Tag: Syrian refugees

Greenwich, CT not getting refugees anytime soon (so they think!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday we told you about the Sanders ‘plant’ in a Trump townhall meeting in New Hampshire.  See that story first so you know what we are talking about here.

Screenshot (23)
Darren Ornitz a bearded Sanders supporter and former resident of Greenwich, CT implies Greenwich could get Syrian refugees.

The ‘plant’ Darren Ornitz implied that Greenwich, CT (where he ostensibly grew up) would soon see Syrian refugees resettled there. Since Greenwich is an upscale town, I’m figuring that is unlikely despite the fact that Connecticut elected officials are all for “welcoming” large numbers of Africans, Asians and Middle Easterners to the state (see Senator Richard Blumenthal here with CAIR CT).
Apparently alarmed by what Ornitz said, the Greenwich Time was quick to make sure the citizens there were safe for the time being.

Greenwich officials said Tuesday that they were not aware of any plans to settle Syrian refugees in town, a day after a Greenwich man pressed Donald Trump on his controversial immigration policy.

The unnamed man, who identified himself as being from Greenwich, asked Trump at a campaign event Monday in Salem, N.H., whether the Republican presidential candidate’s refugee policy would bar Syrian children from the country.

[….]

Trump’s stance is contentious, with many of his opponents disputing his characterization of Syrian refugees.

But the question that the Greenwich man asked Trump appears to be a moot one – at least for the moment – in Greenwich. Both Town Hall and school district officials said that they were not aware of any plans to relocate Syrian families to the town.

I recommend that the town fathers stay on top of the issue.

blumenthal and CAIR CT
Keep an eye on Senator Blumenthal (here with CAIR CT director) who wants to make security screening easier for Syrian refugees to get into the US!

Although the town’s wealth may be an impediment (rich, politically well-connected, people don’t want refugees in their towns), it is no guarantee it couldn’t happen.
State Department data base…
Connecticut has gotten 3,397 refugees since Obama took office.  The largest numbers went to Hartford and New Haven. None went to Greenwich.
I was surprised to see that Connecticut got 479 Somalis.  And, even more surprised to see that 61 Syrians have already been placed in the state (the largest number of those went to New Haven).
Go here for more on Connecticut.

Syrian refugees will need lots of mental health treatment in America

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and you, the US taxpayer, will be paying for it! (or else!)
An estimated 1000-2000 of the coming 10,000 Syrians could need (costly!) mental health treatment!
Here is the AP story at ABC News (emphasis is mine):

For the thousands of Syrian refugees expected to arrive in the U.S. in coming months, the first order of business will be securing the basics — health care, jobs, education and a safe home.

But what organizations helping resettle them might not be prepared for, and what refugees themselves might be in denial about, is the need to treat the mental scars of war, experts said.

[….]

Organizations that work with refugees said it’s too early to assess the full scope of arrivals’ mental health needs. But experts say it’s important to keep tabs on the emotional state of new arrivals, since symptoms may not appear until months or years later — well after most resettlement support services have ended. [It is all on the community then which must come up with the $$$ for all of this care!—ed]

The U.S. has taken about 2,500 Syrian refugees since the conflict there began in 2011, including about 100 in Massachusetts. The Obama administration expects to take in at least 10,000 in the federal fiscal year that began in October. Experts estimate 10 to 20 percent of incoming Syrians will have war-related psychological problems warranting treatment.

mollica
At about two years after arrival reality hits and mental health problems appear according to Dr. Richard Mollica at Harvard. Photo and bio: http://www.williamjames.edu/about/profiles/faculty/richard-mollica.cfm

“They’re in the honeymoon phase,” said Richard Mollica, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School who has spent decades working with torture and genocide victims. “In the first year, they’re so happy to be out of that situation. They feel something wonderful is going to happen in America.

And “wonderful” doesn’t come and that is where I believe the mental health crisis begins!  
The streets are not paved with gold, they have to work (find work!) and the mythical city of El Dorado is just that, a myth. Many will want to go home.

“It’s only about two years later or so when there’s a mental health crisis,” he said. “It’s at that point that reality hits and they really need a lot of mental health care.”

And get this!  If you don’t take care of their mental health they could turn into Islamic terrorists!

Failure to address them could lead some refugees to withdraw from society, increasing the chances they’ll be drawn to extremist groups, Arnetz [Michigan professor] warned.

Some good news!  Syrians are only trickling into the US and at the present rate, Obama won’t get to that magic 10,000 by September 30th (the end of the 2016 fiscal year).  See numbers (so far) here.  I’m guessing the security screening is going very slowly.
For ambitious readers we have 289 previous posts in our ‘health issues’ category (refugees have a lot of health issues!).

DNI Clapper on Hill today: ISIS will attack US; refugee flow infiltrated

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No surprise, but good to hear that wiser heads seem to be prevailing in Washington.
Here is the hot news today, from CNN:

Washington (CNN)Top U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that ISIS was likely to attempt direct attacks on the U.S. in the coming year and that the group was infiltrating refugees escaping from Iraq and Syria to move across borders.

ISIS “will probably attempt to conduct additional attacks in Europe, and attempt to direct attacks on the U.S. homeland in 2016,” Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

migrant men Hungary
“Refugee” men in Hungary. Clapper says ISIS is among them (gee! big surprise!).

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who was also at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, estimated that violent extremists were active in about 40 countries and that there currently exist more terrorist safe havens “than at any time in history.”

Clapper warned that ISIS and its eight branches were the No. 1 terrorist threat, and that it was using the refugee exodus from violence in Iraq and Syria to hide among innocent civilians in order to reach other countries.

Clapper said ISIS was “taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow,” adding that they were “pretty skilled at phony passports so they can travel ostensibly as legitimate travelers.”

Syrians trickling in so far!

As we reported the other day, the Syrian flow into the US is going extremely slowly and I’m guessing there are some in Washington who are trying to keep America safe.  At the present rate, there is no way Obama will get 10,000 Syrians in here by the end of this fiscal year on September 30th.  (Unless those UPS flights are for real!).

Trump in NH: Yes, I could look Syrian kids in the face and say they can't come here!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update!  Thanks to readers who found that the bearded man is Darren Ornitz who lives in Brooklyn, NY. He may have earlier lived in Greenwich, CT.  He is a Reuters freelance photographer and is “leaning toward” supporting Bernie Sanders.  Once you know his name the rest falls into place. Here is one report on him.  http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/08/politics/donald-trump-syria-refugee-crisis/
 
A bearded man at a townhall meeting in NH asked Donald Trump if he could look Syrian kids in the face and tell them they can’t come to America. Trump said, yes, he absolutely could do that.
Trump then went on to say, we don’t know who they are.  He said that the Gulf States should help build safe zones in Syria where refugees could be cared for until the conflict is over.  He also said that most of them want to go home anyway.  All of that is true.
He also predicted a coming revolution in Germany and said, “Wait until you see what they do to Merkel!”
The bearded man was obviously a plant.  He said he came from Greenwich, CT and that Greenwich was going to get Syrian refugees. Trump quipped that he must be rich to live in Greenwich.
Can you identify the bearded man?  We know that one of the driving forces behind more resettlement of Muslims to Connecticut is CAIR Connecticut (being helped by Senator Richard Blumenthal).

Who is the bearded man? Can you help identify him?

Watch the clip here (hat tip Walid Shoebat):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkDALLeecyk
 
By the way, of the 841 Syrians admitted to the US in FY2016, 833 are Muslims.  We are not saving Syrian Christians.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society hires grassroots organizer to get American Jews' minds right

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Her job is to organize the American Jewish community to “welcome the stranger,” in this case Muslims from the Middle East and Africa (because they have run out of Jews and Christians to resettle).
 

jennierosenn
HIAS grassroots organizer/lobbyist Rabbi Jennie Rosenn. http://www.hias.org/leadership/rabbi-jennie-rosenn

The Times of Israel has a very lengthy story on their new Vice President Rabbi Jennie Rosenn.   I encourage you to read it because it is very informative, but was virtually impossible to snip for some reason.
Rabbi Rosenn’s job is to try to bring around the American Jewish community to support Muslim refugee admission to the US.  The article says that some Jews (understandably!) got skittish after the Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks.
And, then they have to counter the likes of us (bigots, racists and nativists).
Here are just a few things new readers need to know about the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (they want to be called HIAS):

  • In 2013 they received a grant from the JM Kaplan Fund to write a $35,000 report about us.
  • They advocate sending the goons at the Southern Poverty Law Center after us!  Click here.
  • They lobbied hard for so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” (aka Gang of Eight bill) in the Senate.
  • In 2014, they re-branded and dropped the word “Hebrew” from their title and are known only as HIAS or HIAS Inc. now (what was that all about?).
  • Here we learn that they don’t want money and supplies for Syrians, they want the American Jewish community to lobby for more refugees to be brought to America.
  • They want 100,000 Syrians in here by the time Obama leaves office!
  • HIAS (no friend of Netanyahu) blasts Israel for attempting to close its borders and deport illegal aliens, here.
  • As one of nine major federal resettlement contractors*** they receive millions of your tax dollars every year to do this work.   From USASpending.gov: Under the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society they received just short of $135 MILLION from the US taxpayer since 2007, and then when you search HIAS there is another $59 MILLION there in grants and sub-grants.
  • They could not be doing this work without YOUR money.

Click here for dozens more posts on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).
***The contractors