel was sworn in, deputy leader of the conservative parliamentary group Georg Nuesslein told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.
The family reunification row is just one front in a broader battle over immigration, integration and Islam in German society that has pitted the SPD against the CDU/CSU.
Seehofer is also keen to speed up expulsions of people whose asylum applications are refused, many of whom spend months or years contesting the decisions in the courts or acquire a “tolerated” residence status.
The twin issues of asylum abuse and family reunification are also key elements in the US debate over our southern border.
Can’t lose with the issue of more law and order!
Health Minister Jens Spahn, a rising star of the CDU’s right wing seen as a potential future candidate for the chancellorship, has spent his first weeks in office giving interviews urging more “law and order” in troubled city districts.
Continue reading the story at Japan Times, here.
Japanese readers must be asking: Why would any sane government act to destroy its own country and culture?
See my Germany archive here. And, new readers might like to know that Japan doesn’t want to open its doors to the third world, here.
And, for those with a lot of time, see my archive on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ by clicking here.
Japan is one of the few countries in the world steadfastly attempting to maintain its “cultural and ethnic homogeneity” in the face of mounting pressure to open its borders.
See my posts over the yearsas western mainstream media, the United Nations, and international communists and open borders agitators regularly criticize Japan’s wish to save itself (just as they are now doing the same to Hungary and Poland).
Have you noticed that there are no Islamic terror attacks in Japan?
TOKYO (Reuters) – Two Syrian asylum seekers on Tuesday lost a bid to overturn a government decision to deny them refugee status, in the first such lawsuit in Japan since civil war erupted in the Middle Eastern state in 2011.
The Tokyo District Court upheld a government ruling made five years ago, that the pair’s bid for asylum was not admissible under international refugee law.
“The world understands the Syrian situation – it’s getting worse. But the Japanese court hasn’t understood that at all,” one of the plaintiffs, Joude Youssef, told a news conference. [The nerve! So Middle Eastern countries can’t stop fighting among themselves and that is Japan’s problem!—ed]
Speaking in Arabic through a Japanese interpreter, Youssef said he planned to appeal the court’s decision.
The second asylum seeker was not at the news conference.
Lawyers said Youssef had the right to stay in Japan, under a humanitarian status that allows residency but not full refugee rights. It was not clear if the second plaintiff would appeal.
Notice how the Reutersreporter can’t help but throw in this next bit about worker shortages and an aging population implying that the Japanese are stupid and should be inviting in the third world workers (who would of course change Japan forever!).
Immigration and asylum are sensitive subjects in Japan, where many pride themselves on cultural and ethnic homogeneity even amid a shrinking population and the worst labor shortage since the 1970s.
Youssef, a Kurd from the north of Syria, had applied for asylum in Japan in 2012, after saying he was persecuted for organizing pro-democracy demonstrations.
The Japanese government rejected the claim a year later, saying he lacked proof of his involvement in protests in Syria.
The second plaintiff had claimed asylum after refusing military service in Syria. [Think about this, because he refused military service in Syria he expects Japan to take care of him!—ed]
Although a major donor to international aid organizations, Japan has remained reluctant to take in refugees.
It accepted only 20 last year, with a record 19,628 people applying for asylum.
