San Diego: Unfair says Syrian refugee that her brothers can’t come to US from Saudi Arabia

10/07/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

What is wrong with this sob story?

This Syrian family and the brothers left behind were in Saudi Arabia (one of the brothers had already emigrated to S.A.). Saudi Arabia is a safe country! Therefore, why are these people now the responsibility of the US taxpayer? They weren’t living in some sqaulid camp.

They were in arguably the richest country in the Middle East!

SA tent city — So tell us again why Saudi Arabia couldn’t house millions of Muslim refugees in their tent cities reserved for the brief Hajj period? Instead we are taking Syrian ‘refugees’ from S.A.!

From the San Diego Union-Tribune.

It is worth reading the whole article because there are lots of useful nuggets and some important comments by critics of the program (besides the story of a Syrian family that came to the US as ‘refugees’ from Saudi Arabia!)

By the way, I’m sure many of you are saying—yes! If we must have them, keep them in California!

Even though overall arrival numbers in fiscal 2017 dropped by more than half from the previous year, San Diego County continued its legacy as the California county that took in the most refugees.

In a year that began with a promise of more refugees than ever before coming to the U.S. and ended with an ongoing court battle over how many and whom the president could block from coming, about 1,500 refugees resettled in San Diego County, according to data from the State Department. That’s down from just over 3,100 the year before, and it’s the only time that number has dipped below 2,000 in the last decade.

“The fact that we remained the largest county, it definitely makes us proud to continue the tradition of San Diego being a safe haven,” said Etleva Bejko, director of refugee and immigration services for Jewish Family Service, a resettlement agency.

Where refugees resettle once the U.S. agrees to take them is a complicated decision-making process that factors in whether they already have family living here, which agencies have the bandwidth to support them and which places have infrastructure in place to help them succeed. That often means that places like San Diego that already have large populations of people from a country will continue to take refugees from that country. [Multiplier effect! Like Ft. Wayne in my previous post—ed]

San Diego County has been known for leading the state in refugee arrivals since large numbers of Iraqis fleeing war began arriving in late summer of 2007.

Confirmation again! Federal resettlement contractors paid by the head!

Bejko said her organization has had to reorganize support efforts because of the overall decreases in arrivals. Resettlement agencies receive funding based on the number of refugees that they help.

[….]

Three members of the Tarakji family, originally from Damascus, Syria, were some of the few who made it to the U.S. after the travel ban. The slowdown in accepting refugees has separated them from two other members of their family.

Catholic Charities resettled mother Alshifaa Hammoush, 52, father Manaf Tarakji, 58, and daughter Maria Tarakji, 21, in April. Two sons, Yasser Tarakji, 29, and Yaman Tarakji, 27, remain in Saudi Arabia.

They had already been trying to immigrate to the U.S. to reunite with their extended family who live in San Diego County when the war in Syria broke out. [They hit the jackpot because the refugee category is the most desirable way to get into the country. They get their hands held by a federal contractor who helps them get all of their welfare (not available to other categories of legal immigrant)!—ed]

After bombing destroyed the pharmacy where Hammoush worked and scared off Manf Tarakji’s clients for his electronics repair business, and a car exploded outside their building, the family fled in 2013 to Saudi Arabia, where the oldest son was already living and working.

Once in Saudi Arabia, they couldn’t continue the process to get family-sponsored green cards.

They stayed there in limbo, unable to fully establish new lives because they were on visitor visas that they had to renew every three months, until they were accepted as refugees to the U.S. Yaman Tarakji was separated into his own refugee case because of his age, and he is still waiting for processing.

The oldest brother, Yasser Tarakji also tried to apply but never heard back from the U.N. agency that registers refugees.

[….]

Still, separation from the two sons is painful for all of them. Whenever Maria Tarakji looks at photos from their last day together in Saudi Arabia, her eyes wet with tears.

“The U.S. was accepting refugees forever. It’s unfair to do this now,” Maria Tarakji said. “It’s really hard to live here, and our brother is not here.”

She said she’s had to take responsibility for tasks that her brothers used to handle, like choosing an internet router.

Both brothers work in computer programming and repair.

Continue reading here.

See my San Diego archive here. It wasn’t too long ago that we reported that the IRC there was involved in some housing fraud controversy.

VOA: Deportations of Africans up in 2016; very cool data base

05/22/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You’ve been hearing the news here and at other news outlets about the stepped-up deportations of Somalis back to their homeland. Many failed asylum seekers are in the mix.
Asylum, for new readers, is, in a way, the other side of the same refugee coin. Either ‘refugees’ are chosen abroad (usually by the UN these days) and are flown to your towns after supposedly proving that they are persecuted people, or one gets in to the US either illegally or through some temporary legal way and then applies for asylum.

It is difficult (impossible I think) to find photos of Somalis being deported from the US, but there are an unending supply of the Saudi deportations in 2014. Saudi Arabia deported as many as 12,000 Somalis that year. I wonder did Trump ask the Saudis why they don’t take any refugees, including their fellow Muslims?

When the wannabe ‘refugee’ cannot prove his or her case—that they will be persecuted if sent home—then they are supposed to go home!
Conversely, if granted asylum, the migrant is then given all the rights of a ‘refugee’ who was chosen abroad and flown here and will be put on track for US citizenship.
Now, under the Trump Administration, more of those who failed in their asylum bid are being found, detained and sent home.
By the way, this up-tick in deportations is news that should be sent far and wide so as to discourage even more illegal entry and flimsy asylum claims that clog up the courts.
DHS should actually promote an ad campaign around the world trumpeting the news of stepped-up deportations!
Here is Voice of America on the news about Africans, but more importantly I learned about a new and very cool data base.

The United States has expelled about 326 Somali nationals since January.

That number is greater than the total for all Somalis expelled from the country in 2016.

This is the third consecutive year in which the number of Somalis deported by the U.S. government has risen. The rising numbers have increased immigrants’ fears of raids, detentions and deportations.

The deportations of Somali citizens appear to be part of a larger movement, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse*** at Syracuse University. It found that in the first three months of 2017, the U.S. government ordered the deportation of more than 1,200 Africans. Citizens of Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia and Kenya have received the most removal orders.

Recent deportation orders are undoing a ten-year-long trend.

From 2006 to 2016, the number of Africans deported every year fell from 2,100 to about 1,000. If the trend continues, four times more Africans will be deported by the end of this year than during 2016.

Continue reading here.
***Now check out the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse!
Here is one page that I screenshot to show you what interesting stuff is archived there.
On this page we see that there were 19 deportations for reasons of national security in fiscal year 2017 (that fiscal year began on October 1, 2016). You can learn in what states and what courts those cases came from and the nationality of the person to be deported. From this screenshot page, we note that there was one, an Iraqi, ordered by the court in Detroit to be removed.

This post is filed in our ‘Where to find information’ category.
You can watch that 2014 video about Saudi deportations here: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Saudi+arabia+deports+Somalis&view=detail&mid=6490B0418567061F00636490B0418567061F0063&FORM=VIRE

The nerve! UN Secretary General goes to Saudi Arabia and says "Islamophobia" to blame for world's worst violence

02/18/2017 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Guterres is a perfect example of the unholy alliance between the secular Marxist left and the Islamists.”

(John Guandolo)

screenshot-305 — Saudi Arabia welcomes NO refugees, even those who are Muslim.

Newly selected UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, went to a Muslim country that refuses to resettle Muslim refugees—Saudi Arabia—and said infidels are killed because they are instigating Islamic violence by practicing free speech!

From Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily. Hohmann quotes Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, John Guandolo, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Phil Haney and me in his analysis of Guterres outrageous comments to the Saudi king:

The United Nations — under a new leader who personally oversaw the relocation of millions of Muslim refugees into the U.S., Canada and Europe — is doubling down on its “anti-Islamophobia” campaign against the West.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, a Portuguese socialist who headed the U.N’s refugee agency before being promoted to secretary general in January, traveled to Saudi Arabia this week where he sat with Saudi royals and cited “Islamophobia” as the reason for increasing terrorism around the world.

guterres-evil — Guterres is the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees responsible for directing thousands of Muslim refugees to your towns.

“One of the things that fuel terrorism is the expression in some parts of the world of Islamophobic feelings and Islamophobic policies and Islamophobic hate speeches,” Guterres said at a joint news conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. [You know he is aiming these comments at Donald Trump! If we have another deadly terrorist attack he is setting it up for the world to blame Trump!—ed]

Echoing the comments of Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign, Guterres said Islamophobia actually helps the Islamic State or ISIS to attract new recruits.

But the way others see it, Guterres just gave a free pass to Islamic extremists to commit acts of terror throughout the world.

michele-bachmann — Former Rep. Michele Bachmann calls UN Sec. General the “jihadist’s advocate.” If you have forgotten, Senator John McCain attempted to destroy Bachmann in 2012 when she charged that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the Obama Administration. Today McCain is working to destroy President Trump. McCain is either senile or bought, in my opinion.

It’s a lot like blaming the victim, says Phillip Haney, an Islam specialist who worked for more than a decade at Homeland Security screening immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

“So Mr. Guterres is telling you that Islamophobia is such a great crime that you will be killed for it and terrorists will rise up because of this and it will be your fault,” Haney told WND.

“Why? Because you are an Islamophobe. It’s your fault that they’re killing you,” he said. “What’s he saying if that’s not what he’s saying?”

[….]

“No other religion enjoys such protection from criticism,” Bachmann said. “Ironically, no other religion in current times has advanced more violence, carnage and bloodshed than Islam and yet Islam’s gatekeepers demand their religion not be criticized.

“We need to recognize this is nothing more than a well-designed strategy to achieve Islamic conquest and the U.N. Secretary General is now the jihadist’s advocate.”

[….]

Guandolo said Guterres is a perfect example of the unholy alliance between the secular Marxist left and the Islamists.

I’ve only snipped a small amount of a detailed report, please go here to read it all.
See my Guterres archive here and don’t miss this 2009 post where Guterres credits Islam and Sharia Law for creating the idea of welcoming people who are persecuted.

Tell President Donald Trump to get us out of the United Nations! Click here.

The truth is that Gulf Arab States do not resettle refugees (even Muslim ones)! US expected to take them PERMANENTLY

09/21/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of the top posts for the month so far was this one: Why should the US and Europe take Syrian refugees while the Gulf Arab States take ZERO?
And, since stories like those at Breitbart flew around the world, the Gulf Arab states have had to defend the charges by claiming they do ‘welcome’ Syrians to live in their wealthy countries—-as guest workers!

Refugees become permanent citizens, guest workers do not!

Readers, it is really important that you understand what is happening when the UN High Commissioner for Refugees puts demands on Western countries throughout Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand—it is telling us that we must PERMANENTLY resettle the ‘refugees’ with no expectation that they will ever go home even if the civil war in Syria ended next month!
The refugees we take in eventually become naturalized (voting!) citizens. Not so for those Muslim guest workers going to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East.
I think many Americans, who haven’t followed this complex issue, do not understand this concept. Most assume that the ‘refugees’ will go home someday! Paul Nachman, writing at VDARE, addressed this issue here last week.
This is a really good explanation from Deborah Amos at National Public Radio:

As the numbers mount, with Europe overwhelmed, the blame game has begun. Why don’t the richest Gulf Arab states — the diplomatic and financial sponsors of Syria’s rebel groups — resettle these desperate refugees?

RandaSlim_hiRes — Randa Slim, associated with the Rockefeller Bros. Fund AND The New America Foundation, two of those huge advocacy groups promoting more refugee resettlement to America says of the Gulf States: They can’t afford to bring in the Syrians because they “will bring their fight with them.” And, she says, they “can’t afford to do this.” But we can? See Slim’s bio here: http://www.mei.edu/profile/randa-slim

Even Gulf Arab citizens are raising the question: #ShameOnArabRulers is trending on Middle Eastern Twitter accounts.

[….]

Gulf officials are on the defensive and have been forced to address the issue publicly.

[….]

The Saudi Foreign Ministry challenged the charges by issuing official numbers that are impossible to verify independently, saying “the Kingdom has received around 2.5 million Syrians since the beginning of the conflict.”

[….]

While it’s true that the Gulf States have allowed thousands of Syrians to come on work visas, many Syrians say they face severe restrictions in these countries. Some have decided they would rather risk the difficult road to Europe.

“I will live here for five years, ten years, and then what?” says Dahlia, a Syrian who fled her home in Aleppo and joined relatives in the Gulf city-state of Dubai. “You never belong, you never feel you are safe, your residency can be canceled at any time and then what? Go where?”

Citizenship is not an option, even for workers who stay for decades.

[….]

The fact is that Gulf countries don’t accept refugees for resettlement because none of their governments officially recognize the legal concept. Even in Jordan, Syrians fleeing the civil war are called “guests,” the expectation being that they won’t stay.

Arab governments refused to sign the 1951 international convention on refugee rights, says Nadim Shehadi, head of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. “The convention gives a mandate to UNHCR to do permanent settlement in the host countries or resettlement in third-party states,” says Shehadi.

This was unacceptable to Arab governments 60 years ago — and still is today.

So much for Muslim charity toward fellow Muslims. So, tell me again why the US must take mostly Muslim Syrians?
There is much more at NPR, continue reading here.
Go here to see who has signed on to the 1951 convention and who hasn’t.

Saudi Arabia claims they have taken in 2.5 million Syrian refugees (prove it!)

09/16/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No they haven’t taken refugees. They may have tens of thousands of foreign workers there on a temporary basis, but they are not resettling any ‘refugees’ on a permanent basis. And, I doubt the number of Syrians is in the millions.

S.A deportations — In 2013, Saudi Arabia loaded up tens of thousands of Somali and Ethiopian asylum seekers and shipped them back to Africa said HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH. http://en.alalam.ir/news/1567298 In this photo Africans board buses to the airport for deportation flights to Addis Ababa.

Go here and here to see how this controversy began. Where is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees confirming or denying these claims?
Here is Alarabia:

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Monday chaired a cabinet session in which “false and misleading accusations” over the Kingdom’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis were addressed.

Almost 2.5 million Syrians have been received by Saudi Arabia since the start of the civil war, state news agency SPA reported.

We have been chronicling Saudi Arabia’s mean-spiritedness toward its fellow Muslims for years. Go here for our complete archive on S.A.’s treatment of refugees.
And, I just found a post here from 2008 ,written by blog partner Judy, in which she reports that S.A. takes no refugees on a permanent basis because they don’t want them to have any voting power in the future.
Just a reminder that you will be hearing from western advocates for refugee resettlement that the countries of Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon have an “unfair” burden because they have millions of Syrians in camps there. Always remember that those ‘refugees’ are there on a temporary basis and that when we take in refugees they will be here PERMANENTLY (and we will admit their family members) after the Syrian civil war is long forgotten. The comparison is not a legitimate one.