When they can’t squawk about racism, xenophobia is the next best thing!
One-millionth Syrian registered in Lebanon (that fact is the source of innumerable news accounts in the past week or so).
Whether it’s South African blacks not wanting an invasion of their country by members of their own race from elsewhere in Africa, or now Lebanese Arabs not wanting to be completely overrun by Syrian Arabs, to Leftists it is always about some deep dark evil lurking in the human character (unless one is a do-gooder Leftist of course).
Frankly it may be deep—a deep human desire to save one’s own group from complete annihilation—that comes to the fore when the invaders are too many in number. The fear is a legitimate wish to preserve one’s own ethnic group and one’s own family and its livelihood.
It’s so humorous (annoying really!) to me to see that wish (for self-preservation) honored as immigrants come to America and are encouraged to maintain their own cultures/preserve their history, while the rest of us are encouraged to give up ours (see al-Hijra)!
With the conflict in Syria now in its fourth year, some Lebanese are growing increasingly hostile to the million Syrians taking refuge in their country.
[….]
“The increase in numbers has increased xenophobia,” says Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
What is the solution of course for groups like Human Rights Watch—save Lebanon from xenophobia by packing up tens of thousands of Syrians and sending them to Western countries?
Civil patrols in Sofia—Bulgaria for Bulgarians! http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/world/europe/far-right-gains-as-syrians-reach-eastern-europe.html?_r=0
This is just a short news item to keep our Bulgaria archive up-to-date. Bulgaria, on the border with Turkey, has been a gateway for Syrians andAfricans to slip through the border from Turkey and get a foothold in Europe. They really do not want to stay in Bulgaria, wanting instead to get to the countries with more goodies to give away, like Germany.
Should they slip through their country of entry, the EU has a policy that says “asylum seekers” must be returned to the first country in which they arrived to be processed there, thus placing the largest ‘refugee’ burden on border countries, like Italy, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Malta.
According to the UN, Bulgaria had been doing such a rotten job taking care of refugees, that previously the so-called refugees were not returned there. Now that has changed. Notice that the UN is calling the shots, the EU isn’t even in charge.
The UN’s refugee agency said Tuesday it was partially lifting a call to stop returning asylum seekers to Bulgaria because conditions there had improved.
Under current rules, European countries must return asylum seekers to the first country on the continent they arrive in.
But in January the United Nations urged European nations to suspend all returns to Bulgaria, citing “systematic deficiencies in reception conditions and asylum procedures” after the country was swamped with refugees from war-ravaged Syria.
See all of our recent posts on the ‘invasion of Europe’ here.
We are half way through fiscal year 2014 (it began on October 1, 2013).
By the way, “recruitment” is the word being used by opponents of Gov. Matt Meads idea to resettle refugees in Wyoming, and I like it. The word “resettlement” is getting stale and I’ve noticed the refugee industry using it less and less as well. They seem to be favoring the word “placement”instead.
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society wants 75,000 Syrians admitted to US over 5 years. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/03/29/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-us-should-bring-75000-syrians-to-us-over-next-5-years/
President Barack Obama set a cap of 70,000 refugees to be placed in your cities and towns for this fiscal year in his annual determination letter of Oct. 2, 2013.
In accordance with section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the “Act”) (8 U.S.C. 1157), as amended, and after appropriate consultations with the Congress, I hereby make the following determinations and authorize the following actions:
The admission of up to 70,000 refugees to the United States during fiscal year (FY) 2014 is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest; provided that this number shall be understood as including persons admitted to the United States during FY 2014 with Federal refugee resettlement assistance under the Amerasian immigrant admissions program, as provided below.
The 70,000 cap does not include asylum seekers/asylees which number in the tens of thousands, those receiving temporary protected status (TPS), and diversity visa lottery winners (another 50,000!).
Note that there is a 2,000 unallocated reserve which is where some get the number of Syrians that we might admit. Many Syrians are getting into the US by other means and signing up for TPS or asking for asylum, but we have not begun, nor has the President announced, how many Syrians we are going to take. I read that as something must be going on behind the scenes for the flood gates not to have been opened yet.
So, six months in, where are we?
Check out this database at WRAPS.net. In an effort to keep you in the dark, the feds have removed some data bases that previously were available to the public. One missing set of data that I found especially useful was the one with ‘arrivals by city and country’ (where you could see which ethnic groups were being resettled in your city). At least they still have the ‘arrivals by state and country’ so you can see how many you are getting in your state and from where they are coming.
For my purposes right now, I’m looking at ‘map arrivals by nationality.’ For the first six months of the year the US State Department admitted 32,810 refugees. This is the order for the top countries, smaller numbers come from dozens of other countries. Iraqis top the list as they did last year.
Iraq: 9,394
Burma: 6,781
Bhutan: 4,424
Somalia: 3,708
Cuba: 2,154
Iran: 1,470
Dem. Rep. Congo: 1,381
Sudan: 861
Eritrea: 842
Afghanistan: 382
A couple of other countries of interest are Colombia (204) and we admitted 90 Palestinians.
Where are the Syrians?
26 Syrians have been admitted so far this year. The US is under enormous media pressure generated by the ‘human rights industry’ to admit Syrians, so again, there must be some serious squabbling going on behind the scenes in the the State Department and the Dept. of Homeland Security for this number to be so small at this point in the year. Maybe there are members of Congress flexing some muscle (for a change!)?
By the way, Brenda Walker writing at VDARE has an excellent report earlier this week on the media push for Syrian ‘refugee’ admission to the US.
Walker begins:
The top newspaper in our capital city, the Washington Post, is mouthpiecing a Refugee Industry campaign to convince Congress to welcome thousands of Syrians fleeing their civil war. But you can bet they won’t be resettled in Georgetown.
The ‘humanitarian industrial complex’ is so predictable.
As we mentioned here, here and here in just the last week, they have begun their public relations campaign in lock-step because for some reason (security?) the US is dragging its feet on dropping off thousands of Syrians into your towns and cities.
Eleanor Acer: US must lead the way with 15,000 Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees resettled this year!
…. so far, the American response has been wanting. With more than $1.7bn in aid so far, it is the single largest donor to the Syria humanitarian response, but the United States resettled a mere 36 Syrian refugees in 2013. As of February 2014, the US has resettled only 25 more. That’s a total of 121 since 2011, out of over 2 million refugees.
If the country with the largest resettlement program in the world doesn’t step up, who will?
This January, US officials indicated that the government expects to accept referrals for several thousand Syrian refugees in 2014. But so far, the United States has not announced a commitment to resettling a significant number. Why?
The UK, Bulgaria and Greece setting rotten examples as well.
Acer:
The US isn’t the only state reluctant to welcome some of Syria’s refugees. The UK, for example, announced plans to resettle the modest number of 500 Syrian refugees, but only after public criticism by film stars Colin Firth and Emma Thompson. Other European countries, including Bulgaria and Greece, have even imposed obstacles preventing Syrian refugees from crossing into their countries. Such responses set a poor example for the frontline states, which must keep their borders open to refugees as a requirement of international law and to prevent an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.
The US must lead the way by admitting 15,000 (LOL! the advocates have obviously settled on their magic number!):
It’s clear what is needed: while the international community must devise a comprehensive long-term plan for addressing the refugee crisis, a crucial part of that plan must include sharing the responsibility of hosting refugees.
And the United States should lead this effort. As the world’s richest country, and one that justifiably prides itself on protecting refugees, it needs to be doing much more. This year, the US should aim to resettle at least 15,000 Syrian refugees, and should continue to significantly increase the number it takes in. The credibility of the US and its ability to effectively press other states to increase their own efforts depends on it.
See how they get this number, 15,000, planted in the public discussion and then throw in the “increase the number” later comment. The sad thing is that they did this with the Iraqi ‘refugees’ and succeeded. So unless you speak up and contact your representatives in Washington (the only elected officials with the power to stop this), they will succeed again!
So far, deep in the bowels of the federal government, someone has cold feet about opening the flood gates to Syrians!
Readers: Remember there are still plenty of Syrians getting into the US through other legal and illegal means, but our focus here (in this post) is on the formal Refugee Resettlement program of the US State Department and the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement in Health and Human Services.
In ahighly criticized move, the Obama Administration already relaxed security screening aimed at bringing in thousands of Syrians. Now Elliott Abrams and Eric Schwartz have penned an op-ed saying it wasn’t enough.
Elliott Abrams
Frankly, some serious wrangling must be going on within the Administrationbecause as far as I can tell, Obama has not YET opened the floodgates to Syrian refugees and thus we are seeing the public relations push—as we mentioned in the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society story the other day. (Incidentally, that story was viewed by 33,328 readers via our facebook page!)
Who are Abrams and Schwartz? According to the USA Today op-ed:
Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration. Eric P. Schwartz, dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, was assistant secretary of State for population, refugees and migration in the Obama administration. They are members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
We have a lot on Eric P. Schwartz, a Soros protege and one-worlder, on our pages, here.
Last month, as Syria’s civil war entered its fourth year, bloodshed continued without pause and the number of refugees continued to swell. Those are among the reasons that the Obama administration took an important step to sustain a U.S. tradition of protecting refugees, including Syrians fleeing their country. But the administration can do more.
The United States has long provided haven and resettlement to those escaping tyranny.
They then go on to describe the waiver from terrorism bars the Obama Administration has already put in place and say it isn’t enough:
There are other categories of refugees who still fall afoul of current law, such as former combatants who never acted against U.S. interests and have laid down their arms, and individuals who provided “insignificant” support for groups that the U.S. has designated as terrorist groups. The administration should consider expanding its waiver to include these groups.
Abrams and Schwartz say they only want a few thousand Syrians to be admitted, but therein lies the rub. The US State Department had bandied about the possible resettlement of 2,000 this fiscal year, but the resettlement contractors are pushing for from 12,000-15,000 this year (to be repeated again next year and the year after…).
BTW, we are already 6 months into the 2014 fiscal year which began on Oct. 1, 2013. And, just a reminder: the contractors are paid by the head for each refugee they resettle.
In case you are wondering, Abrams and Schwartz never mention the persecuted Syrian Christians.
This is how you snooker the low-information Americans who read USA Today:
We are not suggesting that the United States admit waves of new refugees. While there are more than 2 million Syrians outside their homeland, the U.S. resettlement program for Syrians is focused only on several thousand of the most vulnerable.
LOL! It is only a few thousand and only the “vulnerable” they say. What is “several thousand?”
As I said the contractorsand the open borders lobby must be running into some resistance on the Syrian refugee resettlement issue or Abrams and Schwartz wouldn’t be penning this piece.
Just as Americans are weary of war, I believe they are weary of taking in the world and putting the masses on US taxpayer-funded welfare, not to mention putting our security at risk!
You need to be letting your Representative in Congress or US Senators know, you have had enough!
