Happy New Year!

Wishing all of our readers a happy healthy New Year!  I’m (Ann) going to be away for a few days, but Judy will be posting your comments.   I look forward to reading all of your e-mails when I return on Sunday.

If you are a new reader just arriving here, let me direct you to our categories in the column on the left.  We have written thousands of posts to help you better understand the refugee resettlement program, so there is lots to read and learn!  Also, our search function is very good, just type in key words and you will likely find something on most topics involving refugees.

Chin, not the same as Burmese refugees

As we have come to learn in recent weeks from Cindy in Bowling Green, KY, or Ellen in Ft. Wayne, IN, or Madeleine in the UK, all refugees arriving here from Myanmar (Burma) or more accurately from camps in Thailand are not all Burmese.  In fact, there is quite a bit of hostility between some of these ethnic groups, yet they are plunked down in the same neighborhoods in US cities.  I think the assumption by do-gooder refugee agencies is that the mythical melting pot will work its magic.

Here is a short article from the Voice of Chin Refugees which explains some of what is happening.

Mr. Uk, who was stay in Baltimore, Maryland expresses, “There is no Chin case worker in resettlement office but only Burmese. I can understand only a very little Burmese language. Sometimes interpreters are provided for me by telephone that is actually not preferable because by telephone it is very difficult to understand one another. Sometimes, I have many problems but I just try to ignore it.” Hundreds of Chin refugees are in Maryland State, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Dallas but it can be seen that in all of those places only Burmese Case workers are employed in order to handle Chin refugees. A Chin University student in US comments regarding this issue, “There is a big misunderstanding that Chins are still called as Burmese. Actually Chins and Burmese are different nations. Chins are ruled and abuse by Burmese military government.”

In the wake of Detroit Christmas fiasco: Funny, but sad column on Canadian (American too) immigration policy

Here is a column from Canada that tells us how most people are feeling these days.   Fearing any sort of profiling, we let all sorts of assorted “immigrants” into western countries, then when one of them tries a terrorist attack, we subject ma and pa to cavity searches in airports.  Go figure!

To recap: Canada catches a convicted arms-seller lying his way into the country, but lets him stay anyway (that would be, Ahmed Ressam, the Millennium Bomber). 

He soaks Canadian taxpayers, gets caught stealing, swans off to study at Bin Laden Community College, then slips back in through the security sieve because it turns out all you need to get a real Canadian passport is a fake name and three boxtops.

And, oh yeah, Ressam’s testimony was used in a briefing paper titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.” that was given to George W. Bush a month before 9/11. Nice catch, George.

Which brings us to the question of security, as opposed to bureaucratic flailing, which is what we’ve seen around the world this week following that Nigerian guy’s attempt to blow up an airliner with his underpants.

That is, is making Ma and Pa Victoria submit to a cavity search en route to Vegas really going to make the world safe for democracy?

Read it all!  (Link may be slow to open, or it could be just me)

Bangladesh: Rohingya wrangling continues

The hot political debate going on between Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh, where tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have arrived in recent decades, continues as Myanmar says they will take some back, but the Rohingya are now refusing to go back.

From AFP:

DHAKA — Bangladesh’s plans to repatriate 9,000 Myanmar Muslim refugees to their homeland hit trouble on Wednesday when a leader of the minority said they would refuse to leave.

Bangladesh’s top foreign ministry official, Mirajul Quayes, said Tuesday that neighbouring Myanmar had agreed to take back 9,000 Rohingya refugees in what was seen as a breakthrough in a decade-long problem.

Quayes, the foreign secretary, said during talks with Myanmar deputy foreign minister Maung Myint in Dhaka that the military regime had agreed to accept nearly one-third of the officially recognised refugees now in Bangladesh. 

[.....]

Described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities, some 250,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh in the early 1990s. But some 230,000 were later taken back by Myanmar following a UN-brokered deal.

Since then, thousands of Rohingyas from Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s northern Rakhaine state have streamed across the border every year and are now estimated to number nearly 400,000.

But only 28,000 of them have been granted official refugee status and are allowed to stay in two UN-assisted camps in the country’s Cox’s Bazar district just miles (kilometres) across the Myanmar border.

“Some 9,000, are ready to be repatriated following verification, as the Myanmar government has assured us today that they are also ready. And it can begin within the shortest possible time,” Quayes said Tuesday.

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni last August said the undocumented refugees put a “heavy burden” on Dhaka, causing major social, economic problems.

Meanwhile we are hearing more accounts of Rohingya showing up in Burmese communities in the US.

For new readers:   We have an entire category with 88 posts on the Rohingya issue, here, if you would like to learn more.

 

Church leaders and congregants at odds over immigration

The Center for Immigration Studies has analyzed a new Zogby poll that appears to indicate that when religious leaders advocate for amnesty and more immigration they are doing so against the wishes of their parishoners.   Check it out here.

In contrast to many national religious leaders who are lobbying for increases in immigration numbers, a new Zogby poll of likely voters who belong to the same religious communities finds strong support for reducing overall immigration. Moreover, the poll finds that members strongly disagree with their leaders’ contention that more immigrant workers need to be allowed into the country.

Also, most parishioners and congregants advocate for more enforcement to cause illegal workers to go home, while most religious leaders are calling for putting illegal immigrants on a path to U.S. citizenship.

The survey of Catholic, mainline Protestant, born-again Protestant, and Jewish voters used neutral language and was one of the largest polls on immigration ever done.

We reported a related story a few months back when the National Association of Evangelicals testified for amnesty but had backtracking to do when some of its member groups disavowed the testimony—-in other words, when the parishoners and members got wind of what their leaders were up to.

Burmese teens die of toxic fumes in Ft. Wayne, IN

Two teenagers, believed to be Karen refugees, were found dead this past weekend in a Ft. Wayne garage.  It is not clear what happened, but from this article it sounds like attempting to stay warm might have lead them to their untimely deaths.  Here is what we know so far (by the way, doesn’t Ft. Wayne have restrictions on how many families can live in one home?).   From the Journal Gazette:

Two teenagers found dead in the garage of a home on Fairfield Avenue over the weekend died accidentally from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the Allen County coroner.

The teens – identified as Klu Tal Eh Day, 18, and Dah Eh Moo, 17, both of Fort Wayne, were found Saturday morning in a car inside a garage at 3522 Fairfield Ave. Preliminary autopsy results list the manner of death as an accident, a ruling that Chief Deputy Coroner Dick Alfeld does not expect to change. 

“It’s pending, but it’s probably going to be an accident. There’s nothing sinister going on here,” said Alfeld, who would not elaborate on what investigators think happened.

Klu Tal Eh Day lived at the home, which houses several Burmese families, according to a boy who answered the front door Monday and identified himself as Then Myint Win.

The inside of the home was nearly bare, with rugs covering the entire front room and folding chairs the only visible furniture. Two others who looked to be teenagers watched videos on a computer while several young children roamed the home. One very young girl was on the floor wrapped in blankets.

An older man sat in silence in the front room dressed in a flannel shirt.

Then Myint Win was the only one who spoke some English, though it was very little. He identified Dah Eh Moo as Klu Tal Eh Day’s “girlfriend.”

A small girl inside the home said she was Klu Tal Eh Day’s sister and called herself Eh Klu See. She did not know what to say about her brother, other than the family lived in Fort Wayne for three years.

Ft. Wayne is overloaded with refugees who are unemployed and lack even the basic necessities.  As we learned recently, here, the US State Department is trying to stem the flow to the “welcoming” city.

In keeping with my new feature (find the responsible refugee resettlement government contractor), here is a link to state refugee agencies.  Note that Catholic Charities is responsible for this group of refugees since the World Relief office there had not yet been opened (assuming these refugees have been in Ft. Wayne for three years).

Handy guide to state refugee agencies

Here is a website page at Refugee Works that I came across the other day which lists which government contracting resettlement agencies are in your states.   I see the list may not be completely up-to-date because, for example,  it doesn’t have the new World Relief office in Ft. Wayne, but it’s a good starting point if you want to know who is responsible for bringing refugees to your cities and states.

My plan is to refer to it and link it on future  posts where I’ve written about refugee problems so that readers can know who is responsible for the refugees.

Comment worth noting: America owes the world

Comments worth noting is a category we created to highlight comments that otherwise would be lost because they were sent to old posts, or are so good (or bad!) that we want to make the point more strongly by posting them upfront.   Here is one this morning (posted to our ‘fact sheets’ link) just to give you an idea of the sorts of comments we get.  Apparently this guy (assume it’s a guy) says that because of Islamic terrorism, he has left his “beloved” African country and come across our Mexican border illegally.  And, we owe him.    No further comment from me!

Dolecha says:

I can’t tell you how flawed your immigration system is or other bullshit your writing……But i can tell you something[how i end up being an asylum seeker]i came vie the Mexico border.I haven’t in my wildest dream thought of coming to USA to be illegal this way.I was having a multiple profession with a very comfertabel income.But your country is helping a blood sucker in East Africa in the name of terrorism it let us flee our beloved country hence,it is your responsibility to give us what we lost in our respective country’s.You have to take responsiblity.I am not saying that all of us have the same reason to be here,but there are fewor many of us who don’t want to be here but were forced to be.

Which African country is the “blood sucker?”

Buffalo, NY: “culture clash” blamed for Somali children being removed from their parents

This story will get your blood boiling on a whole lot of levels!  Basically Social Services in Buffalo has removed 6 Somali children from the home of their 28-year-old mother and an allegedly abusive father. 

The mother says she wishes she were back in Africa.

Somalian immigrant Malaika Sabtow raised five children in African refugee camps, surviving for 14 years without electricity, amid persistent drought and regular outbreaks of malaria and tuberculosis.

But none of those 14 years, she said, was as bad as the past five months in Buffalo.

That’s how long it has been since the Erie County Department of Social Services took all of her children —she now has six, including a nursing 2-month-old daughter — and placed them in a foster home for reasons Sabtow doesn’t understand.

Sabtow, 28, wishes she were back in Africa. 

Supporters of Sabtow claim the county was overzealous in taking away her children and are concerned she and her husband, Madhey A. Khamis, are being treated unfairly because they are new to the country and don’t speak English.

Social Services Commissioner Carol Dankert said she could not comment on why the children were removed or whether they would be returned.

Read on, there are lots of interesting details about the case.

Then towards the end, comes the ‘uh-oh’ part.  I’m wagering that the next time we read about this case, CAIR will have ridden into town and it will no longer be your basic child-abuse case but will have morphed into a Muslim discrimination case.

The children have been split among three foster homes — none of which is a Muslim family, said Omar, the imam (of the Islamic Cultural Association of Western New York). 

One of the boys, Mustaffa, 12, was pulled out of an Islamic boarding school and placed in School 19, even though his parents paid $3,600 in advance for the boy to attend the private school.  [Where do refugees living on welfare get money for private school?]

According to Omar, Mustaffa told his mother that the people he was living with would not allow him to practice Islam.

A daughter, Fatuma, 11, also has not been allowed to wear the traditional Muslim head scarf, Omar said.

And none of the children was able to participate in Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, he said.

This is the stealth jihad.  As this case develops I will bet you a buck that no social service agency (probably anywhere in NY) will dare to take Muslim kids (or a beaten woman either) out of an abusive home.   It is their culture afterall, even the title to the Buffalo News story tells us that.

Update:  According to Refugee Works website, here, there are three resettlement agencies bringing Somalis and other refugees to Buffalo.  They are the International Institute (USCRI affiliate, I presume), Catholic Charities (they do a lot of Somali resettlement across the country), and Journey’s End Refugee Services, Inc.

The Vietnamese resettlement: a reminder of refugee resettlement before it became an industry

I was thrilled to see this article in the Los Angeles Times the other day because although my experience following refugee issues is relatively brief—going on three years—I had heard how much better resettlement was carried out BEFORE the Refugee Act of 1980 set up a major bureaucracy that in my opinion is more interested in perpetuating itself  (its offices, its salaries, its federal and state agencies, its welfare programs) then in helping refugees become productive and happily-adjusted Americans.

A documentary film maker, Kenneth Nguyen,  is working on a project to show how real American charity worked —not the taxpayer extortion charity of the refugee industry of today.

Nguyen says his project is relevant today, but personally I think it’s only relevant to show us how it could be done again using the Vietnamese model.  That model is one church or other charitable group to one refugee family, not the mass unemployed living in slums resettlement of today!*  New reader: check out yesterday’s post, here, to see what I mean!

Nguyen said the documentary is especially relevant today, as the United States resettles thousands of refugees from conflicts in Iraq and other countries. [Nguyen it is totally different today!]

We learn about the experience of the Pham family in Pennsylvania:

During the holidays, Phuong Pham is reminded of a Vietnamese proverb: Whatever tree you eat from, remember the one who planted it.

More than 30 years ago, on the day Saigon fell to Communist forces, Pham and his family scrambled aboard a South Vietnam ship bound for the South China Sea. Pham, carrying only some photos and a small bag with clothes, thought he had lost everything.

But after arriving at a U.S. refugee center in Pennsylvania, Pham was matched with a nearby parish that became his family’s sponsors. Parishioners found the family an apartment, donated a car, helped Pham find a job.

Pham spent his first Christmas in America in the living room of the McGlynns, one of the families in the church. The McGlynns showered his children with toys; Pham had nothing to give in return.

Over the next three decades, the Phams became lifelong friends of their sponsors. They spent nearly every holiday together. “Without them, we would not be here today,” said Pham, 63, who settled in Hershey, Pa. “We appreciate so much what these people have done for us.”

The law then was set up so families were individually sponsored and those sponsors took care of the needs of the family until they were on their feet!

… the Ford administration passed the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975, which helped refugees resettle with churches and volunteer families. The sponsors provided food, clothing and shelter until the refugees became self-sufficient.

The Vietnamese were assigned to four “tent cities” set up on military bases, including Camp Pendleton. While there, they took vocational classes and waited for sponsors.

Pham, his wife, Dung, and his children, ages 5, 4, 2, and 1, were assigned to Ft. Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania, where they lived in barracks along with thousands of other refugees. “I had no idea what the future would hold,” said Pham, a former petty officer in the South Vietnam navy.

After 90 days, with the weather becoming unbearably chilly for the Vietnamese, Pham and his family were sponsored by the parish at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Hershey, about 100 miles from Philadelphia.

The truly charitable group took care of all the family’s needs and they became friends for life!

A group of about 20 parishioners volunteered to help the Phams. They held donation drives for clothes and furniture, signed a lease on a two-bedroom apartment and raised money to pay rent.

[.....]

Committee members took turns taking the Phams to the supermarket, teaching them English, getting clothes for the children. They helped enroll the children in school. Someone eventually donated a station wagon.

 [.....]

Some members helped Pham find a job at the nearby medical center, and he worked nights at a supermarket. One year after arriving in Hershey, Pham told the sponsors he could pay his own rent.

“I didn’t want to rely on people helping us,” he said. “But they always asked us if we needed anything else.”

[.....] 

“The wonderful lives we are living is because we were able to stand on the shoulders of giants who were willing to open their doors and help out our community,” Nguyen said. The sponsors “just knew there was a group of people in need, and they opened up their lives and brought us in.”

That is how it should be done again—one charitable group to one family in true private charity.

I can hear the critics now, NO!  We can’t bring enough refugees if we do it that way.  Well,  maybe so, but the ones we bring will have a good life.   And, there is no way we can save all the millions of “refugees” in the world today anyway.   Really, what good is it to have angry refugees in many cities in America who wish to go home?

*Endnote:  The present resettlement model gives one the impression that the refugee industry leaders are following the Cloward-Piven strategy of sinking our form of government by overloading the welfare system, and hiding, while doing it, under the ‘presumption of good intentions.’