Tag: Syrian refugees

Boise: First Syrian refugee, a gay man, plans to help the Syrians who will follow him to Idaho

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As we have reported on several previous occasions, one of the categories of refugees we are taking now are gay men and lesbian women (Bi’s and Trannies too) who have been persecuted by their fellow Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere.  Here is news, with no further comment, from Boise State Public Radio (emphasis mine):

The US Department of State pledged to lead the world in accepting refugees from Syria at a meeting in Geneva this month. The organization says it is currently reviewing about 9,000 UNHCR referrals from Syria and is receiving approximately a thousand new referrals each month. A Boise refugee support organization anticipates many of those people will come to Idaho.

Shadi Ismail will help the Syrians who are coming soon to Boise. Says he will tell them to go home if they don’t accept homosexuals. Photo: Jodie Martinson Boise State Public Radio

But one Syrian man has already arrived as a refugee and believes he’s uniquely positioned to help the incoming population of people from his home country — even though the reason he left Syria is different from why many people are leaving now.

Shadi Ismail fled the region about two-and-a-half-years ago because he feared his family would kill him for being gay. He says he always knew he liked boys.

“I see a friend take shirt off or something,” he explains. “It’s like ‘Oof!'”

Ismail says being gay was unacceptable in Syria, especially in his family.

What follows is a long discussion of the abuses he suffered at the hands of his family and the Muslim community.  However, another gay man suggested he apply to America as a refugee, and here he is.

After many months of waiting, Ismail was accepted as a refugee and sent on his way to Boise, Idaho.

He plans to help his fellow countrymen (and give them a message) when they start arriving real soon in Idaho:

The Syrians coming to Idaho as refugees escaping the war will have very different reasons to flee than Ismail. But Ismail is the only Syrian refugee he knows of in the Boise area. So he feels a duty to help newcomers fit into their fresh American lives. He plans to explain to them how life works, and he knows what he’ll tell them about how they should treat lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people.

“You have to accept me [in] America,” he said. “I left everything to be who I am. If you want to still have your mind crazy [about sexual intolerance], go back to your country. Do your thing there.”

For more on the booming resettlement state of Idaho…

Go here for a map of the US and links to federal refugee contractor offices including those in Boise.

Here (all states listed) are the resettlement contractors in the State of Idaho (a Wilson-Fish state which means the contractors and the feds run the program with no state government control):

DFMS (Episcopal Migration Ministries)
ID-DFMS-01: Agency For New Americans
Address:
1614 West Jefferson Street
Boise, ID 83701
Phone: 208-338-0033-X25

IRC (International Rescue Committee)
ID-IRC-01: International Rescue Committee
Address:
7188 W. Potomac Drive
Boise, ID 83704
Phone: 208-344-1792

WR (World Relief)
ID-WR-01: World Relief Treasure Valley
Address:
6702 Fairview Avenue
Boise, ID 83704
Phone: 208-323-4964

USCRI (US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants)
ID-USCRI-01: College Of Southern Idaho Refugee Programs
Address:
1526 Highland Ave E
Twin Falls, ID 83301
Phone: 208-736-2166

Hungary now experiencing the Muslim “refugee” tidal wave; Czech Republic will if it doesn’t wise up

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….as our ‘Invasion of Europe’ series continues!

Muslim “refugees” are smuggled from Turkey through the Balkans to Hungary, an EU country with open borders into western Europe.

The invaders from the Middle East have shifted their migration routes in the desire to get to those “welcoming” EU countries like Germany which seems to be the biggest magnet these days for the world’s needy.

Germany was the number one destination in the world for asylum seekers in 2013, imagine what it was in 2014!

According to the UNHCR, in 2013 alone, the top five countries receiving asylum claims were led by Germany (109,600), USA (88,400), France (60,100), Sweden (54,300) and Turkey (44,800).  No wonder the Germans are marching in the streets.

Here is what is happening in Hungary (hat tip: ‘Pungentpeppers’).

From Yahoo.news:

With the Mediterranean Sea becoming too treacherous and other routes blocked by barbed-wire fences, would-be migrants are taking a new route into the Europe Union: through Hungary.

Coming from as far away as Afghanistan and Syria and as near as Kosovo and Albania, thousands of migrants a week are crossing into Hungary and requesting asylum, turning the country into an EU transit hot spot.

The surging number of immigrants has encouraged far-right and anti-Islam movements across Western Europe. It is also causing strains in remote places like Asotthalom, a Hungarian village near the border with Serbia, where a trickle of migrants three years ago has turned into a flood.

[….]

Lt. Col. Gabor Eberhardt, chief of the border police in Szeged, said this year proceedings were launched against more than 26,000 people of 61 nationalities for illegal border crossings in his territory. That compares to 34 in 2004, the year Hungary joined the EU.

Hungary has seen 35,000 asylum requests so far this year — compared to 18,900 in 2013 — and the flow of migrants has soared in the last few months. There were 683 asylum requests in March but 9,125 in November and a projected 12,500 in December.

They are moving on for better deals farther west in Europe.  Germany is their number one target.

Of the 18,900 asylum requests in 2013 made to Hungary, over 11,000 were abandoned, supporting the notion that most migrants are moving on to other destinations.

[….]

Like many other Kosovars, they are headed to Germany, one of Europe’s strongest economies.

We have written a lot about Turkey and how it helps facilitate the flow to overburdened Bulgaria, see our archive on Bulgaria by clicking here.  Now, Turkey is a major conduit, this time into Hungary.  Looks to me like Turkey is facilitating the Hijra (don’t forget to read The Modern Day Trojan Horse!).

According to refugee officials, migrants heading to Hungary often use smuggling rings to travel across Turkey and up through the Balkans. Once they make it into Hungary, which belongs to the EU’s free travel area known as Schengen, they face borderless travel across most of the 28-member bloc.

Czech Republic demonstrations!

In the Czech Republic there are demonstrations for and against the country accepting Syrian refugees in the wake of that “pledging” meeting (the one where the US invited 9,000 mostly Muslim Syrians).

Here is the news about the demonstration which, by the way, is probably why we had a rush of readers from the Czech Republic this last week.  According to this report those wanting Syrians to come to the Czech Republic outnumbered those who opposed (but I don’t believe that would be the case if the general public was polled).  So far, the government in Prague says they aren’t taking any Syrians except perhaps sick children.

From Ceske Noviny:

Prague – About 300 people met in front of the Czech government seat in Prague over the question of Syrian refugees today, most of them calling for the Czech Republic to accept Syrian kids and their families, and a few dozens speaking against their acceptance.

Here is what those opposed said:

On the opposite side of the street, opponents to the refugee inflow unfolded banners with the inscriptions “Government, don´t allow yourselves to be blackmailed,”“Support to Muslim migration is not humanism but treason,” and “Let´s help in Syria, let´s not import jihad here.”

The pro-refugee demonstrators believe they will change the minds of Czech politicians, so the anti-Muslim migration side needs to work even harder.

Every country in Europe must close its borders NOW!

Update:  Poland says it will take 100 Syrians in 2016, here.

German anti-Muslim demonstrations drew 15,000 yesterday (up from 10,000 last week)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The demonstrators are “dangerous” because they are not right wing nuts!

Lutz Hagen, a professor at Dresden’s Technical University, said it was wrong to write off all PEGIDA supporters as far-right nuts. “It’s already a broad movement and could become even broader,” he said.

Marchers chanted: “We are the people!” Photo: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30478321

Reuters has a pretty informative story about how it went in Dresden yesterday:

(Reuters) – A new grass-roots movement that assails the German government for ignoring its fears of being overrun by Muslims and other immigrants attracted a record 15,000 marchers on Monday in the eastern city of Dresden.

The fast-growing movement that calls itself PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, has drawn support from the far-right as well as some ordinary Germans alarmed by a sharp rise in refugees, many fleeing conflict in the Middle East.

The rallies have spread rapidly across Germany since starting with a local social media appeal in Dresden two months ago. They are now beginning to unsettle the German political establishment, which has spent decades restoring Germany’s image as an open, tolerant country after the devastation of the Nazis.

“The politicians in Germany have lost touch with the people and that’s why they can’t comprehend what’s happening here,” Lutz Bachmann, the 41-year-old gravel-voiced leader of the movement, told marchers from a makeshift stage.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been trying to shut them down suggesting they are xenophobic neo-Nazis, but it looks like it isn’t working.

In recent weeks, media reports have exposed Bachmann’s own criminal record for among other things burglary, drunk driving and drug dealing.

At the rally on Monday he lashed out at the media for what he said were lies about the movement, eliciting chants of “Luegenpresse! Luegenpresse!” (media lies!) from a fired-up group of demonstrators, mostly white men over 40 wearing shabby clothing.

Bachmann started PEGIDA in October to protest plans to add 14 centres for roughly 2,000 refugees in Dresden.

The number of asylum-seekers in Germany has surged to some 200,000 this year, more than any other western country, due in part to an influx of Syrians.  [The US will be taking 9,000 Syrian Muslims in FY2015, already underway.—]

Even though foreigners are scarce in Dresden and the Saxony region compared to other parts of Germany, Bachmann’s protest reverberated and his Monday rallies have grown from a few hundred to 10,000 a week ago and now to 15,000.

We are the people!

Marchers on Monday carried banners reading “Courage for the truth”, “Stop immigrants abusing our social welfare system” and “We miss our country”.

They chanted: “If you don’t love Germany, leave it” and “We’re the people” – the slogan used by pro-democracy demonstrators whose marches in eastern cities like Dresden led to the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.

Extremely dangerous for Merkel!

Political scientists say that the ferocity of the PEGIDA movement has caught the country’s political leaders off guard.

“It’s extremely dangerous for Germany and its reputation as a country that is open to the world,” said Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at Cologne University.

“It’s also extremely dangerous for Merkel because a political movement is now opening up to the right of her conservative party and that had never happened before,” he said.

Our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ series is here.  Our expanding archive on Germany is here.

Uruguay to resettle 120 Syrian Muslims

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Isn’t it fortuitous that the Obama Administration just now sent six Guantanamo Bay former Islamic fighters to Uruguay as refugees.  The new Syrian refugee arrivals will have skilled Muslim political leaders upon arrival.  Wow! Uruguay is so lucky—a “conservative” Islamic seed community growing right there!  (just like Australia).

I don’t know about mosques in Montevideo, but they do like their tango. Will those “conservative” Syrians be entertained?

From The Gulf Time:

The Syrian teen, driven from his home by his country’s civil war, swipes across the world on a mobile phone map, over China and the blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. He searches until finally he finds Uruguay.

For 19-year-old Ahmad Aloun and his family, the country some 12,000 kilometres away soon will become home. The tree-lined boulevards of Montevideo might as well be on another planet.

Uruguay has offered to accept 120 refugees from Syria’s civil war, the Alouns among them. It’s a small number compared to the three million Syrians who have fled the conflict, now in its fourth year, crowded into overwhelmed neighbouring countries or who tried to reach Europe.

[….]

Two years after they fled Syria, the UN refugee agency said the Alouns could resettle in Uruguay, offering them Spanish lessons, free health care and schooling for the children.

Mohammed Aloun hasn’t given much thought to how his conservative Muslim family will fit in. He’s unsure if there are mosques in Uruguay.   [They soon will have mosques, if they don’t already, and everything that goes with it—ed]

The Hijra (the migration) is proceeding full steam ahead.

Photo:  Visit a Tango dinner show while they last!

Canada may take Syrian refugee minorities as a first priority over Muslims

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update December 17th:  I love it! Leftists are screaming bloody murder over Canada’s conservative government’s possible choice of Christian and other minority Syrians OVER Muslim refugees for resettlement, more here.

Last week when Asst. Secretary of State Anne Richard went to Geneva and promised the UNHCR that the US would take 9,000 mostly Muslim Syrians, the Canadian government made no such promise.  Instead word leaked out that they might speed up their resettlement, but for only Christians and other persecuted minorities.

Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada: Canada isn’t taking large numbers of Syrians because they are Muslims. And, so ‘Sherlock,’ why do you think there might be a concern?

Squawking refugee advocates apparently want 10,000 or more (mostly Muslim) Syrians for Canada over the next two years instead.

From CBC News:

The federal government is seeking to resettle more Syrian refugees, but only from the country’s religious minorities, according to sources close to discussions around Canada’s position on refugees from the war-torn nation.

Canada has been struggling to meet an earlier commitment from July 2013 to resettle 1,300 Syrians by the end of this year.

[….]

On Tuesday, the government updated that number to 703. Kevin Menard, a spokesman for the immigration minister, wrote CBC News on Friday saying the numbers are “going up fairly quickly.”

Refugee advocacy organizations in Canada have been asking the government to take in 10,000 more Syrians over the next two years, and the UN says it is in dire need of assistance as the civil war intensifies.

This suggestion, to take only religious minorities (code for non-Muslims), sure does smoke out the UNHCR and its apparent goal to move as many Muslims to the West as they can.  If the UNHCR was really concerned for the well being of persecuted people, its response would have been: we are thrilled that Canada is giving a home to deserving people.  Instead we hear this gobbledegook:

Sources close to the discussions say Canada is seeking to resettle only refugees from Syria’s religious minorities, something that would likely be difficult for the UN’s refugee agency to accept.

The UNHCR’s policy on refugees says a resettlement state determines the “size and composition” of who and how many refugees it accepts, and “therefore has full control with respect to decisions on individual cases.” [LOL! I guess Canada doesn’t have full control over who it picks if it isn’t who the UN says it should be!—ed]

“Nevertheless, UNHCR urges all states to be guided by the agency’s internationally recognized criteria on eligibility, global needs and priorities,” the policy says.

“To preserve the integrity of resettlement as a protection tool and durable solution for refugees most in need, it is important to ensure resettlement programmes are needs‐based, non‐discriminatory and achieve successful integration outcomes.”  [And, so favoring the Muslims over the religious minorities isn’t discriminatory?—ed]

Keep this in mind (from Pew Research in 2011):

Canada’s Muslim population is expected to nearly triple, climbing from 940,000 in 2010 to 2.7 million in 2030.