A glimpse into our future if we don’t get immigration under control

Jesse Petrillo, head of the United American Committee, recently traveled to Europe to see for himself what uncontrolled immigration is doing to the Continent.  It is a fascinating story which ends with Geert Wilders, the embattled Dutch member of Parliment, sending a message to America:

Our final day in the Netherlands MP Wilders gave us a message to take back to America, “Stand up, stand up before it is too late.”

Read it all at Frontpage magazine, here.

Refugees 101, and how about a complaint hotline

This is very cool, a sort of Refugees 101—a summary of  how the Refugee Resettlement Program is structured.   Taught by Barbara Day of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the seminar occurred as part of the Minnesota Refugee Health Conference, Nov. 5, 2008.  Hat tip: Mars.

I was particularly interested in the section that listed requirements that NGO contractors (the volags) must follow and especially what sorts of items the refugees are to be given upon arrival and shortly thereafter.  

Also, note that there is a requirement for the volags to coordinate with state and local governments.   Both of those areas are the subjects of complaints we hear or read about often.

It got me thinking, there should be a Hotline to PRM and to the Office of Refugee Resettlement for citizens to report abuse, fraud or other types of complaints regarding the resettlement of refugees in a community.    Hey maybe Obama’s folks, with the new emphasis on transparency, will get something like that going!

Is there a hotline already, does anyone know?

Writer at HuffPo blames FBI for not preventing Somali terrorist recruitment in US

First,  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this opinion piece at the Huffington Post this morning that readily admits terrorist recruitment and indoctrination is occurring in the US Somali community.  The writer, Faisal Roble (of Wardheernews) begins with a summary of the Minneapolis missing youths that I’m repeating here in case we have new readers unfamiliar with the ever-expanding story.

It is believed that as many as 20 naturalized Somali Americans have recently vanished without any prior knowledge of their parents and joined the more radical Al-Shabab, “the youth” – an Islamist firebrand aligned to al-Qaeda. Al-shabab is an extremist group whose political objective is to establish a non-secular Sharia-based government in Somalia. So far, at least one naturalized American citizen had committed suicide in this past October, killing 30 people in northern Somalia. Most available evidence points at the Al-Shabab group who either train or commit the vanished youth to suicidal acts.

Then he goes on to blame the FBI (and the Somali families) for not spotting or reporting what is going on.  My first instinct is to defend the FBI, but I can’t.  I have heard first hand that people have attempted since 9/11 to alert the FBI to strange things going on in the Somali community and have been rebuffed by the agency.

It is disconcerting to learn that both the FBI and the Somali community did little to stop the anguish of boys disappearing from their homes. This is so because there is no meaningful cooperation between FBI and the Somali community either in Minnesota or elsewhere in the country. If any cooperation existed, protecting young Somali-American boys from exploitation by “terror networks” amongst us could have been a lot easier.

Both the FBI and the Somali community are at fault here and deserve serious criticism. For one, the FBI could be blamed for sleeping at the wheel in that it had failed to unveil a “network of terror” that has been transporting high school kids from North American cities to Somalia. It should have taken a little effort on the part of FBI to find out the adults who assist 17-year-old kids from our own American inner cities get their US passports, collect transport allowance amounting $3,000 each, a well arranged rout to Mogadishu, Somalia. But the FBI has royally failed in making any dent on a “network of terror” in our midst.

At one point Roble especially points a finger at the Bush Administration for not keeping a better eye on mosques.  No doubt, they didn’t do their job, but in defense of Bush, the minute he would have suggested any sort of surveillance  of Muslims the Leftwing crazies and CAIR* would have been on him like a big bird!  And, if Roble, a big fan of Obama’s,  thinks Obama will be any better, forget it!

Without witch-hunt, the FBI must seriously investigate the role of local mosques ran by extremist-leaning Islamist activists, if any, and the role they play in organizing infrastructural network for this particular operation. Unveiling these networks is a key component of national security as well as helping our vanishing Somali-American youths.

There is a lot of fascinating information in Roble’s article, so please read the whole thing.    But, to me this is one of the most astounding revelations Roble makes:

Horrendous stories, where boys as young as 12-years-old are temporarily removed from the protection of their families to commit them to a religious obligation program called “Da’wa,” are abundant in Minnesota and elsewhere. For a child to complete his religious obligations, the presiding mosque would assign a local priest as a caretaker for a bunch of boys during the entire period of the “Da’aw,” sometimes an entire summer vacation with no communication with their parents. The only information availed to the parents during this period is occasional but limited status report on the kids and the progress of their religious obligation, most often provided by the Mosque-assigned caretaker.

Maybe now that a Somali writer (I presume Roble to be a Somali American) is saying what Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch and others have been saying for years, the leftwing loonies reading the Huffington Post might start to take notice.

Endnote:  The FBI is on the alert now for terror recruitment among refugees, but this account from Atlanta suggests that they are not going about it very effectively.

*The FBI severed its ties and cooperation with CAIR just this week.  Hat tip:  Blulitespecial.   I’m wondering if CAIR had actually kept the FBI from gaining more contacts in the Somali community.

Comments worth noting: tired old arguments about immigrants

Last night after I wrote this post where I was so angry at Time magazine and the refugee-pushing lobbyists, I knew I needed to further remind readers of the primary reason we are here—why we write this blog.   And, gosh, I get up and here is a comment (from someone called CRD) worth noting to help me explain why we do what we do.

Dear Ann,

Your ancestors were once oppressed and discriminated against, so they got on a boat and came to a new county, the US, and gave it a try. I imagine when they landed they were helped by some nice people who maybe showed them how they could find work, where a good place to live was, where to shop. I imagine they also faced some discrimination. They were probably poor at first and spoke with accent, and didn’t know all street names by heart. Some people laughed at them I’m sure. Told them to go back to their country of origin. Told them they’d never fit in. Some people probably even formed groups and told them to get out of their neighborhood.

Which type of person are you? Would you have helped your great grandparents when they arrived in American or would you have discriminated against them?

Dear CRD,   You are right to some extent, my parents were treated well and helped by nice people.  But here are the differences worth noting, my parents were eager to be Americans.  They shed their foreign language as fast as they could (they were literate in their own original languages).   They received no welfare and they worked their butts off all their lives to send us kids to college.  They had no taxpayer funded federal government contractor finding jobs and apartments for them.  My father fought for the US in World War II.  Although proud of their heritage, they never looked back.  And, they accepted America, they didn’t seek to change our form of government, they were not Muslims.

Before I go on to what I really wanted to say, just a historical reminder the immigrant lobbyists like CRD often forget—-by the late 1920′s we were overloaded with immigrants.   America took a breather and the numbers were cut dramatically until the 1960′s which gave those earlier great waves a chance to assimilate.   Maybe if the economic panic continues, its time for another breather.

Now, more about why we write RRW.

The recent Time magazine article (not the one from 2002) on the Rohingya is an example.   But, we first saw the phenomenon in our own county, and that is, the utter shameless skewing of the news in favor of refugees and immigrants.  Most every story on refugees is a damn puff-piece.  I call them the ‘refugees see first snow stories.’   No one (hardly anyone) in the mainstream media dares tell the public the whole truth, so the public needs us!   That is why we are here—-to balance the biased mainstream media.

Why don’t they tell the whole story, the good and the bad,  about refugee resettlement or immigration in general?  Why, because they, in the media, are scared to death of people like CRD here.  Ideologues like CRD want to guilt-trip everyone into  shutting up and accepting their point of view and most people can’t take that sort of abuse, most people want to be considered good people, so they back down.  We don’t.

The American public has a right to know all the facts about immigration and especially in our case, the refugee program, because only when all the facts are presented to the people can public policy be fairly debated and decisions fairly made—-for the general public and for the refugees.   People like CRD want to WIN by guilt-tripping people and hiding some facts to lead people to their point of view.   It is wrong.  It is immoral. It is elitist.  And, it stinks!

Christian Iraqi refugees in U.S. probably will not return

Two Chaldean bishops told Catholic News Service (CNS) that Iraqi Christians will not return, although conditions in Iraq have improved.

“No one in the United States will go back to Iraq or the Middle East because the future for children, (opportunities for) education and life are better here,” said Chaldean Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim [of Detroit].

Also, experience has shown that once people have overcome the initial difficulties of adapting to a new culture, “no one will convince them to change it again” and rip up those freshly laid roots, said Chaldean Bishop Sarhad Y. Jammo [of San Diego].

The bishops were in Rome to report to the Vatican on their dioceses. 

Bishop Ibrahim said 5,000 Iraqi Christians came to Detroit in 2008; it is the highest number of newcomers he has seen.

The economic situation in Michigan is not good and businesses are struggling, he said, so he offers the new arrivals encouragement to help them through the rough patches.

During a Christmas dinner he hosted last year, he said he told some 1,500 recent Iraqi refugees, “Don’t worry, don’t be afraid, because this country is blessed by God. You will sleep without fear at night. Be patient and things will improve.”

It would seem as if Michigan would be the worst place in the country for refugees to go to, with its economy in the pits. But there is a very large Chaldean community around Detroit, and the support that provides might outweigh the problems. There is another reason the Chaldeans will not go back:

“Constitutional rights and equality have not been provided for Christians and that is a major reason why Christians will not go back and why people continue to leave and go to the West and the United States,” he said.

The constitution establishes Islam as a main source of legislation and declares that no law may contradict Islamic and democratic standards. [Aren't these standards contradictory?]

However, while there is freedom to worship, there is no full freedom of religion such as the freedom to change one’s religion, Bishop Jammo said.

Nonetheless, there is “a new season of hope” for Iraq, said Bishop Jammo.  He blames the United States for the Christians’ situation.

 He said, “it was a big mistake” on the part of the United States and the interim Iraqi government not to have protected the country’s Christians and promoted their “political and cultural leverage.”

Even though Christians in Iraq have always been a small minority, they were part of “the top elite of society” and made up 25 percent of the country’s professional class, he said.

Christians are also “a factor for peace and for national reconciliation because they don’t have militias, they don’t fight, and they don’t claim more rights” than they are due, he said.

He said Christians act as “a soft joint between tensions” within a multiethnic, religiously diverse community — sort of like cartilage that cushions hard bones.

“The United States should have paid attention to this asset” of the Christians serving as buffers in conflict, he said.

Instead, U.S. policymakers overlooked the role Christians could have played in favor of focusing only on the fate of the country’s Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions, he said.

He is right. We heard nothing about the Christians during the war. Everything was about the needs of the three Muslims groups. When the Christians fled we read some stories about their ancient communities being destroyed. But I don’t think our government did anything to help them. It’s as if we had to bend over so far backward to be “understanding” of the Muslims that we didn’t dare bring up the needs of the Christians. This is to our great shame. 

Bishop Jammo said he thinks it is still possible for the Iraqi Constitution to provide full equality for Christians.

Otherwise, “what was the purpose of the U.S. going there (and overseeing the drafting of the constitution), if it did not emphasize the equality of all” ethnic and religious communities? he asked.

Unless full equality is provided, “peace, justice, progress and balance will not be realized” in Iraq, he said.

It’s not going to happen. If George W. Bush didn’t pay attention to the Christians, Barack Obama surely isn’t going to be any better. Islam doesn’t provide for equal rights for non-Muslims, and Iraq’s constitution is Islamic. Only our insistence could have made it happen (and possibly even that wouldn’t have), and now it’s too late.

The article doesn’t say anything about Iraqi Christians in other countries. I wonder if any are returning. From what I’ve read, life is difficult for them in most places. The ones who made it here are fortunate indeed.

The Rohingya: Time magazine now and then

I just wanted to be done for today, to relax on a Friday night, instead I am steaming mad.  A little while ago I got an “e-update” from our favorite refugee industry lobbying group, Refugees International, lamenting the plight of the Rohingya illegal aliens trying to get into Thailand.

I will grant that if the reports are true, the Thai military has really screwed up badly by treating the illegal aliens cruelly and possibly killing hundreds.

However, I have been watching the development of the Rohingya refugee issue for a year now—the steady drumbeat about how the poor suffering stateless Rohingya need to come to the west to live.   That is what all this is working up to, and the Thai government has now handed the refugee pushers the perfect public relations coup.

The story of the Muslim Rohingya boat men is making the rounds of all the major media including Time magazine.  Gee didn’t Newsweek just screw up badly a week ago in a report about Somalis in Maine?   I guess it’s Time’s turn to give us the politically correct story—the whitewashing of anything to do with Muslim immigrants.

Now…..

The rescued Rohingya in India and Indonesia are likely to be “repatriated” to Bangladesh — a return to Burma would spell arrest and far worse. The Rohingya’s lot in Burma is dire, says Sean Garcia, a consultant for the Washington-based Refugees International. “They are not allowed to survive,” he says. Denied state documents, the Rohingya have to apply for permission to move from village to village, to repair a mosque, even to get married. Rohingya frequently fall victim to forced-labor drives by the military. The Burmese government, say Rohingya rights-groups, sees them as interlopers in the predominantly Buddhist land.

I’m not defending actions of the Burmese Junta but apparently they fear the ever- expanding Muslim population and for good reason.  With a growing radical Islamic insurgency in its south, that is Thailand’s concern too, but these mainstream media outfits dare not mention that.

Then here is another paragraph from Time.  I ask you, does this sound like straightforward reporting?

As a consequence of their downtrodden condition, the Rohingya don’t have the kind of diaspora-based support groups that provide publicity and aid to some of Burma’s other oppressed minorities. [Editor:  This is factually untrue, they have many support groups, we know, we hear from them]   Their plight, though, may be a central issue at the next regional ASEAN Summit, which will take place at the end of February in Thailand. By then, observers hope the Thai government will employ different methods in tackling the problem. “Governments in the region need to put together a proactive plan to meet the needs of the Rohingya,” says Garcia. “You can’t literally make these people go away, as if they were less than human.” But for thousands of Rohingya refugees, that is a fate to which they are all too accustomed.  [Who wrote this, a Time reporter or a refugee lobbyist?]

And then…..

Here is what Time magazine said about Rohingya on October 14, 2002 in an article entitled, ‘Deadly Cargo’ by Alex Perry.  What, no search function at Time?

Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border, and in Muslim Rohingyas, tens of thousands of whom fled the ethnic and religious suppression of the Burmese military junta in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many Rohingyas are long-term refugees, but some are trained to cause trouble back home in camps tolerated by a succession of Bangladeshi governments. The original facilities date back to 1975, making them Asia’s oldest jihadi training camps. And one former Burmese guerrilla who visits the camps regularly describes three near Ukhia, south of the town of Cox’s Bazar, as able to accommodate a force of 2,500 between them.

Isn’t it just possible that the Thai government does have something to fear from hundreds of Rohingya men arriving in Thailand?   Why can’t any of you even say this?  It infuriates me!   Why can’t you refugee lobbyists and your media lackey’s be completely honest with the public?  

Maybe solutions could be found for some of these seemingly intractable immigrant issues if you all weren’t such leftwing zealots busy manipulating public opinion.

…and thanks for ruining what was going to be a nice evening.

This is my first post (a year ago January) about this earlier Time magazine article.  You can read all about the organized PR campaign to resettle Rohingya Muslims in the west in our special cateory on the topic here.

Obama sends more emergency funds to Gaza

Your tax dollars:

The State Department announced just now, at the end of the day on a Friday, that the US government is dipping into emergency funds for refugees to send $20 million to Palestinians in Gaza.  That brings our FY2009 total to $120,000,000   (FY 09 began on Oct. 1, 2008).

President Barack Obama has authorized the use of $20.3 million from the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) Fund to address critical post-conflict humanitarian needs in Gaza. U.S. Government support for humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees and conflict victims now totals nearly $120 million in FY 2009, including nearly $60 million in Gaza.

[....] 

Today’s contribution to UNRWA augments the $85 million the United States contributed in December 2008 toward UNRWA’s 2009 appeals.

We have written critically of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) on several previous occasions (here and here are just two posts to get you started).  Many believe the “humanitarian funds” end up in the hands of Hamas and that UNRWA is in the business of perpetuating the Palestinian “refugee crisis” instead of bringing it to an end.

Open borders crowd: Obama immigration reform will come in late 2009

Update May 1:  Obama says it’s this year!

Update April 9th:  New York Times is now reporting that Obama Administration is going ahead with amnesty push soon, here.

Update April 8th:  Center for Immigration Studies confirms CIR will not come anytime soon, here.

Or early 2010!   From New America Media:

Pro-immigrant advocates believe the Obama administration will have a window of opportunity between this September and March 2010 to shepherd a comprehensive immigration package that will provide a path to legalization for an estimated 12 million undocumented residents, strengthen border security and help[!] the ailing economy.

Ira Mehlman, speaking on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, says ‘no way’ will the Obama Administration push amnesty if the economy still stinks later this year.

“I’m not sure if any of those folks want to go back to voters in 2010 with the economy bad and say to voters, ‘We didn’t do much to fix the economy, but we passed amnesty for 13 million (undocumented) immigrants,” said Mehlman.

Utah refugees suffering, state to free up federal housing money

Your tax dollars:

Yesterday in a post about thousands of Iraqis supposedly headed to Florida, I mentioned that Utah was one of 15 states where Iraqis had complained they could not find work.

So, as if on cue, this morning there is news from Salt Lake City that Utah is attempting a last ditch plan to rescue suffering refugees from the high cost of housing (and lack of jobs).  The article in the International Herald Tribune begins:

After escaping violence in Myanmar and spending 27 years in the bamboo huts of a United Nations camp in Thailand, Nyaw Paw, 33, arrived in the United States to face the traumatic adjustment and cultural vertigo known to every refugee.

But between high rents, lagging federal aid and now a recession that is drying up entry-level work, the transition has become harder than ever, refugee workers say. Overwhelming housing costs are its starkest symptom: Many new arrivals spend 90 percent or more of their income on rent and utilities, leaving them virtually no disposable income and creating enormous hardships, officials say.

According to this article, Utah will be the first state to make federal welfare grants, that would normally go to American poor, available to refugees.

Poor refugees – like low-income Americans – can apply for rent subsidies, which require that recipients spend 30 percent of their income on rent, with the U.S. government picking up the rest. But in Salt Lake City, there is a two-year waiting list, and it is longer than that in many other cities.

Starting next month, in the first program of its kind, Utah plans to soften the huge and growing burden of housing costs by providing rent subsidies to recently arrived families for up to two years. The money is being drawn from unspent federal welfare reserves. Under the welfare reforms of 1996, states can use the U.S. government grant flexibly for families that already qualify for welfare – mainly single-parent families like Paw’s. For them, such help will make a world of difference.

There are not enough jobs for skilled and educated Iraqis or for the largest number of refugees, those with no skills, little education and no command of English.  

Apart from a share of Iraqis who arrive with professional degrees, most refugees these days arrive from Africa and Asia with little education or experience of Western life, and no relatives to help.

U.S. aid has not matched the rising cost of housing, state welfare programs are skimpier than before and cheap housing is ever scarcer. Meanwhile, the jobs that refugees have often ridden to success, like work in warehouses and hotels, are drying up.

There appears to be no one in the refugee industry even taking note of all this, and no one (except us critics!) suggesting we slow down on the number of unemployable people we are bringing into the US.

The housing plan has drawn no significant opposition in Utah, which is generally seen as friendly to refugees. But the size of the U.S. refugee program, which admitted about 60,000 people last year and is widely regarded as advancing humanitarian and foreign policy goals, has been questioned by some. Critics say America allows in too many people who are surely going to require public aid yet have alternative places to live. Paw, for example, could have remained in Thailand by this argument.

“We are much too permissive about letting refugees in,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors reducing immigration. Refugee admissions, he said, should be held “to the very small number of people who don’t have and won’t have any place else to go.”

Mr. Krikorian’s final statement makes sense, but not to people in the refugee industry who think that ALL REFUGEES HAVE NO PLACE ELSE TO GO!

UN says Iraqi refugees will be returning home in droves

The Associated Press reports:

BRUSSELS, Belgium — If the security situation in Iraq continues to improve, the number of refugees and displaced people returning to their homes could more than double this year to 500,000, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday.

After years of extreme violence Iraq is now experiencing markedly improved security, said Daniel Endres, Baghdad representative of the Geneva-based agency.

“Although this security remains fragile, last year we saw a significant return as a result,” he told journalists in Brussels.

More than 220,000 Iraqis who fled abroad or were displaced within the country after the U.S.-led invasion returned home in 2008, according to U.N. statistics.

There are still nearly two million external refugees and 1.6 million internally displaced persons.  Two things should speed up their return.

One, the Iraqi government is taking stronger steps to solve the problems that discourage their return. The first, of course, was the violence, and that is down to a point where it is not a barrier to return. Another big problem is housing.

[The government's recent action] includes setting up a special army unit charged with evicting militia members and others who moved illegally into homes owned by people forced to flee the violence.

The article doesn’t say if they’re doing this, but the Iraqi government or our government also needs to provide new housing because so much was destroyed during the fighting.

Another problem is jobs, but I believe from little hints I’ve read that the Iraqi economy is recovering nicely. Iraqis have a tradition of entrepreneurship, and that will serve them very well. (Maybe we in America could recover that tradition and get the government to encourage it here instead of taxing and regulating it to death!)  And this will be an important spur to return:

[I]nternational refugee organizations have been encouraged by the government’s recent moves to normalize the situation and encourage returns.

We noted a few weeks ago that one of the big organizations had changed its policy to encourage returns rather than resettlement. And now the UN appears to agree. This is wonderful news. Of course, this being the AP, we have to get the downer at the end:

Many refugees are also reluctant to return because standards of living in places such as Syria and Jordan are much better than in Iraq. Issues such as the lack of basic utilities and services, including perennial electricity shortages and problems with sewage, sanitation and other services, also hinder returns, Endres said.

Are these the same refugees who are in such dire straits in Syria and Jordan that they are selling their women on the streets, as we’ve read so many times?

In my Google alert, where I found this item, only Fox News had picked it up. I’ll look today for coverage in the mainstream media of how this huge problem (which was all America’s fault, of course) is on its way to being solved. But I suspect I won’t find much. Likewise, the Iraqi elections, which are mentioned in the AP article but very little in the rest of the media.

The elections are relevant to the refugee issue in that the Sunnis, who boycotted previous elections, are taking part. It is another sign of normalcy, and also a message to Sunni refugees who fled fearing the Shia majority that they are part of Iraq and will be represented in the government.

One question I have that I think will never be answered: We know that a considerable number of the refugee count consists of supporters of Saddam Hussein who fled when he was overthrown because they feared retribution. I have not read anything about them for a long time, but I would like to know what Iraq is doing about them, if anything. If they become the majority of refugees who do not return, are we going to get them resettled here? Just what we need!

Update January 31: I news-googled “Iraqi refugees” to see what kind of play this story got in the media. Only Fox News and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty came up, though there may be others that picked up the AP story and don’t show up in the search. Most of the stories are about the terrible plight of the Iraqi refugees. I guess that will remain the dominant narrative until the media can give the Obama administration credit for the improvement.