Tag: US State Department

Utah murder trial ends with guilty verdict for Burmese Muslim refugee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It was a trial that riveted readers of The Salt Lake Tribune for the last couple of weeks, but barely made news outside of Utah.  Esar Met, a Burmese Muslim man, was arrested in 2008 for the brutal sexual assault and murder of a 7-year-old Burmese girl in their Salt Lake City apartment building.   A jury found him guilty yesterday.

Met had only been in the US one month and had been assigned to live in a building filled with fellow Burmese, but they were all Christians and roommates described the tension that created among them.  They had lived in separate parts of the camp in Thailand.

Hser Ner Moo’s father Cartoon Wah (right) said after the verdict: “My only daughter is still no more.”
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=22985680

From The Salt Lake Tribune:

He lured the child with games and treats. He made her laugh, helped her feel safe and welcome in the depths of his basement home.

But on March 31, 2008, a jury ruled Friday, kindness turned to violence as Esar Met sexually assaulted, beat and killed 7-year-old Hser Ner Moo.

Jurors entered the courtroom Friday after more than five hours of deliberation looking haggard and spent. They had sat through nine days of testimony, 41 witnesses and more than two hours of closing arguments that morning.

Two female jurors held tissues at the ready. Their eyes looked as if they had already been crying.

In the gallery, packed with friends and family of the young victim, a tense silence filled the air, punctuated only by the quiet sobs of Pearlly Wa — the mother who lost her only daughter nearly six years ago.

Met was convicted of child kidnapping and aggravated murder, both first-degree felonies that could land the 27-year-old Burmese refugee in prison for the rest of his life.

[….]

He had been in the country just one month, and would spend the next six years behind bars awaiting trial.

He could get 20 years to life when he is sentenced in May.  Scary thought that he could ever be released.  And, too bad for Utah taxpayers, maybe they should appeal to Congress for an extra stipend to pay for his trial and for the next 20 years of his life since it was the federal government—the US State Department and its contractors (Catholic Charities?)—that dumped him in Utah.

By the way, over the years The Salt Lake Tribune has acted like a real investigative news outlet, even sending a reporter to Thailand back in 2008.  One thing reporter Julia Lyon learned is that Met was considered “not right” in the camp, so who decided he would be a good citizen of America?

For new readers, all of our previous coverage of the case, going back years, may be found by clicking here.

Defense rests without calling a witness in Utah refugee murder trial

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Final arguments will be today.

US State Department brings diversity to Utah. Esar Met at trial in Salt Lake City.
http://www.capitalbay.com/news/454208-hser-ner-moo-burmese-girl-7-killed-in-utah-died-a-painful-death.html

For new readers, see our previous posts on the trial of Burmese Muslim, Esar Met, who is accused of murdering a 7-year-old Burmese Karen Christian girl in the apartment building where both were resettled by the US State Department and its Utah contractors.

Apparently, the defense could find no one to testify on Met’s behalf.  Gee, no one from the State Department could come and attest to his character and say how they had chosen a sane and decent man to give a new life to in America?

From the The Salt Lake Tribune:

Only one man knows where Esar Met was when a 7-year-old girl took her last breath.

Was he standing over her, as prosecutors have alleged, having brutally assaulted and slain Hser Ner Moo in the basement of his South Salt Lake home?

Or was he somewhere else, as defense attorneys have said? Gone to a bus, perhaps, attempting to navigate unfamiliar routes to the home of his aunt and uncle in Cottonwood Heights.

Only Met can answer these questions.

But on the eighth day of his trial, Met declined to testify in his own defense.

Speaking through a Burmese interpreter Thursday, Met invoked his right to remain silent, telling an 11-person jury he would not take the stand to answer to the charges against him: first-degree felony child kidnapping and aggravated murder.

Defense attorneys rested their case before 3rd District Judge Judith Atherton without calling a single witness.

If found guilty, there is no death penalty for Met because he couldn’t understand English, he would likely spend the rest of his life being cared for by the taxpayers of “welcoming” Utah.  A lesson in diversity for prison guards? Halal food?  Special prayer times?

Bhutanese refugees in the US still committing suicide at high rate….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..resettlement agencies responsible for solving the problem!

That’s what the Wall Street Journal blog reported earlier this week (thanks to two readers for sending it).

UN and the US in its infinite wisdom scattered the ‘Bhutanese’ refugees to the four winds.

Before I give you the highlights from the WSJ, this is how we came to have tens of thousands of Bhutanese refugees in America.  After nearly 20 years of a stalemate between the tiny countries of Nepal and Bhutan, the United Nations basically got sick of running the camps in Nepal (unlike the Palestinian camps they have been running for 60+ years).

The Bhutanese refugees are ethnic Nepalis (mostly Hindus) who had lived in Bhutan for decades, but were expelled by the government trying to keep Bhutan for its religious (mostly Buddhists) and ethnic majority.  Nepal didn’t want them back either.

So, the US State Department (under Bush Asst. Secretary Ellen Sauerbrey) announced in 2007 that we would resettle the lions’ share of the refugees—60,000.  How we had any national interest in this situation is still beyond me, and I don’t know how we couldn’t have persuaded (with some international aid) those two small countries to work it out is troubling.

Honestly, I am so cynical now I believe we brought them here for cheap docile captive LEGAL laborers!  And, the resettlement contractors needed more bodies to resettle since they are paid by the head to bring ’em to your towns and cities.

And, maybe, just maybe, every ethnic group in the world is not going to melt in the mythical American melting pot! How would you like to have been protected and cared for in a camp for your whole life and then dropped into the heart of some American city—often in slum neighborhoods—and expected to make it!

Here is what the WSJ said (emphasis mine):

Before Menuka Poudel left the refugee camp in Nepal where she and her family sheltered for almost two decades after being displaced from Bhutan, the 18-year-old spoke to me about her hopes of pursing her college education and living the American dream.

Just over a year later, on Nov. 30, 2010, she was found by her mother hanging in an apartment in Phoenix Arizona, where her family had moved a month before. They had hoped to begin a new life under a resettlement program for Bhutanese refugees who had fled cultural and religious persecution.

Ms. Poudel, who was still breathing when her mother found her, was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix where she was pronounced dead the following day, according to her family.

The young woman was one of over 30 Bhutanese refugees who have taken their lives in the U.S. since the summer of 2008 when the resettlement program began.

The problem of suicide in the community seems to be worsening: Since the start of Nov. 2013, seven Bhutanese refugees have killed themselves after resettling in the U.S.

[….]

As of Oct. 2013, there were around 71,000 Bhutanese refugees living in the U.S., according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.   [Originally we were only taking 60,000!—ed]

Mismatch between their idea of the American dream and the work they do in America (yeh, like working the line in a slaughter plant, if they even find a job!).

“Different psychological stressors occur at each stage of the resettlement process,” the study said. Once refugees are relocated, factors such as inability to find work, increased family conflict and symptoms of anxiety, depression and psychological distress are associated with suicidal thoughts, it added.

After resettlement, many young Bhutanese adults seem to find a mismatch between their idea of the American dream and the availability of work and quality of pay in the U.S. [What! We are told all the time that refugees are finding plenty of employment!—ed]

Those working with the Bhutanese community in America say there is a lack of support and provision to deal with the problem.

Organizations that resettled them are responsible for solving the suicide problem!  Hah!  Don’t hold your breath unless they get some (more!) taxpayer grants to do it.

Mr. Subedi [community volunteer in Philadelphia] says that to tackle the problem properly and highlight the issue among Bhutanese refugees, a U.S.-wide campaign by the organizations responsible for the resettlement program is required because the community in general is a self-contained and introverted culture.

We have written many posts on the Bhutanese resettlement.  Click here for all of them.  Here are our posts on Bhutanese suicide.  We are also putting this into our Health issues category as it relates to what we have been saying lately about refugee mental health problems.

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.

Refugees lobby Congress for more refugees/a more “welcoming” America

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (which selects refugees for the US) and the US State Department partnered to bring refugees to Washington, DC earlier this month to lobby Congress (you probably paid their expenses!).  To tell you the truth it’s not exactly clear what they told Members of Congress as they traveled around the Hill on “Advocacy Day.”   I’m guessing they want more stuff from taxpayers and more of their people to be admitted to the US.

Amnesty lobbyist Frank Sharry, pal of Grover Norquist, told the gathering to “hurry up and take over.”

From Reuters (a submitted opinion piece?) thanks to reader Joanne:

WASHINGTON, DC, United States, December 13 (UNHCR) – Refugees and asylum-seekers from Syria, Sudan and 20 other nations took steps this week in Washington, DC, to ensure their voices become an integral part of United States policy discussion on how best to protect people fleeing violence and persecution around the world.

At the end of the 2013 Refugee Congress, organized by UNHCR on Monday and Tuesday, the 48 delegates each signed a letter calling on the US authorities to “invite refugees and other affected persons to participate meaningfully in discussions” on refugee and asylum policy issues.   [I sure hope that Congress also invites the other “stakeholders”—the US taxpayer!—ed]

The letter was handed by the delegates to their representatives in the US Congress during meetings on the “Advocacy Day” that followed the gathering, an action that participants said underscored the drive to push refugee advocacy forward from the conceptual to the practical.

“UNHCR supports the Refugee Congress as a way for refugees and asylum-seekers in the United States to help themselves and to develop a credible voice for advocacy,” said Shelly Pitterman, UNHCR’s regional representative. “I think that this year’s Refugee Congress took an important step in the right direction,” he added.

“You belong here!”

Assistant Secretary of State Richard, in an address to the gathering, said the refugee story of courage and resilience was quintessentially American. “You are not strangers. You belong here!” she stressed.

The congress participants agreed that fortifying that fact of belonging must be central to their future work. This meant not just feeling confident of their status as full-fledged members of American society but of exercising that status in practical ways to advocate for an issue they know better than anyone.  [In other words just living and blending in isn’t enough, they must become political activists.—ed]

Then long-time amnesty activist Frank Sharry told the gathering it was time for them to “hurry up and take over.”  Now what the heck does that mean?  The charming Mr. Sharry made news recently when he teamed up with Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform to say they where cooking up a scheme for REVENGE against Speaker Boehner and any Republicans who did not want to go to conference with the Senate-passed S.744.

In a rousing address on the first day of the congress, Frank Sharry, executive director of the America’s Voice immigration reform advocacy organization, stressed the need for all people in the United States to understand that refugees and asylum-seekers are as much a part of the fabric of American society as any other group in the country.

“My vision of an America that I love and that I will fight for is an America that is welcoming to refugees,” Sharry said, before calling on refugees and asylum-seekers to take the lead in that cause: “Hurry up and take over!” he said.

I continue to be amazed that the federal refugee contractors and the refugee “activists” themselves don’t get it that if the so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill should become law, there will be FEWER jobs for legal refugees because the millions of newly legalized Hispanics, who are increasingly conversant in English, will be first in line for the jobs at places like Marriott hotels (one of the financial backers of the amnesty lobbying push).

Frankly, for Sharry (America’s Voice) and Norquist and even the federal contractors it’s all about the $$$$ (while changing America!).

An appeal!  As of this writing we are only 4 short of 1000 subscribers/followers of RRW.  Help us find 4 more before the end of the year so we can reach a new milestone!  It may not seem like a large number compared to the big blogs, but because our subject is a narrow one, we are thrilled with the growing number of readers!