“It’s an absolutely brutal time to be arriving in America.”
(Ben Winsor, co-founder of Ads-Up a group that is helping them get settled)
A couple of those who arrived previously are infected with the Chinese virus and others have no jobs. So it makes sense that more are coming?
Sure why not! You can’t travel safely! You may be jobless. And, the virus is costing trillions of taxpayer dollars so what the heck, a few more mouths to feed shouldn’t matter, right!
Dozens of refugees flown from Australia and PNG to US despite coronavirus travel bans
Dozens of refugees who have spent years in Australia’s offshore processing regime have been flown to the United States for resettlement, despite COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Transfers from Papua New Guinea and Australian immigration detention centres under the US resettlement program are continuing as the US struggles to contain the pandemic that has killed more than 93,000 people there.
Thirty-five refugees departed Port Moresby on Thursday morning bound for the US via Singapore,and one refugee is due to fly to Finland, according to sources and documents obtained by SBS News.
A handful also departed Australia for the US this week, including several from the Kangaroo Point hotel being used as an “alternative place of detention” (APOD) in Brisbane and from community detention in Melbourne.
[….]
The men are due to arrive in Los Angeles and then be resettled in 18 cities across the US.
[….]
“It’s an absolutely brutal time to be arriving in America,” Ben Winsor, co-founder of Ads-Up, told SBS News.
“These guys are landing with barely more than the clothes on their backs and they’ll be looking for work alongside millions of recently unemployed Americans.
“Since COVID-19 hit, more than 100 refugees reached out to us for help, they’ve lost jobs and are struggling to pay rent and for basic supplies.
“Refugee resettlement agencies were already overstretched and providing only very basic support, now they’re at breaking point.”
Many of the refugees have underlying health conditions after years of detention and medical neglect on Manus Island and Nauru.
“Their condition puts them at higher risk from COVID-19,” Mr Winsor said.
“We are in daily contact with two refugees in Texas who have contracted COVID-19.”
[….]
In Senate estimates in March, the Home Affairs Department said 702 refugees had been resettled in the US under the agreement reached by then Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and US president Barack Obama in 2016. [Trump called it a “dumb deal” but went along with it!—ed]
Under the deal, up to 1,250 refugees who were in offshore processing on Manus Island and Nauru could be resettled in the US at its discretion after clearing “extreme vetting” procedures.
The department said a further 260 were approved but had not yet departed, and some were transferred to Australia under the now-repealed medevac laws for medical treatment.
Our government is interviewing more of Australia’s illegal aliens who will soon be on the way!
Yet, I haven’t heard one word recently about Australia’s part of that deal.They are supposed to take in refugees from Costa Rica and that begs the question, why are those refugees our problem?
In exchange for the US considering to resettle 1,250 refugees from Australia’s offshore camps, Australia has agreed to take refugees from US-run refugee camps in Costa Rica.
See my ever-expanding archive on the Australia dumb deal byclicking here.
The whole thing is maddening!
I wonder how many Australians were planning dream vacations to America or conversely how many Americans had been planning to travel to Australia for work or pleasure and have been forced to cancel their plans, yet, these unhealthy young men who tried to break into Australia are flown to the US and resettled on your dime!
And, as we learned in the SBSstory, no quarantine is required for them!
It is only 3, but their arrival tells us that all refugee resettlement to America has not stopped and that the Obama “dumb deal” to take Australia’s rejected asylum seekers who have been held in offshore detention for years is still on-going.
According to BuzzFeedreporter Hannah Ryan the three new arrivals went to Maryland, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.
The US, Struggling Under The Pressure Of The Coronavirus, Is Still Taking Refugees From Australia
Three refugees flew from immigration detention in Australia to start new lives in the United States this week, despite the coronavirus pandemic placing a chokehold on international resettlement.
Coming to a town near you! Trump called it a “dumb deal” but his Administration is carrying it out anyway.
The men, two from Sudan and one from Pakistan, jetted together from Melbourne through Qatar to the US, where they parted ways before reaching their final destinations of Tennessee, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The US took them under the refugee swap deal between the two countries.
The flights went ahead despite a global pause on refugee resettlements announced by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in mid-March. The US also suspended its refugee program because of the coronavirus on March 19, with the exception of emergency cases.
The ongoing operation of the resettlement program in the US leaves refugees in Australia and its offshore detention camps who have been accepted under the program with an invidious choice: to stay in detention, where many have been for the past seven years, or start a new life in the US as it is ravaged by a deadly pandemic.
The International Organization for Migration, a wing of the UN, announced refugee travel was being suspended. “This is a temporary measure that will be in place only for as long as it remains essential, ” said the IOM in a statement released yesterday.
I am still not seeing any official announcement from the US State Department and no commentary, so far, from the refugee contractors. See below that 69 new refugee arrivals were ‘welcomed’ to America since Monday.
IOM, UNHCR announce temporary suspension of resettlement travel for refugees
If you see the distinctive IOM blue bags at the airport, it is a sure sign of refugee arrivals. IOM arranges the plane tickets that you, taxpayers, pay for!
Geneva – As countries drastically reduce entry into their territories owing to the COVID-19 global health crisis, and restrictions around international air travel are introduced, travel arrangements for resettling refugees are currently subject to severe disruptions. Some States have also placed a hold on resettlement arrivals given their public health situation, which impacts on their capacity to receive newly resettled refugees.
Refugee families are being directly impacted by these quickly evolving regulations in the course of their travel, with some experiencing extensive delays while others have been stranded or separated from family members.
In addition, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and IOM, the International Organization for Migration, are concerned that international travel could increase the exposure of refugees to the virus.
As a result, IOM and UNHCR are taking steps to suspend resettlement departures for refugees. This is a temporary measure that will be in place only for as long as it remains essential.
[….]
Both agencies look forward to resuming full resettlement travel as soon as prudence and logistics permit.
I decided to check to see if we were still seeing refugee arrivals since I reported, here, that as of a week ago, there was not a slowdown.
Here are the numbers this morning at the Refugee Processing Center from Monday (the 13th) to this morning.
We had 69 arrivals, 62 of those from the DR Congo.
In 2013, Anne Richard, Obama’s head honcho for refugees, told then UNHCR that we would ‘welcome’ 50,000 impoverished Congolese to America.
Just to review, in 2013 the Obama Administration told the UNthat we we would take 50,000 needy people from the DR Congo over five years.
In 2020, we are at 60,880 and they are still coming in in large numbers.
In fact, since Trump took office we have admitted 32,000 from the DR Congo and distributed them throughout America.
Here is a map from the Refugee Processing Centershowing where 69 refugees were placed since Monday. 62 hailed from the DR Congo (including the 13 who went to Idaho and 21 of 22 who were placed in Texas).
In addition to the 62 from the DR Congo, 3 refugees arrived from Iraq, 2 from Eritrea and one each from India and Somalia.
These numbers do not include the Special Immigrant Visa holders arriving from Afghanistan and Iraq and treated like refugees. There is no daily breakdown that I know of for their arrival. Make note that since October 1, 2019 to yesterday we admitted 6,867 special refugees from Afghanistan and 152 from Iraq. Will check in a few days and see how the number changes.
I haven’t seen much news lately about the “dumb deal” that Obama made to admit over a thousand asylum seekers that Australia had been holding for years in offshore detention camps, until this story from Saturday.
Of course, even as President Trump described the deal as a “dumb” one, he went along with it supposedly with extreme vetting determining who we would admit and who we would reject.
This story from theBrisbane Times is mostly about how one Rohingya escaped the detention camp and ultimately made it to Canada where he was granted asylum.
There is a bit at the end updating readers on where the number being sent to your US towns and cities stands today.
‘Never heard of anything like this’: Advocates stunned by Manus escape
Toronto, Canada: Refugee advocates have described a Rohingya asylum seeker’s escape from Australia’s offshore processing centre on Manus Island, and successful resettlement in Canada, as unprecedented and extraordinary.
Jaivet Ealom, 27, has spoken publicly for the first time about his high-risk and secretive journey to freedom in a series of interviews with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Canada.
[….]
Political activist who used social media to pressure the Australian government, Iranian Behrouz Boochani, has permission to come to America as a refugee.
The department said 699 refugees have been resettled in America under the deal with the US government while another 26 have been resettled in other countries.
In November, Iranian asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani, author of the award-winning No Friend But the Mountains, travelled from PNG to New Zealand for a literary festival and overstayed his visa.
He said he had been offered resettlement in the US but was also open to resettlement in a third country.
Meet the Aussie Expats Fighting to Give Asylum Seekers A Fair Go
When entrepreneur and former fashion designer Fleur Wood heard that 1250 asylum seekers from Australia’s off-shore detention centres were being resettled in the US, she was struck with empathy.
It was 2016 and the men, women and children who had spent years languishing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island would now be transferred to a country on the other side of the world as part of a deal between the Australian government and the Obama administration. After so much uncertainty and despair, this was their chance to start over – but not without enormous challenges.
[….]
Wood began building a network of Australians living in the US who were keen to help out, and in 2018 she co-founded the not-for-profit Ads-Up (Aussie Diaspora Steps Up) with fellow Australian Ben Winsor.
Their aim was to do what the Australian government would not: provide a social network and financial assistance to help refugees begin their lives in a new country.
[….]
For volunteers, connecting with refugees provides a chance to make amends in some small way for Australia’s inhumane treatment of asylum seekers. Says Wood, “Regardless of where you stand on the immigration issue, or whether you think these people should be allowed into Australia, you can’t deny the incredible human rights violations that they have suffered.”
The Australian government doesn’t provide regular information about Nauru and Manus Island, but according to the Refugee Council of Australia, 632 people have been resettled in the US.
[….]
Last June, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said the target of resettling 1250 refugees wouldn’t be met, hindering the Coalition’s goal of closing down the detention centres. US President Donald Trump was also famously scathing of the deal.
But Trump went along with the deal for over 600 detainees (so far) that Australia would not allow on its own soil. 600 plus is just as “dumb” as 1,250 in my view.
The practice of taking another (safe) country’s rejects is outside the normal accepted international resettlement procedure and should never have been encouraged.
In a story about Indiana’s Pete Buttigieg, Vox News reports that he has released his immigration plan which includes a huge jump in refugee numbers that consequently will make the nine refugee resettlement contractors*** wealthier than they have been in their entire history.
Buttigieg’s refugee welcome numbers will put the old man’s (Obama’s) to shame!
Contrary to popular opinion, Obama admitted no where near the numbers the Dems are proposing.
He averaged just under 70,000 for his entire 8 years in office. See here.
A couple of those years were in the 50,000s!
These numbers being proposed by leading Democrat candidates will put Obama to shame.
And, as I have said repeatedly Open Borders Inc. will claim they need to be this high or higher to ‘MAKE UP FOR WHAT THEY WILL DUB THE LOST TRUMP YEARS.’
It isimperative that President Trump is re-elected and then in his second term he must work to dump the entire UN/US Refugee Admissions Program as originally crafted by Senators Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and President Jimmy Carter.
Pete Buttigieg’s immigration plan rebukes Trump and calls for an overhaul of the system
Buttigieg’s plan aims to reverse various Trump policies: his travel ban on individuals from seven countries deemed to be security threats, the practice of family separations, and his cap on annual refugee admissions (to a historic low of 18,000), as well as the practice of keeping migrants trapped in Mexican border towns while they wait for decisions on their asylum applications.
Warren wants 175,000 needy third worlders (future Democrat voters!) admitted to the US as refugees by the end of her first term in office.
He proposes to raise the cap on annual refugee admissions to 125,000 during his first year in office, and says he supports legislation that would set an annual floor of 95,000 admissions.That’s on par with what Biden and Warren have proposed (though Warren has pledged to raise the cap to 175,000 by the end of her first term.) Sanders, by contrast, has vowed to increase the cap, but hasn’t specified a number.
By the way, the reason they are pushing the idea of legislatively setting an annual floor is to make the contractors happy because it will assure them job security from year to year (their income depends on numbers) in the event the country elects another President like Donald Trump.
And just so you don’t forget: ol’ Uncle Joe worked with Teddy to craft this original flawed program back in 1979. Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act into law in 1980. And, to show what a hypocrite Biden is, his home state of Delaware takes only a handful of refugees annually. Some years it has taken a big fat zero!
I laughed when I saw that ‘Creeping Sharia’ recently tweeted out this video I did a few years back and made a slight change!
The secretive and corrupt Refugee Admissions program that continues to fundamentally change America by resettling so-called "refugees" in small towns and cities was the brainchild of former senators Ted Kennedy and @JoeBidenhttps://t.co/mPU5zwDT4G
***For new readers these (below) are the nine federally-funded refugee contractors that monopolize all refugee placement in America. For decades they have decidedin secrecy where to place refugees and they don’t want to lose that power because even as they pontificate about their religious convictions and humanitarian zeal, they are Leftwing political activist groups working to change America by changing the people and using your money to do it!
And, they do not limit their advocacy toward only legal immigration programs, but are heavily involved in supporting the lawlessness at our borders.
The question isn’t as much about refugees per se, but about who is running federal immigration policy now and into the future?
I continue to argue that these nine contractors are the heart of America’s Open Borders movement and thus there can never be long-lasting reform of US immigration policy when these nine un-elected phony non-profits are paid by the taxpayersto work as community organizers pushing an open borders agenda.
