Iraqi Palestinians set to arrive in the US: when and how many?

From time to time I’ve written about the Palestinians who originally went to Iraq at Saddam Hussein’s invitation, but when Saddam met his end, they became targets of Iraqis who hated Saddam.   So they fled, but no Muslim country would take them and they live in camps along the Iraq-Syria border.   A few have gone to Chile and Iceland, other places in Europe too.

These Palestinians have not been shy in speaking out about the hypocrisy of the Arab world—the mythical Muslim charity has not been offered to them.   And, by the way, the reason Palestinian “refugees” continue to live in Gaza after decades is that no Muslim country wants them either.  Those countries need the refugee hammer (sword!) over Israel.

Well, now it appears thousands of Iraqi Palestinians will come to the US.  Exactly how many and when seems to be up in the air.   Or better still, it probably isn’t up in the air as far as the State Department goes, it’s just that we don’t know.   Note this comment thread on the post I wrote the other day about Palestinians going  to Canada.

Kristen:

the US will also be taking 5000 of these Palestinians this Fiscal Year, i think they are scheduled to start coming in July.

Me:

Kristen, are you speculating that we are taking 5000, or do you know something we don’t know yet! 

Timisoara:

Kristen, as far as I know, the US will also be taking about 1200 (not 5000) of these Palestinians, and most will arrive in the next US government fiscal year (e.g. in the Fall). They’re coming from the Al Waleed refugee camp, near the Iraq-Syrian border. There are discussions about accepting Palestinians from the Al Tanaf and Al Hol refugee camps, but both camps have problems with access, and they’re fewer than 500 individuals each.

Kristen:

Sorry for the late response. Until Friday, I was working for an affiliate of ECDC [Ethiopian Community Development Council, one of the Top Ten government contractors], and we had started to receive assurance forms for a few of these Palestinian cases. According to ECDC, the US will be taking 5,000 of these cases on an “emergency” basis before this fiscal year ends. I am not working there, but that was the last that I had heard.

The US doesn’t normally take Palestinians.  We  have taken less than a dozen Palestinians in FY2008 and about the same number this fiscal year so far.  I wonder if the Iraqi Palestinians will be listed as Palestinians or hidden in the Iraqi refugee data?

Searching around just now to see if I could find any confirmation of what our commenters are saying, I did find this at Relief Web:

The Iraqi Palestinian population is fairly small – only a few thousand. So far the U.S. has not taken in any of the refugees from Al-Tanf. To its credit, it has agreed to take in many of the Palestinian Iraqis staying in Al-Waleed camp, another of the three similar border camps. But the US can do more.

Wonder when the mainstream media will notice this story, probably only when they are moving in next door.

Civil rights complaints have been filed in Greeley, CO

Possibly related story update:  I almost forgot Blulitespecial sent me this link yesterday about E Coli tainted meat being recalled from this very same meatpacking plant in Greeley.  Seems some people are getting sick around the country.  How safe is our food supply?

 

The Denver Post this week published another of those puff-piece stories about how Somalis, former refugees,* are blending nicely into Greeley, CO, opening shops and getting along just great with the local people—the same template story (later corrected by city officials) we heard from Newsweek about the Somalis in Lewiston, ME.  

So after wading through the article I find there is ”related news” tacked on at the end—-Somalis have filed a civil rights complaint with federal and state officials about their supposed mistreatment at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant which employs about 300 of them.

Complaints center around alleged mistreatment by Hispanic supervisors, while Swift & Co. is scrambling to give the Somalis what they demand.  Apparently bidets for Somalis were not enough to satisfy them!

GREELEY — State and federal civil-rights officials are investigating claims that Somali workers at the JBS Swift Beef Co. meatpacking plant were mistreated.

Complaints have been filed with state officials and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said Steve Chavez, director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division.

Chavez met with Somalis in Greeley last week. He said federal officials are taking the lead on the investigation.

EEOC officials declined to comment.

Concerns surfaced last year after JBS managers refused to let late-shift Somalis pray at sunset during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Workers walked off the job, and more than 100 were fired. Somali workers have since claimed ongoing issues with their Latino supervisors, Chavez said.

“They believe they were treated differently because they were Somalis,” he said.

JBS spokesman Chandler Keys said the company has attempted to accommodate religious practices by installing foot washes in locker rooms for foot-cleansing prior to prayer and bidet-type spray devices on toilets to assist with cleansing after using the rest room.

Be sure to see my post last night on the strategy being used to disrupt communities to bring about “change.”

Greeley and the historical roots of radical Islam. 

The irony of all of this happening in Greeley, CO is surely not lost on the Islamists driving these demands for religious accommodation.  I have speculated before that they are having a good laugh over the fact that Greeley is considered the birthplace of some of the most extreme Islamic fundamentalism rampant in the world today.

This is what I told you last September when much of the controversy with the Somalis and Swift & Co. came to our attention.

Here is the answer to my comment at this morning’s post about what role Greeley played in the birth of Al Qaeda. Sayed Qtub had come for a visit:

Communism had Karl Marx. Al Qaedaism has Sayed Qtub. Who’s he, most people would ask. The ideology that nurtured modern Islamic extremism, and spawned every violent movement from Hezbollah to al Qaeda, was born in 1952 when Qtub, an Egyptian writer, returned from studying American literature at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colo.

The tipping point from detached observer to extremist ideologue took place at a church dance in Greeley when, as Qtub recalled in “The America I Saw,” the pastor dimmed the lights and put on the come-hither number “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” a hit tune from the MGM movie “Neptune’s Daughter” — a guy, girl and bathing suit lemon — with Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban.

“The room,” Qtub wrote “became a confusion of feet and legs; arms twisted around hips; lips met lips; chests pressed together,” That was the scene that turned him off American culture in particular and Western culture in general — and onto Islamic fundamentalism.

Read more here and consider how Greeley could just be an excellent target city in which Shariah might be planted in America. The irony.

*To new readers:    

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

Greeley, CO Round 2 in the Ramadan battle? What is this all about?

Yesterday I directed readers to this excellent and extremely informative article in the Greeley Tribune that basically suggests a new round of protests is likely at meatpacking plants as the Muslim Ramadan holiday approaches.   Read my post yesterday and be sure to go back and read the Greeley Tribune as well. 

Since the ruckus began first in Shelbyville, TN with the decision by Tyson’s Food to give up the Labor Day holiday in exchange for Eid-al Fitr, the last day of Ramadan, and through the demonstrations in Greeley, CO and Grand Island, NE it wasn’t so clear to me what this was all about other than a spontaneous demand by mostly Somali ”refugees”  for religious accommodation in the workplace.   However, in the last year we have learned a lot and we now know this is much bigger then a few spontaneous demonstrations.  There is nothing spontaneous about this—protests are being orchestrated.

So I don’t get too long, I’ll tell you what is happening in bullet format.

* Progressives (radical leftwing community organizers) are using the Alinsky model of community organizing.  We call it community destabilization and we have a whole category on the topic, here.   The gist of what they are doing is using angry poor immigrants to create chaos to bring about “change.”     And, “change” means socialism and ultimately a world without borders, without sovereign countries.

* The Progressives, including Obama’s friends at the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) and their helpers at CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) have “organized” Somalis in certain cities in the US and trained them to disrupt the workplace by demanding religious accommodation.  I have noted that Somali “community” centers are springing up and Somali “community” organizers are arriving in meatpacking company towns.   The most recent one I mentioned was Ft. Morgan, CO where Somalis are already agitating through their new “organizer” that they don’t have any supervisory positions at the Cargill plant there (did you notice this issue is also being raised in the Greeley Tribune story?).  In addition to special treatment for prayer times, mark my words, this supervisory promotion issue will be popping up everywhere this year.

* You might say the Progressives, the socialists, are using the Somalis, but the Somalis are also using the Progressives.   Baron Bodissey writing last year at Gates of Vienna blog says this is all about probing western countries to see how much Shariah law we will tolerate.   Always on Watch reminds us what the Eid-al Fitr holiday is all about—it’s about conquering people (well, infidels!), about creating a worldwide caliphate.

So as the battles begin later this summer, keep what I have said in mind.  It is planned, it is organized, it is a strategy to change America.   The only thing that makes no sense to me is, do the Progressives think they can control the Islamic fundamentalists in the end?    If they do, they are miscalculating very badly.

*To new readers:    

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

White House Amnesty chit-chat happened last Friday

The bipartisan White House strategy meeting to discuss Amnesty and border security that we originally heard was scheduled for June 8th, finally occurred Friday the 26th according to this news report from NumbersUSA.   No consensus was reached but Obama still says he wants Amnesty.    From NumbersUSA:

Pres. Barack Obama took the first step on Thursday towards immigration reform and an amnesty for more than 11 million illegal aliens. Members of the Administration met with 30 Members of Congress from both sides of the issue and both sides of the aisle to get the debate rolling, but Pres. Obama said after the meeting that there was “not by any means consensus across the table.”

Despite the differing opinions on how to handle the illegal alien population, how to secure the borders and how to monitor the flow of future immigrants, Pres. Obama said he’s committed to getting an amnesty through Congress.

See the NumbersUSA story to see who attended.

And, by the way, to one of our Progressive (radical leftwinger) commenters the other day who said I didn’t  know the difference between refugees and other immigrants, as long as the refugee agencies who are contracted to take care of refugees conflate the two and lobby for amnesty, so can I put the two together.   Frankly, it defies logic when federal contractors, like the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), can say that giving amnesty to 11-12 million illegal aliens won’t hurt refugee job prospects.

If you haven’t done so previously, check out the NumbersUSA permanent link at the top of our home page and see what the growth charts tell us about immigrations’ impact on the US over the next few decades.  If you are concerned about overcrowding, the loss of farmland and open space (more schools, more houses, more roads), the impact on air and water resources and a diminished quality of life for your kids and grandkids, Roy Beck’s demonstration is pretty scary.

Question for Progressives visiting RRW:  I’m curious, how do you justify in your minds the obvious impact millions of additional people arriving as immigrants to the US will have on our resources and our environment, since Leftwing policies promote both environmental protection AND more immigration?

Prosecutors get rare conviction in Somali murder case

Apparently regularly stymied by the unwillingness of anyone in the Somali “community” to talk, Minnesota prosecutors managed to get a conviction against a Somali, former refugee,* for murdering another Somali, former refugee, in what is being described as gang and clan related violence.  From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

A 23-year-old Richfield man was found guilty Friday in Hennepin County District Court of what police said was a misdirected revenge killing outside a south Minneapolis mall that is popular with Somali immigrants.

A jury convicted Hassan Mohamed Abdillahi of second-degree murder in the shooting death of 21-year-old Abdishakur Adan Hassan, of Minneapolis, on Sept. 29 at the Village Market Mall.

According to the charges, Abdillahi wanted revenge for the April 2008 shooting death in Minneapolis of his cousin, but because he believed the shooter had fled the country, he killed that man’s friend instead.

Cycle of violence will continue.

It’s a cycle of violence that Hassan’s sister, Deka Hassan, said likely won’t end soon, but the conviction of the man she said murdered her brother in cold blood shows that Somalis and their families will not be intimidated. [Good for this brave woman to stand up to the Somali men!]

[.....]

The killing was part of what authorities and community leaders called a disturbing string of crimes in the Somali community. Outrage flared again last month when second-degree murder charges against 17-year-old Ramadan Shiekh Osman were dropped. That happened after witnesses recanted their statements about what they saw the night a 20-year-old Augsburg College student Ahmednur Ali was shot and killed. That killing happened seven days before Hassan’s. 

[.....]

“Witnesses wouldn’t cooperate; witnesses didn’t come forward; witnesses had to be arrested,” Connors said. “And despite being arrested, one witness still would not testify. The witnesses that did testify showed great courage.”

We have written many times about Somali gang violence in cities with large Somali populations—Minneapolis, Seattle and Columbus.   Even Salt Lake City is seeing an increase in Somali gangs.

Note to Lewiston, ME and Ft. Morgan, CO:   You have this to look forward to as your Somali populations grow!

*To new readers:    

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

Asylum-seeking boatmen flooding into Australia

This is an update on previous posts (see our Australia category, here) we’ve done on the veritable flood of asylum seeking men from Muslim countries attempting to get into Australia.  For all you commenters who called me an Islamophobe at this post last week, where I said it was a lie to suggest that Islam welcomes the stranger, note all the flow of refugees is always away from Muslim countries and toward westernized countries.  You don’t see hordes of refugees beating on the doors of Saudi Arabia with its state-of-the art border fence, but Australia,  like America and Europe, is where everyone wants to be.  

Saudi Arabia knows there would no longer be a Saudi Arabia if their doors were flung wide open.   Many Americans and Australians know it also (some Europeans get it but it may be too late for them)—open borders will destroy the prosperity of westernized democracies, but unfortunately the powers that be in both Australia and America are working really hard to do just that—-destroy the goose that lays the golden egg.

From the Brisbane Times today:

A BOAT carrying 194 people, the largest number of asylum seekers on a single vessel in eight years, has been intercepted 43 kilometres north-west of Christmas Island.

Australian officials had tracked the small wooden fishing boat, which defence sources said was overcrowded, since Friday after it left Indonesia.

Those on board, almost all men, are understood to be Afghan or Iraqi, and are being processed in immigration detention on Christmas Island. No children were aboard.

You can’t blame it all on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because note that in 2001 the numbers were even higher and had gone down when the Howard government made it harder to get into Australia.

Arrivals by boat this year are well up on the 161 last year, but still far below the heights of 2001, when 5516 arrived.

Insisting their policies aren’t involved, the liberal Rudd government has been loosening restrictions on refugees and asylees, while claiming the flood is related to an increase in refugees worldwide.

Those who do not support flinging borders wide open, say it is those policies that are encouraging the boatmen and their human traffickers.

The Opposition spokeswoman on immigration, Sharman Stone, said the latest arrival could be directly attributed to the Federal Government’s softer immigration regime.

“This week we have seen another softening,” Dr Stone said, referring to legislation to remove charges levied against people for their time spent in immigration detention. “No wonder we have seen a boat this big.

Hispanics vs. Somalis: Greeley getting ready for Round 2

Update June 30th:   The Denver Post says civil rights complaints have been filed against Swift & Co. alleging Somalis have been mistreated by Hispanic supervisors.  I realize I miss-titled this post.  It should be Somalis vs. Hispanics!

 

Oh boy, I predict we are going to be seeing the second round of the battle of the Hispanic workers vs. the East African workers at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Greeley, CO (maybe Grand Island, NE too) as Ramadan approaches later this summer.

Isn’t diversity wonderful, doesn’t it bring such richness to communities? (sigh)  Just feel the love as multicultural workers wielding knives cut up meat side by side, or enjoy each others company in their leisure time at the local bars.  (deep sigh)

Here is an article from the Greeley Tribune today so chock full of interesting stuff I’m going to write at least two posts about it.   And, for new readers, the often violent protests and conflicts over Muslim prayer breaks gave us so much grist for our mill last year that we have an entire category on Greeley/Grand Island here.

From the Greeley Tribune today:

Since last September, JBS officials have met repeatedly with Muslim workers and union representatives to hash out issues. A company official said JBS has made progress and is making religious accommodations where possible.

Meanwhile, the Muslim employees say not much has changed inside the plant. They steadfastly place God before work and will be looking for a quiet place to pay sunset homage when the hot August sun sets this Ramadan.

It remains a heated conundrum of cultures, languages, and labor and safety issues with no easy answers. It’s anyone’s guess whether the religious observance will be a flashpoint of worker unrest again this summer.

My guess is that we are in for a hot one!   Community organizers will be sure of that—see tomorrow’s post!   June 29th:  here is the first of my follow-up posts.

I have no sympathy for the meatpacking companies who got themselves into this mess by wanting to find the cheapest labor they could find!    And, I laugh to see that the Progressives (radical leftwingers) can’t get the workers united against those evil Capitalist (Brazilian in this case) fat cats because the multicultural masses aren’t cooperating.

More clear is that fissures run through the growing polyethnic mix at the meatplants. Raul Garcia, a veteran of the Grand Island plant, said a few fights have broken out between Latinos and Somalis.

In Greeley, Alberto Trujillo, who came here 20 years ago from Chihuahua, Mexico, and put in a stint at the meatpacking plant, calls the East African workers “whiny.” He’s resentful that Mexican immigrants face a costly and time-consuming process to become legal workers, while the Africans — it can take a couple of years to get refugee status — arrive eligible to work.

Trujillo spoke while playing pool with a few friends at a downtown Latino bar.

“They can take their own time to pray, but you have to follow the rules,” he said. “And why give (Muslim workers) special preferences? As soon as they get here they don’t have to worry about their papers, right?”

Gerardo Hernandez Marquez, another Chihuahua native and former meatplant worker, carried that point further: “The Cubans barely get into the water and put one foot on this country and they’re good.”

A couple pool tables away, a group of refugees from Eritrea, another East African nation, complained that the plant is a difficult place for African workers because they aren’t hired into supervisor positions. Those jobs are held primarily by Latinos, they said.

One of the Eritreans, Azmera Gebregirgs, 26, said he got beat up by a couple of Latinos when he left the bar late at night a few months earlier. He only comes to bar now with a group of African friends.

Latinos greatly outnumber the Africans in the bar on this afternoon. The groups stick to themselves.

Marquez cast a wary eye toward the Eritreans and said, “As long as they don’t mess with us, we don’t mess with them.”

And here is the Progressive (radical leftwinger) schoolmarm:

“We’d hope that JBS as an employer would make the accommodations as necessary,” said Nicole Hurt, director of the Colorado Progressive Coalition’s northern Colorado office. “I feel it’s important for every culture in a workplace to be respected.”

Of course the great fun is going to be watching to see just how one does that—make all the diverse cultures happy at the same time!

You know what’s kind of cool about this story, you can’t blame any American white men (or women, except maybe Ms. Hurt) for this mess.    Oh well, except maybe also the do-gooder State Department types and the volags pushing refugee resettlement.

Last year I was critical of some of reporter Chris Casey’s stories, but this one is superb.

Follow up of sorts on June 30th:  For some reason lots of readers today are coming to this post from last September about ethnic violence going on in Grand Island, NE between the Somali and Sudanese Swift & Co. workers, here,

Lewiston, ME and the medias’ la-la land

Here is a short article re-published at a Somali website from the Christian Science Monitor about how everything is settling down in Lewiston, Maine with its population of thousands of Somalis “integrating” into the local Maine population.

CSMonitor – LEWISTON, MAINE – Much has been made of the transformation of this former mill town from one of America’s whitest cities to a place where 1 in 10 residents is of Somali descent.

Since the first Somali refugees settled here eight years ago, almost every national media outlet has visited. Early accounts portrayed Lewiston as racist after the then-mayor issued a letter asking the Somalis to stop coming.

Others then lauded the city’s tolerance as groups rallied to support the émigrés. The reality was more complicated. Talk still centers on the media’s narrow portrayals. “People do come with preconceptions,” says city official Phil Nadeau.

[.....]

Challenges remain. Unemployment is high, and much of the money that flows from the Somali community originates in food stamps and general assistance.

Even so, Mr. Nadeau says the city is weathering the recession well. Over time, the residents – native Mainers and Somali alike – have gotten to know each other and forged a community.

Funny, that’s not what I am hearing from Lewiston residents who write to me! 

And, then be sure to check out the list of linked stories, it’s all the positive ones!  Not a mention of the brouhaha over Newsweek’s one-sided protrayal, or the recent federal raid on a home care agency, or the altercation at a recent school meeting. 

Maybe there was more to the original Christian Science Monitor story and this publication only posted the portion it wanted.  But what you see above is the story most mainstream reporters want you to see.   I guess that is one of the reasons we are here!    One can’t reform refugee resettlement unless the public learns about all sides of this issue.  Since the mainstream media (aka state run media) publishes only one side, it’s our job to get the other side out!  Afterall, somebodies got to do it!

Note to new readers:  

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

Muslim Malaysia accused of abuse of refugees and migrant workers

This is a follow-up to my post of last week when I said that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees helped perpetuate a lie when he said the inspiration for caring for refugees comes from the Islamic religion.  If it does, Muslim countries are doing a horrible job of showing their kindness and charity to strangers—even their own religious kin.  Check out this blog about Muslim Malaysia and how immigrants are treated under an Islamic governed legal system. 

From Hornbill Unleashed:

Yet Malaysians treat foreigners worse than most countries in Asia. Malaysians’ fear and disdain for “the Other” people in our midst has found expression in the abuse and torture of migrant workers and refugees.

There are 171,000 refugees in Malaysia, fleeing persecution in their home countries. There are also estimated to be between two and three million migrant blue-collar workers, mostly Indonesian, Bangladeshi and Filipino, eking out a living in Malaysia.

The United States issued two reports this month, condemning Malaysia’s abuse of undocumented migrants.

The blogger goes on to discuss those reports and make this pretty powerful statement:

Malaysia’s brutal xenophobia can be partly explained by the institutionalised racism ingrained in our culture.

Gee, I wonder how it got ingrained.  Do we really think that by supporting a completely untruthful notion, that Islam is more charitable  to immigrants and refugees then Christian and Jewish religions that will help push brutal Muslim countries to be nice.  This is what commenter ‘Don’t buy it’ said at my original critical post linked above.

UNHCR is trying to encourage Muslim nations to act more muslim, to welcome the stranger and care for refugees. How did you miss the nuance in this argument.

“Nuance!”  We lie and pussyfoot around the truth and call it “nuance.”  What a bunch of chickens!   The UNHCR instead of sanctioning a lie should be telling it like it is—Muslim countries treat refugees and immigrants like slaves.  He should tell rich Arab countries like  Saudi Arabia to demonstrate their Muslim charity by taking refugees and treating them well.  Oh, and just a reminder it is Muslims who originally enslaved the Africans and still do!

To readers: We are not a refugee agency!

I feel bad for the increasing number of commenters from around the world who are appealing to us to help them get into the US as refugees.   People take a very long time to tell us their story, but unfortunately there is nothing we can do for them.  

We are not an official agency we just comment on the issue of refugees and from time to time on immigration generally. 

Note at our log-in we have posted this disclaimer yet we still get appeals for help:

We are not a refugee resettlement agency, do not appeal to us for assistance in getting in to the US!

At one point I was advised by the US State Department to forward those appeals to WRAPS, but then we started getting form (robo?) e-mail responses telling us that they couldn’t help.  So I stopped forwarding to them.

It seems to me that the State Department ought to have a published e-mail address for poor people (with computers) to send their appeals.

And, while they are at it, the State Department and the Office of Refugee Resettlement need complaint hotlines (something we have long advocated) for refugees and citizens to log complaints about refugees that have been left in a lurch.