Tag: Syrian refugees

UK: Farage does a U-turn, calls for only Syrian Christians to be resettled

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Displaced Syrian Christians.

This story is now a couple of days old, sorry I didn’t get to it yesterday, but Britain’s conservative party leader Nigel Farage has modified his earlier call that the UK should resettle Syrian refugees and says now it should only be the Christians.

And, coincidentally, Syrian Christians are talking to the media and reporting that they are not being resettled.

Members of the general public in the UK and in the US, if they are following this issue at all, are surely saying to themselves:  we watch these Muslim vs. Muslim civil wars in the Middle East and in Africa and then we are expected to resettle Muslims to the West—WTH!

Here is Yahoo.News on Farage’s U-turn (hat tip: Joanne):

Nigel Farage has retreated from his call for the UK government to take Syrian refugees into the UK, saying that only Christians from the country should be allowed in.

The Ukip leader caused a furious backlash from his party members over the weekend after saying that David Cameron had a duty to take in Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives.

The call put him at odds with the coalition government, who are refusing to take any refugees from the country.

However, in a U-turn which will lead to accusations of bigotry, he has now said that only Christians from the country should be admitted.

He told the Jeremy Vine Show that Syrian Muslims could flee to neighbouring countries.

“It’s bad enough for Sunni and Shia. At least there are neighbouring countries that will take them,” he said.

“Where on Earth are the Christians going to go? Christians are now a seriously persecuted minority.”

While Syrian Muslims are breaking into Western countries,* Christians playing by the rules in Jordan say they are not being allowed to apply to go to the West.

From CBN News:

Christian Syrian refugees have found temporary shelter in Jordan, but their immigration requests have been rejected by Western countries.

Some of them have spoken to the Associated Press, but want to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

One Syrian refugee said, “Everyone sold whatever they owned in Syria in order to get here, so that we could apply for visas at an embassy. We were all surprised to be rejected on the basis that there was no reason for us to go to Europe. Their reasons were all false – nothing correct in them.”

Another man said that western countries “were supposed to support us, and they were supposed to facilitate our immigration process as Christians, and I’m very sad that they haven’t.”

Read it all.

* Here is one more case where Turkey facilitated the movement of illegal alien Syrians who went to Turkey.  The “refugees” where allowed to leave Turkey for Morocco, then on to Guinea-Bissau where corrupt officials allowed them to board a plane to Portugal on false passports.  Portugal has now stopped all flights between Guinea-Bissau and their country due to the controversy.

Photo is from this story at PressTV.

UK Independence Party turnabout: Bring in the Syrians!

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Update:  Farage drops call for all Syrian refugees, says Christians only.  Hat tip: Joanne

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, has riled his followers by declaring it’s time to bring in the Syrian refugees.  Yesterday we reported how the Syrian flow into Turkey was destabilizing that government, now the UK political party whose followers joined largely because it had declared that England was “full-up” has been shaken to its core by Farage’s declaration.

Nigel Farage has angered his followers, wants the UK to admit Syrian refugees.

Here is a bit of the Daily Mail on the story that fills my Syrian alerts today:

Nigel Farage faced a backlash from his own supporters last night after calling for Britain to admit refugees from the civil war in Syria.

Supporters of the UK Independence Party denounced their leader after Mr Farage used an interview with the BBC yesterday to call for Britain to allow those fleeing Syria to come to the UK.

He said refugees fleeing from conflicts were ‘a very different thing’ from economic migrants.

But he was attacked online by UKIP supporters – who said the country was already ‘full up’ and warned they would no longer vote for UKIP unless he changes his mind.

Mr Farage’s policy goes further than the Coalition, which has limited its help to financial support for countries taking in refugees.

The Daily Mail has a list of on-line critics of Farage and what they said about this new position.

And, here we go again, a “conservative,” knees knocking, fearing being labeled a racist:

He did not put a figure on how many of the nine million Syrians displaced by war who should be allowed into the UK, but Labour has said Britain should accept up to 500.

Mr Farage’s intervention appeared to be an attempt to show voters that UKIP is not opposed to all immigration following months of accusations from political rivals that the party is racist.

[….]

Former shadow minister David Davis said: ‘It’s about Mr Farage trying to reposition his party so that the anti-immigration argument, which is so important to them, is not seen as a barbaric argument, so from that point of view there is a bit of political positioning going on.

“The solution is not taking a few hundred people to make us feel happier.”

My sentiments exactly!  And, if the US takes 2,000 Syrians it will be for the same reason!

The Daily Mail wraps up with this:

Fellow Conservative Andrew Brigden branded Mr Farage’s comments ‘political tokenism’.

‘These are Syrian people who want to live in Syria. The solution is not taking a few hundred people to make us feel happier,’ he said. ‘What we need is a politically-negotiated solution to this problem.’

Hear! Hear!

Turkey: Could Syrian refugees help bring down Erdogan government?

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Sure looks like it is possible!   And, it would be one explanation for why Turkey is a sieve and allowing Syrians to move through the country and out the other side into Greece and Bulgaria (both countries having enormous problems with illegal migrants mostly from Syria, but even from places like Algeria coming through Turkey!).*

From The Daily Star (Lebanon).  Emphasis is mine:

BEIRUT: A corruption scandal in Turkey may see embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad outlast his Turkish adversary Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the latest sign Turkish foreign policy on Syria is undergoing a major recalibration, analysts say.

[….]

Former ally Turkey emerged as the most vocal opponent of the regime in Syria, which, after protests against Assad’s rule were brutally repressed by government forces, has become mired in an all-out civil war. Erdogan was one of the first international leaders to call for Assad to step down. Turkey also hosts some 600,000 refugees and has also provided safe haven and material assistance to Syrian military opponents.

Turkey opens door to radical Islamists?

Pals! Erdogan is considered to be Obama’s closest friend among world leaders.

More recently, Turkey’s apparent open door policy to rebels crossing the border to fight Assad has drawn criticism both at home and from its Western allies for allegedly providing a base and military assistance to radical Islamists affiliated with Al-Qaeda to launch their attacks. [Wasn’t there a suggestion that Obama was sending weapons for Syrians from Libya (Benghazi!) to Turkey?—ed]

[….]

Those concerns have seen Turkey adjust its policy on Syria by tightening border security and boosting intelligence operations, in what analysts say reflects an embarrassing about-face once it became apparent that Assad’s regime would not fall as quickly as Ankara had hoped.

Potential for anti-Syrian refugee rhetoric and hostility?

While the left-wing opposition remains weak in Turkey, the anti-intervention position on Syria is likely to gain traction and party support is strongly divided over the Syria refugee issue.

That raises the potential for a wave of anti-Syrian rhetoric and hostility toward the 600,000 refugees in Turkey, Ulgen said, similar to the backlash against Syrians that occurred in Egypt following the military’s post-revolutionary coup.

A public opinion poll conducted by EDAM to be released in January found that 86 percent of participants agreed that no further Syrian refugees should be allowed in the country, while only 11 percent believed Turkey should continue to take refugees.

Refugees taking jobs the Turks would like to do (it is the same the world over!):

Ozel (a newspaper columnist) added that he feared hostility toward Syrians would increase.

“The unofficial figures say there are 1 million Syrians here. They are scattered all over the place, they are dirt poor, they are working at a fraction of the price than the Turks doing the same job. Sooner or later it will cause social tensions and this government has done nothing to address that.”

There is a lot more in The Daily Star article worth reading.

*Type ‘Greece’ or ‘Bulgaria’ into our search function for more on the Muslim migration into those countries.

Washington Post beats the drums for more Syrian refugee resettlement to US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It wasn’t long after we first began writing Refugee Resettlement Watch (in 2007) that we saw the media, especially one reporter—Matthew Lee of the Associated Press—begin the drumbeat to bring large numbers of Iraqi refugees to the US.   Here is our entire archive on Lee’s apparently personal mission.

USCCB’s Anastasia Brown: We want Obama to go over the 70,000 refugee cap to get more Syrians into your towns and cities.

Every month as only a “trickle” of Iraqis got in, Lee faithfully reported the number in the trickle and those in the refugee industry he quoted blamed that evil meany George Bush.   It turns out though that the slow early arrival of Iraqis had a lot to do with security clearance issues (some terrorists did slip in with the huddled masses of supposedly poor people).

Now, Iraqis make up the largest number of any group getting into the US through the State Department’s Refugee program.  19,491 Iraqis came to the US in FY2013.

The drumbeat for Syrian resettlement had already begun, but when I saw these two companion stories at the Washington Post yesterday, I immediately figured — here we go again!     There is a mention in these stories about concerns for security screening, but missing is any blame being heaped on Obama directly.  Oh, there is mention of the Obama Administration, but not the man himself.  Obama could, if he wanted to, expand the number of Syrians entering the US.

You can read the articles yourself, here and here.

From the article entitled,  ‘U.S. says it hopes to offer asylum to 35,000, might include up to 2,000 Syrians,‘ there is nothing here we don’t already know.

The State Department said Thursday that the United States wants to bring in up to 35,000 permanent refugees from the Middle East and South Asia in fiscal 2014. The target would include vulnerable Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians and Pakistanis, as well as Syrians.  [See Obama’s Presidential Determination for 2014, here—ed]

The U.N. refu­gee agency has set an ambitious goal of moving more than 30,000 Syrians into permanent or long-term homes abroad by next October. The United States might take as many as 2,000, although it is unlikely to meet its own target.

Catholics lobby for more Syrians, want to go above Obama’s 70,000 target for 2014

As we reported here earlier in the month, the federal contractors (leading the pack is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) are lobbying to expand that number of Syrians and I suspect it is they who are behind getting stories like these planted in the Washington Post.   And, if you are wondering, you should know the Catholic Bishops are not lobbying specifically for the Christian Syrians, they welcome and resettle the Muslim refugees as well.

Watch for more stories like these in the Washington Post critical of the Obama Administration’s apparent reluctance to open our doors to Syrians.    Why they are so far reluctant is an interesting question.

Belgium, Germany, Greece: the invasion of Europe continues….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….making the natives restless!

Afghans shout slogans as they demand refugee status in Belgium.

In Belgium, Afghans demanded asylum!

From Russia Today (hat tip: pungentpeppers):

Up to 350 Afghan asylum-seekers and their supporters set up a camp in Belgium’s western town of Mons, urging local authorities to arrange a meeting with Belgian Prime Minister to demand residency papers.

The Prime Minister was not at home, and the asylum demanders were offered, but turned down a warm room.

While the Prime Minister has at least promised to study their cases, his Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration and for Social Integration, Maggie De Block, informed that the Afghans’ requests would be processed as for any other illegal immigrants.

The numbers are growing.

In 2012, there were 332 000 asylum applicants registered in the EU27, the European Union of 27 Member States. Afghanistan, with 8 percent of the total number of applicants, remained the first main country of citizenship of these applicants, according to Eurostat.

Germany, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Belgium register 70 percent of all applicants. In 2012, the highest number of applicants was registered in Germany (77 500 applicants, or 23 percent of total applicants), followed by France (18 percent), Sweden (13 percent), the United Kingdom (8 percent) and Belgium (8 percent).

In Germany the far-right is growing!

From Fox News:

BERLIN –  Germany has seen a spike in far-right protests against refugees this year as the number of people seeking asylum in the country rose by two thirds.

Government figures show 18 “noteworthy” extremist gatherings outside buildings housing refugees this year, compared with three in 2012.

Nearly 100,000 people applied for asylum in Germany between January and November, up from 60,000 in 2012.

[….]

Almost half the protests this year were organized by the far-right National Democratic Party, or NPD.

Germany’s 16 states have asked the country’s highest court to ban the party.

Ha!  Germany, banning opposition parties?  Isn’t that what happened once before in history?  No lessons learned about fascism and silencing speech?

Police chief says they must make life tough for illegal migrants entering Greece.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

As Syria’s refugee crisis mounts, host countries in Europe and the Middle East have grown uneasy over new arrivals. But even by these standards, candid comments by Greece’s top police official reveal a particularly hostile welcome for thousands of refugees on Europe’s southern border.

Oopsy!

Last week, the Chief of the Greek Police suggested that irregular immigrants’ lives should “be made unbearable,” according to a leaked audio recording from a meeting of police officials publicized by the Greek magazine, Hot Doc.

“If (authorities) told me I could go to a country… and would be detained for three months and then would be free to steal and rob, to do whatever you want… that is great,” a man identified as the police chief says on the tape. Describing the police response, he continued: “We aimed for increased periods of detention… we increased it to 18 months… for what purpose? We must make their lives unbearable.”

Here is one thing I don’t get about this—these illegal migrants (would-be asylum seekers) are traveling through Turkey to get to Europe.  Turkey is a “safe country,” why aren’t they asking for asylum there and why isn’t the UNHCR demanding that they apply in Turkey, even if it means more UN camps in Turkey.  It makes one wonder if the UN and Turkey are in cahoots to help speed up the invasion of Europe.