Tag: Mexico

Obama Administration immigration policy responsible for little girl’s death

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That, of course, is not the message the New York Times was trying to send (or maybe it was! I should give them come credit), but that is exactly why 12-year old Noemi Álvarez Quillay, an Ecuadoran “unaccompanied minor,” is dead.

Here is how the sad story from Saturday begins, thanks to ‘pungentpeppers’ for passing it along:

12-year-old Noemi hanged herself in a Mexican shelter for minors. She wanted to stay with her grandparents in Ecuador.

Noemi Álvarez Quillay took the first steps of the 6,500-mile journey to New York City from the southern highlands of Ecuador on Tuesday, Feb. 4, after darkness fell.

A bashful, studious girl, Noemi walked 10 minutes across dirt roads that cut through corn and potato fields, reaching the highway to Quito. She carried a small suitcase. Her grandfather Cipriano Quillay flagged down a bus and watched her board. She was 12.

From that moment, and through the remaining five weeks of her life, Noemi was in the company of strangers, including coyotes — human smugglers, hired by her parents in the Bronx to bring her to them. Her parents had come to the United States illegally and settled in New York when Noemi was a toddler.

Noemi was part of a human flood tide that has swelled since 2011: The United States resettlement agency expects to care for nine times as many unaccompanied migrant children in 2014 as it did three years ago. [Expected to be 60,000 this year!—ed]

Readers, we have written a lot lately about the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s program for ‘unaccompanied minors’ which serves as an enticement for families to attempt to send their children across our borders alone, or with the help of smugglers.  The US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services are both beneficiaries of government grants to help take care of the ‘kids’ once they get across the border.

Nomei’s parents left her with her grandparents when she was 3-years-old and the parents illegally went to the US as economic migrants, not refugees.  They recently got money together to hire a smuggler and insisted she join them in New York.  Read the article, she didn’t want to go!

A counselor interviewed by the NYT said this:

“Now we are seeing that the migrants are small children or teenagers whose parents are sending for them, running the risk of putting them in the hands of the coyotes to whom they pay 15, 20, 25 thousand dollars,” said Ms. Choglio, the guidance counselor.

Here, in my view, is the lesson from the whole sad story.  Nomei was not abused or subjected to violence, she was happy with her grandparents (they had raised her!):

The minors coming from Central America and Mexico are “propelled by violence, insecurity and abuse,” the United Nations high commissioner for refugees said in a report issued the day after Noemi’s death. The prospect of immigration reform in the United States is also enticing, Mr. Lopez said, because of the belief that anyone already in the country illegally will be allowed to stay.

That is why Nomei is dead.

Six Somalis headed to US arrested in Mexico

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Asha Omar (19) granted asylum in El Paso, Texas in 2010, tells the improbable tale that she “made her way” by herself to America with a stop in Cuba before reaching the Mexican border. http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_17039428

This is not a surprise.   The only surprise is that any major news outlet (Fox News) is reporting it.  We have long known that Somalis are among the OTMs (other than Mexicans) targeting the US border.   And, I have long suspected that some NGOs are quietly urging the asylum seeker ruse.  See our post from 2011 where we called for a Congressional investigation—3 years ahead of the House Republicans—about asylum fraud!

From Fox News Latino (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

Police found six Somali migrants who were abandoned in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas by the people traffickers they hired to smuggle them into the United States, officials said.

The men had been lost for eight days, the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

The Africans were found near the border with Guatemala and were dehydrated, the AG’s office said.

The migrants were provided with medical assistance, food and legal assistance.

[….]

“After being rescued, the migrants said they were abandoned upon entering Mexican territory by the traffickers who claimed to be taking them to the United States,” the AG’s office said.

Mexico is a safe country (Cuba as well!) and so therefore we expect these Somali aliens supposedly fearing al-Shabaab to ask for asylum there as international law demands.

Syrians, helped by Mexico, coming across the US border, seek asylum

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Asylum fraud is becoming the immigration crisis of the day and I believe historians will look back at this period as the tipping point—-America governed by soft leaders who allowed our great nation to be dragged into the third world through a complete breakdown of our borders.  Don’t let it happen.  Please speak up and inform your friends and neighbors about what is happening, and tell those jokes in Washington to grow a pair!

Immigration attorney: “In the next six months to a year, you will see even more Syrians crossing into the United States from Mexico.”  Photo: Sandy Huffaker for The Wall Street Journal

Here is the latest asylum (fraud!) news from reporter Miriam Jordan at the Wall Street Journal (emphasis is mine):

In 2012, after being imprisoned and beaten, a Syrian dissident named Mohammad fled to neighboring Lebanon, where he applied for and was denied a U.S. tourist visa. Intent on rebuilding his life with family in California, he flew to Mexico City and then Tijuana. There, he crossed the U.S. border illegally and handed himself over to a customs official, seeking asylum. 

Last month, the U.S. granted him that status. In a year, he will be eligible to apply for permanent U.S. residency.

With the three-year-old Syrian conflict raging on, and U.S. embassies in the Middle East increasingly denying tourist visas, more Syrians are arriving in Mexico on tourist visas and using the country as a gateway to possible U.S. asylum. A Mexican embassy spokesman “had no comment on this matter.”

Some say the phenomenon underscores the need for a more coordinated international response to the Syrian crisis, while others worry it may offer too easy a path to U.S. residence for potential terrorists, given al Qaeda’s rising presence in Syria.

The Department of Homeland Security in fiscal 2013 recorded 118 Syrian “credible-fear” referrals such as Mohammad’s, up from five in fiscal 2010. In these cases, migrants declare fear of harm if returned to their home country and may stay in the U.S. while pursuing asylum.

By the way, I came across this article last night blaming the government shut-down on the backlog of immigration court cases and not on the huge spike in asylum claims as illegal aliens increasingly come across our borders and ask for asylum.

Jordan continued:

At the beginning of the war, it was easier for Syrians to secure U.S. visas. [That explains this Muslim with the eight kids—ed]. Those who entered the U.S. in recent years with visas to study, work or tour also have been increasingly claiming asylum. In fiscal 2013, such applications numbered 1,335, up from 36 in 2010.But as the conflict has flared, the U.S. has denied a higher proportion of Syrian visa requests: 46% in fiscal 2013 compared with 28% three years earlier. Many don’t qualify because they can’t prove they will return home after visiting the U.S. Thus, hundreds of Syrians, including women and children, have begun to show up at the U.S.-Mexico border prepared to seek asylum.

There is more, read it all!

As we previously reported, only a tiny fraction of asylum seekers are detained, the vast majority are released into your towns and cities.

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.

When we first started writing RRW in 2007, it was all about the refugee resettlement side of the Refugee Act of 1980, but gradually over the years the open borders agitators have been working overtime to build up the asylum side of the law.  I noted the change here in January 2011 (three years ago!!!) when I looked back at the 30th anniversary “celebration” of the Refugee Act I had attended the previous year (where there was much giddy enthusiasm for the asylum process).   How did poor downtrodden Somali teens get halfway around the world and arrive at our Mexican border seeking asylum—who helps them, where did they get the money, I asked.  Who now is helping the Syrians?

House of Representatives holds hearing on flood in asylum claims at US border

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Brenda Walker at Limits to Growth alerted us to a hearing yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee about the latest scammers at the border saying they have a “credible fear of persecution” in Mexico and want to make an asylum claim.  I couldn’t listen in, but Walker did.

Here is Walker:

On Thursday morning, the House Judiciary Committee took up the subject of Asylum Abuse: Is it Overwhelming our Borders?

For Democrats and other friends of victimhood, providing an abundant welcome for the hard-luck cases of the planet is job #1. The Dems consider a cushy reception to be far more important than public safety from hostile characters, ranging from Mexicans claiming a “credible fear” (who may be cartel members) to head-choppy jihadists from around the Muslim world. The point is that more people are gaming the system because they are often successful, and there is no penalty for attempting asylum fraud.

See Limits to Growth for links to the hearing.

Then this (below) about Chairman Goodlatte (a Boehner*** buddy or he wouldn’t be a committee chairman!) who we all know is looking for a way to get the legalization of the lawbreakers moving in his committee.

(Walker) They aren’t breaking in so they can vote in our elections!

Of course, any “legal status” that allows the aliens to get work permits and be free of worry about deportation is all the invaders care about. They didn’t break into the United States so they could vote in our elections.

[….]

You have to listen carefully when lawyers speak. Goodlatte likes to say he objects to a “special pathway” to citizenship for foreign lawbreakers, but legalization is negotiable.

All of our previous posts on the Mexican asylum scam are archived here.

*** Boehner wants an amnesty, here.

House Judiciary Committee says hearings to be held this year on asylum abuse

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you a few months ago that there has been a dramatic jump in the number of asylum claims on our southern border with aliens claiming they were fleeing Mexican crime.  Our asylum system (established in the Refugee Act of 1980 and patterned after the 1951 UN Convention) was never designed to offer protection to people fleeing drug-related and other criminal activities from a country that has a functioning system of government such as Mexico.

Here is the announcement from the House Judiciary Committee, hat tip: Cathy.

And, go here for the Washington Times story yesterday (emphasis mine):

The House Judiciary Committee has begun looking at reports that Mexican drug cartel members are abusing the U.S. asylum system to bypass regular immigration checks and get into the country, where some are setting up smuggling operations and others engage in the same violent feuds that caused them to flee Mexico in the first place.

In one instance, a woman made a claim of asylum and three months later was apprehended at a Border Patrol checkpoint with more than $1 million in cocaine, according to a memo obtained by the committee that says criminal gangs are exploiting holes in the asylum system.

The memo, viewed by The Washington Times, also details cartel hit-squad members who won access to the U.S. after claiming they feared violence after they “fell out of grace” with their employers.

Claims more than doubled in the last year!

Homeland Security officials say they screen everyone who makes a credible fear claim and try to weed out those who don’t meet the standards, and try to detain those who do but also could be dangers to the community.

The asylum system has come under increasing scrutiny after reports that the number of people making “credible fear” asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border has more than doubled in the past year.

While case is pending, Obama administration favors release into society rather than detention!

Once an officer determines a “credible fear” of persecution or torture, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reviews the case to determine whether to detail [detain—ed] the individual pending a court hearing or whether to parole the person into the country on the admonition of returning for hearings.

“If an individual claiming asylum at the border is deemed to be a threat to public safety or national security, ICE has the authority to keep the individual in detention until their case is heard by an immigration judge,” Mr. Boogaard said. “Only a judge can determine asylum eligibility.

9% are actually granted asylum from Mexico (astounding, it should be near zero!).  91% “subject” to removal, but are they removed?

“On average, 91 percent of Mexican applicants seeking asylum following a determination that they have credible fear are denied. Individuals who are denied an asylum application are subject to removal from the United States,” he said.

Mr. Goodlatte, though, said the law requires most people who raise claims of “credible fear” to be put in mandatory detention. Parole is reserved for special medical emergency cases or humanitarian reasons, or when there is a specific public benefit to being released.

The Obama administration has taken an expansive view of the public benefit section, arguing that unless there is a demonstrable flight risk or apparent danger to the community, those seeking asylum should be released rather than held.

I want to know how many of those released ever show up for their court date!

There is more in the WT story, read it all here.

Searching RRW for ‘Mexico asylum’ here are all of our previous posts on the topic.

If S.744 (the Gang of Eight bill) should be signed into law, the definition of asylum will be expanded.