Canada rolls out the “unwelcome” mat

Thanks to reader “Truth Serum” we see that Canada is indeed planning to revamp its asylum program by listing countries from which asylum seekers will have little luck proving they were persecuted.  I mentioned the proposal here recently.

From the Ottawa Sun:

OTTAWA ­— The Conservative government is set to roll out the unwelcome mat to the annual stampede of bogus refugee claimants trying to jump the immigration line.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is expected to unveil plans Tuesday aimed at identifying fake claimants and giving them the boot a lot more efficiently than at present.

 A senior federal official confirms Kenney will announce a new list of “safe” countries least likely to be persecuting anyone.

Anyone claiming refugee status from one of those countries would be put into a kind of immigration express lane — faster decisions, quicker evictions.

I can see a looming problem with this approach.   I’ll tell you about it in my next post.

Meanwhile they do have a problem in Canada! (I’m not saying we don’t!)

The latest immigration statistics show that last year, just over 33,000 people made refugee claims in this country.

The vast majority of those either claimed refugee status at the border, or were already in the country on visas as students, temporary workers or visitors.

Statistically, over 19,000 of those claims — roughly 58% — will be deemed bogus, and the claimants ordered out of the country.

The problem is, all that could take years, and even then there is no guarantee those turfed out of Canada actually leave. 

Over 40,000 deportees are currently missing.

Read it all.  By the way, the same thing happened here with Obama’s Aunt Zeituni who had been ordered deported but had melted back into a Boston neighborhood where she was found by some AP reporter in 2008.

Update: Garden City, KS and meatpacking giant Tysons Fresh Meats

This is an update (see one of our previous posts here in July 2009) of the ongoing efforts in Garden City, KS, a meatpacking town, to try to head off in advance clashes between ethnic groups lured to a midwestern city by the promise of meatpacking jobs.  See also our category on Greeley, CO and Grand Island, NE (chaotic anarchy!) both towns that experienced conflicts between the various immigrant groups in recent years. 

I had to laugh that Tysons Food is involved in setting up the nice sounding Coalition of Ethnic Minority Leaders ( a group Kansas taxpayers are likely funding while it’s Tysons that lured them to Garden City in the first place).  It is in their best interests to avoid a multicultural squabble.

From the Garden City Telegram:

Coined the Coalition of Ethnic Minority Leaders, the group consists of a board representing groups such as USD 457, the Garden City Police Department, Center for Families and Children, Kansas State University Extension services and more as a council of ethnic leaders. The board has outlined a vision to “create and maintain an environment of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation among ethnic minority groups and empower them to responsibly participate in building a healthier Garden City.”

The effort was spearheaded by Jonathan Galia, chaplain at the Tyson Fresh Meats beef plant, who has been actively encouraging ethnic minority groups in Finney County to organize and identify community leaders so they can effectively communicate among themselves, across communities and with local government leaders and social service agencies.

Ever since I saw this account of the Clinton Administration supplying cheap labor to the big meatpacking giants, I’ve wondered what is in it for the resettlement agencies that line up the refugee labor.  Do they somehow get a cut?  Or, are the resettlement agencies affiliated with ‘head hunter’ businesses in some way?  It is just curious don’t you think that resettlement agencies are in close proximity to meatpackers whether it’s Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, Colorado, Texas, or Kentucky (those are 6 states right off the top of my head)?

Or, could it be a twofer?  The agencies get their refugee clients a job and the grateful meatpackers help the political powers that be with contributions.  Where are the investigative reporters of old?

National Immigrant integration conference scheduled for Boston this fall

Check it out here.  If you are in the New England area this fall you might want to consider attending.  Looking at the list of sponsors, here, it looks like some of the same old gang we saw organizing the March on America here.  Readers should know that you are funding many of these groups with your tax dollars.

Did the Catholic Church cover up abuse of refugee boys by Cuban priest?

More bad news for the Catholic Church during this holy week.  The Miami Herald has published a detailed account of how the church heirarchy may have not acted fast enough to defrock a priest accused of molesting refugee boys in the 1980′s.

The Archdiocese of Miami, along with top Vatican authorities, knew as far back as 1968 that the Rev. Ernesto Garcia-Rubio, a priest later defrocked amid child sex-abuse allegations, had a troubled past in Cuba before transferring to South Florida, lawyers representing victims claimed Monday.

[....]

Garcia-Rubio, now 73, was celebrated as the Archdiocese of Miami’s “patron saint” of young Central American and Cuban refugee boys who flocked to his Our Lady of Divine Providence in Sweetwater in the 1980s. He served there from 1975-88.

[....]

The complaints against Garcia-Rubio — first lodged at the Sweetwater church — eventually surfaced in The Herald story, which highlighted four sex-abuse allegations by teenage Nicaraguan and Salvadoran refugees from 1983 to 1988.

Read the whole sordid tale, here.

For me, this news comes in the wake of other disappointing news we have reported at RRW in the last few weeks.  First, we saw the US Conference of Catholic Bishops help organize that Marxist March on Washington earlier this month, here.  We’ve had two reports this week alone where Catholic refugee resettlement agencies have not fulfilled their obligations to properly care for refugees in Fredericksburg, VA, here, and San Antonio, TX here.   And, adding insult to injury, the USCCB could not function at all if they weren’t funded by us—the taxpayer!

Arizona rancher shot to death, illegal immigrant believed to be responsible

Update April 2nd:  Good editorial on this tragic case, here.

Michelle Malkin has the whole sad story here, plus updates.

Reforms coming, maybe, sort of…not really!

Here is another thoughtful article by reporter Amy Umble pubished at Fredericksburg.com in which she summarizes where we are in the process of “reforming” the “broken” US State Department’s Refugee Resettlement program.  I don’t have time to go through it, so please read it yourselves.

I doubt that the chickens in the Obama Administration will do much more than throw money at the problem, they will keep refugees pouring into overloaded cities, they will continue to strain local welfare services and health departments, and maybe tinker around with the law.  Already the only “reform” legislation involves making it possible for asylum seekers to get into the US and not face detention, and it throws more taxpayer money to the federal contactors—big deal!

They won’t do what I think needs to be done—revamp the whole system and reduce the number of refugees entering the US.  Run the program through state agencies accountable to governors and elected officials and get all the federal contractors out of the business!  It is a bottomless money pit that sends taxpayer money to entrenched, unaccountable and politically powerful non-profits hiding behind a facade of faux humanitarian compassion.  The program is rotten to the core.

San Antonio: Same old story—too many refugees, community scrambling

Update March 31st:  More on this story at Friends of Refugees, here.

I just yesterday told you about Fredericksburg, VA where church leaders there have told the US State Department to halt refugee resettlement to their immigrant overloaded city.  Now, comes the same story from San Antonio, TX.   This time it’s Burmese refugees in a case that sounds amazingly similar to the horror story we reported from Bowling Green, KY.  And, gosh, didn’t we hear the same thing from Greensboro, NC, here.  Come to think of it, there is Kansas City, MO, Denver, CO, Houston, TX, and Pittsburgh, PA, etc. etc. etc.

Looks like those “humanitarians” at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (too busy with their Washington politics?) are the federal contractors here just as they are in Fredericksburg, VA.  In the Bowling Green case it is the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) leaving refugees living in squalor and fearing eviction.  In Greensboro, the federal contractor is Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)—compassionate all! (Not!)

From Education Info.101:

Something wasn’t right with 5-year-old Taw Meh.

She threw up every morning, just before breakfast at the Head Start program she attended. It had become so frequent that her counselor, Abdul, a former interpreter for U.S. military forces in Iraq, would cover her with plastic to protect her clothes.

When he told his Family Services Association co-worker, Pam Espurvoa, about the child, she suspected her diet. she suggested they visit the Northwest Side apartment Taw Meh shared with her father, Baw Reh, 49, mother, Htwa Meh, 39, and two sisters, Pleh Meh, 15 and Mo Meh, 3.

When Espurvoa and Abdul arrived at Taw Meh’s apartment at the Auburn Creek complex off Wurzbach Road, the only food they found was rotting vegetables in the refrigerator. a chill hung through the apartment. several wires dangled from a furnace blower that didn’t work.

Taw Meh’s parents never complained about the furnace to management. It wasn’t their way.

Espurvoa learned by word of mouth that they were struggling to pay their rent and scared they’d end up on the street. Since Taw Meh was enrolled in the Head Start program, the Family Service Association signed the family to a six-month rent assistance program.

“If one of the refugees became homeless, another refugee family would take them into their home,” Espurvoa said.

Her family is part of an influx of refugees living in four Northwest Side apartment complexes who are falling into a gap with limited or no services after resettlement aid from the Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement Program runs out. Like thousands of refugees across the country, their lives teeter on goodwill from volunteers, church groups and nonprofit organizations.

The family fled poverty, civil war and violence in Myanmar before seeking asylum in Nepal for one year. they arrived in San Antonio in March 2009. they attended English and financial aid classes, but were illiterate in their own language, Andrade said.

According to the U.S. State Department, 74,654 refugees resettled in the U.S. in fiscal year 2009. Texas ranked second among states, with 11 percent of the new refugees. Bexar County had 1,010 arrivals in the last fiscal year.

State officials estimate that 750 more refugees will arrive in Northeast San Antonio this year through the Catholic Charities program. Some aid workers said the best move would be to take care of those already here before bringing in more refugees.

Read the whole article there is much, much more!

I think Asst. Secretary of State Schwartz should be heading to San Antonio right after he visits nearby Fredericksburg.  See visiting Denver and Phoenix, here.

Frustrated and sick of this?  Complain here!   Do not forget to copy your complaints to your two US Senators and your Congressman (add in your governor and state representatives for good measure).

Canadian Parliament to consider upping the refugee numbers to Canada

What I found most interesting about this short news story is that in Canada the Parliament actually votes on the number of refugees.  In the US, the President sends a “determination letter” to Congress, but Congress doesn’t vote.  It is merely a courtesy gesture.

OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Jason Kenney on Monday proposed expanding Canada’s refugee program starting with the resettlement of 2,500 more people living in refugee camps and urban slums.

Canada would welcome as many as 14,500 refugees annually, or 2,500 more annually, once the proposal is passed by parliament.

[....]

Countries with refugee resettlement programs, including Canada, resettle about 100,000 refugees from abroad each year.

New readers should know that the US’s share of 100,000 refugees is 70,000-80,000.

The Netherlands: Refugees moving on

Here is an interesting little bit from Dutch News: 

Some 10% of the asylum seekers granted refugee status in the Netherlands between 1998 and 2008 have moved on to a third country, according to new figures from the national statistics office CBS.

The research covers 38,000 people. Of them, some 4,000 have left the country.

Britain was the most popular destination, attracting one in three refugees. Six out of 10 Somalian refugees went to Britain, as did half of the Afghans.

Yugoslavian and Iraqi refugees are most likely to return home, the CBS figures show.

Still beating the drum about “climate refugees”

At a meeting in Bangladesh recently “experts” insisted that “climate refugees” would cause security issues throughout the world as they tried to move away from some climate-driven crisis to another country.   I thought after the failure of Copenhagen and the revelations of  a major scientific hoax centered at the UN, all this hoopla was going away. 

Looks like third world countries are still beating the “climate refugee” drum hoping ultimately for a redistribution of wealth from the evil capitalists.  They know how to pull on heartstrings using the word “refugee” even when they have been admonished not to use the word by the elites in the real refugee community like Refugees International, here.

From the Daily Star (Dhaka, Bangladesh):

Security and climate experts yesterday called for concerted efforts to address the issue of climate-driven migration, which will be the major cause of inter-countries conflicts.

As climate refugees of a country would try to enter a neighbouring country for their livelihoods, a conflict might arise between the two countries, said Maj Gen (retd) Muniruzzaman, president of Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies (BIPSS).

So, all the countries should take steps to address the security issues, which might result from global climate change, he said.

Climate refugees have already started to migrate internally from the remote areas to urban, which will lead to international migration and pose a threat to security, he added.  [Is it possible these are economic migrants moving from rural to urban areas looking for work or welfare!-ed]

Maj Gen (retd) Muniruzzaman made the remarks at a press conference at the end of a two-day regional expert roundtable on ‘Security implications of climate change in South Asia’ at a city hotel.

It would not be possible for any country alone to manage a large number of climate refugees, he said and stressed the need for concerted efforts of all countries to address the issue.

Here are some of the suggestions Refugees International has made for what to call these new “refugees:”   

People displaced by climate change (PDCCs)? Climate displaced people (CDPs)? People affected by climatic events (PACEs)?

Not as sexy or appealing for media purposes as “climate refugee.”