IOM pouring refugees into the US from Asia; still no jobs

Here we have the International Organization for Migration trumpeting that 11,000 refugees from Asia have been resettled (mostly in the US) in the first 4 months of 2010 (in the middle of the great recession).  Jobless claims continue to rise.

From IOM:

Thailand – IOM’s major Asian refugee resettlement operations in Thailand, Malaysia and Nepal resettled nearly 11,000 refugees in the first four months of 2010 – over 80 per cent of them to new homes in the United States. [That means that 8800-9000 came to the US-ed].

Of the total, some 4,550 were Bhutanese from camps in eastern Nepal, 3,900 were Karen and Karenni refugees from Myanmar from camps in northwestern Thailand, and the remaining 2,400 were refugees from Myanmar living in Malaysia.

Over the period, IOM Nepal moved 3,830 Bhutanese refugees accepted for resettlement to the US, 374 to Australia, 239 to Canada, 108 to New Zealand, 7 to the Netherlands and 2 to Denmark.

Almost all them were Bhutanese of Nepali origin, known as Lhotsampas, who have lived in camps in the Jhapa and Morang regions of Nepal for nearly two decades, following Bhutan’s decision to revoke their citizenship and expel them in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

[.....]

While IOM plays no part in selecting which refugees* are accepted for resettlement, its global responsibilities in refugee resettlement include medical screening, pre-departure cultural orientation and travel arrangements.

*The United Nations picks most of our refugees.

Help Save Maryland meeting very informative

Last night I traveled to Rockville, MD for a public meeting hosted by Help Save Maryland—a citizens group attempting to bring immigration sanity to Maryland (a tall order!).   I didn’t count the attendees but I think about 100 people listened to a powerful speaker line-up introduced by Help Save Maryland’s director Brad Botwin.

Roy Beck of NumbersUSA gave us some shocking statistics on the growth of the immigrant population in the US and noted that the federal government continues, without any abatement in the number of legal immigrants entering the US even in the continued dismal economic climate, to grant more visas.  Near the end of the program the audience, which by the way was made up of  people of many different races and hues, chuckled when he said the Arizona law isn’t draconian, but what is making it more powerful than it is is the volcanic eruption of the political Left over its passage.   For more on Beck, see our Numbers USA link at the top of the page, here, and see my account of Beck’s stellar presence among the hostile  Open Border marchers on the mall in March, here.

I was particularly impressed with speaker Leah Durant of Progressives for Immigration Reform a Democrat whose group is against the Open Borders movement with a primary concern for labor issues.  It is obvious to any thinking person that flooding the job market with illegal immigrant labor hurts mostly minorities and other low income Americans.  She reported that she and her fellow “progressives” had been in to see Rep Maxine Waters that very day to impress upon her the horrible statistics involving black unemployment in the US.  She said her group is also concerned with the environmental impact of the exponentially growing immigrant population.

Mike Hethmon, an attorney from the Immigration Reform Law Institute, spoke and answered questions about the Arizona law and gave the audience some background on how long and what it took to bring that bill literally up from the grassroots to passage—it was in the making for years.

There was lots of good back and forth between audience members and speakers (there were other speakers in addition to the three I’ve mentioned), but another highlight for me was to hear from four candidates running for public office in Maryland who shared our views on immigration.  There were both Republicans and Democrats represented.

Comments worth noting: “what stays between Somalis, stays between Somalis”

Update: Please click on comments below and see Khadra’s response to this post.

I was away yesterday, but when I came home I found lots of comments that needed posting—two in particular were intriguing.  They are in response to my post on the trial opening for the Virginia man accused of smuggling Somalis into the US and they both came in near each other timewise.

The commenters Abdi and Khadra claim to be Somalis and Khadra says “what stays between Somalis, stays between Somalis.”   So, if they are really Somalis, why then did they say so much to RRW.

Here is Abdi:

Oh yeah you are very right actually thats not it only Hispanics are also more friendly to Somalis or Ethiopians than they are to white Americans. Somalis also speak a variety of languages that can help them like: Somali, Arabic, English, Spanish, Italian makes them able to communicate with the outside world and they actually handle it very well. For ecxample the Refugee Settlement Program fraud that they discovered recently has been existing among Somalis ever since for the past 20 yrs not only that but also in other countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, and Yemen. For example the femenist atheist Somali activist Ayan Hersi Ali has been in the Netherlands illegaly with a fake identity, passport and false story for the past 20-25 yrs and has reached the hieght of a parliment member in the Dutch government with this false identity. She actually handeled it very profressionally till discovered in 2007. So don’t be surprised if Somalis live here with false identities and passports I mean they can really trick the F.B.I for God sakes and the F.B.I are very slow since they were alerted very soon. I know many Somalis who live here with false identities. So if they lie to the Refugee Settlement Program (because they bring more Somalis who are their friends or from the same tribe) and come through the border to the U.S and Canada and other stuff is not something new it is something very old but hidden till those sell outs blurted and babbled to the feds. We are taking over America and since you have a Black president who doesn’t seem to care its a piece of cake for us.

Abdi is not the first to tell us they are taking over America, here another Abdi (a common Somali name) says the same thing.

This is Khadra yesterday:

Its ok we have known this for years you guys have just discovered illegal Somalis entering the U.S from the south they’ve been entering the U.S and Canada ever since I can remember. This isn’t something new at all it was known but kept secret there are many secerts held in Somali communities all around North America just not told to the world. Like the young Somali boys who left America for Jihad in Somalia it was known but some Somalis who were very worried about their sons blurted to the F.B.I but many other Somalis knew about this before even before it was said Somalis began leaving the country for Jihad in Somalia. They began leaving in many numbers around the world starting from 2006 you guys are very late in your discovery Somalis hold many dangerous secerts and if the governments of the Western world found out there would be trouble for them. Its the saying “what stays between Somalis, stays between Somalis” and that is why Omar Jamal * of the Advocacy Somali Center is considered a sell-out by many Somalis in Minneapolis except for a very few, most Somalis don’t trust him either. Just a little update on this border thing Somalis began entering from the Mexican border to Arizona, Texas, and California starting from 2004 not now its not something new at all it is just a discovery from the feds thats it, and they are very late.

So to recap:

* Khadra says Somalis have been coming across the southern border since 2004.  The information only seems new because our incompetent law enforcement has just figured it out.

* Khadra says Somali youths have been leaving the US for Jihad training since 2006.   She/he says we only figured that out recently because of blabbing parents in the Somali ‘community.’

* Khadra basically says Omar Jamal is a traitor to Somalis.

* Abdi says the fraud in the refugee resettlement program has gone on for 20 years.

* Abdi says the FBI is very slow to act on this because they have known about it for a long time.

* Abdi says they are taking over America and that is now a piece of cake since Obama is President.

All of this rings true, but I’m not sure the authors of these comments are really Somalis or simply people who have read up on the issues.  Readers, what do you think?

For new readers, more Somalis are already on the way (in addition to the illegal ones cited above):

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US (this linked post continues to be one of the most widely read posts we have ever written) in the last 25 years and then in 2008 had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon.

Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled by the State Department as I write this. We recently learned that we will be taking 6000 Somalis this year from one camp in Uganda and as many as 11,000-13,000 total from around the world.

Through the Refugee Resettlement program alone 2141 legal Somalis have already arrived in this fiscal year (2010) as of April 30th with an unknown number arriving through other legal programs and  illegally across both our borders.

* Learn more than you want to know about Omar Jamal by searching for his name here at RRW.  We have written dozens of posts on his comings and goings.  At one point he was convicted of immigration fraud and should have been deported—-kind of like the Aunt Zeituni case.

Republican Rep. Mark Souder resigns over affair with staffer…

Ho hum, why can’t these guys on both sides of the aisle control themselves when they get to Washington?  Check out the stories.  Here is one from Fox News, he is some ‘pillsbury dough boy’ middle-aged guy with a sick wife at home .  Where have I heard that before?  Oh yeh!  Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards (sans the double chin)!

So why am I mentioning Souder?  He was a squish on immigration—one of many Republican squishes.   Here is a story on Monday where he was asked about the possibility of Indiana following Arizona with a state law to clamp down on illegal immigrants in the state.  Read the whole thing, but note this quote:

Souder says, “This is so divisive, and the Hispanic community is so large. And in our area, quite frankly, people just don’t understand… many who are legal. It leads to a tinge of sounding racist and biased. People need to be very careful. This is not about immigrants. This is about illegal immigrants.”

Why is that so interesting besides being a squishy answer?  His district includes Ft. Wayne where a huge public controversy erupted recently over a spitting incident in a laundromat (start reading here and follow links back for full story) which caused an employee to post a sign that read essentially —no Burmese permitted!   That is why Souder is so concerned about distinguishing legal vs. illegal immigrants in that quote.  He is pandering to his large immigrant/refugee population and just wants the tension gone without taking on the issue head-on.

In fact Souder has done virtually nothing over the years to solve the tension in his district except bring more federal tax money to Ft. Wayne for refugees which in essence keeps the fires of controversy burning over the ever-growing refugee community there.

Unfortunately, I haven’t the time to do this post justice, but use our search function for Souder and note that we have written about him on several occasions over the years.  Be sure to especially see this post from January 2008 where I criticized Souder on his handling of the mushrooming refugee situation.

Maybe the folks of Ft. Wayne can now elect someone who has at least the intestinal fortitude to address the immigration problems in that city!

Michael Posner puts foot in mouth by apologizing to China

You’ve probably heard about it, it’s been all over the news.  The State Department’s Michael Posner APOLOGIZED to China for our human rights abuses.  What were our abuses?  Arizona passed SB1070!  Think about it APOLOGIZING TO CHINA.  Here is Sarah Palin blasting the Obama apology tour at Gateway Pundit (one of my favorite blogs by the way and Sarah Palin is one of my favorite people!).

Posner, before going through the revolving door  to the State Department, was the well-paid head of Human Rights First.  I told you about  him here when he was pushing for more Iraqi refugees to be admitted to the US and promoting Samantha Power as the Iraqi refugee czar in the White House.    Surely as head of Human Rights First for decades he knew about this:

North Korea pays China a bounty of around $300 for each North Korean caught and returned to North Korea. Returned escapees will typically be prosecuted, then imprisoned, or, if it is their third attempt, summarily executed, for the crime of betraying the fatherland by leaving.

And, he must have known about this:

They have to be careful and alert – North Korean refugees looking for a better life in South Korea run the risk of being rounded up by Chinese troops. But there are groups and organizations who try to help. They call themselves the Catacombs, a reference to early Christians who fled underground to avoid Roman persecution. This group of Korean and foreign Christian human rights activists, along with the refugees they are helping, are trying to avoid being detected by China.

These groups help refugees by giving them shelter and food during their escape. They also assist them in moving on to South Korea. To them it is clear that China puts the lives of North Koreans fleeing across the border at risk.

Now, go here to the Office of Immigration Statistics Annual Flow Report, and take note that we granted asylum to 10,000-11,000 Chinese nationals who sought asylum each year for the last 3 years.  Indeed the Chinese top the list of those seeking asylum here.  How many Americans sought asylum in China during those same three years?  I bet the number is zero!  Case closed.

Iowa editor admits it: we want refugee labor in our state

We told you in January that the State of Iowa (one of 10 major refugee contractors) was getting out of the business of bringing refugees to Iowa.  I meant to tell you the other day, but didn’t get around to it, that only Catholic Charities would still be providing Iowa’s meatpacking laborers.

Now comes an editorial from the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa that spells it all out clearly—the refugees are needed for (cheap) labor.  The editor even suggests that if Iowa doesn’t get legal immigrant labor the meatpackers will continue to exploit illegal aliens.  There is another option, offer a decent wage and lots and lots of people will want the jobs.

Let me be clear, I understand that the refugees brought to the US must work to stay off welfare, but then let’s be honest and stop pretending that the US State Department and the volags are motivated only by humanitarian zeal.  There is a lot of  money (and  future voters!) involved!

Fourteen- and 15-year-olds testified about back-breaking, low-paying work for Sholom Rubashkin, the former Agriprocessors CEO charged with 83 misdemeanor state child labor law violations. He already has been convicted of massive financial fraud.

He has yet to be tried for immigration law violations federal authorities filed after the biggest immigration raid in Iowa history May 12, 2008. Federal agents removed 390 undocumented workers from the plant, shutting it down and proving once again that Iowa’s agriculture economy cannot function without immigrant labor.

The work force at every meatpacking plant in the state affirms it. So do the past three Iowa governors, who agree legal immigration is essential for the state’s economic growth, not simply “important” or “a key factor.” While in office, Govs. Terry Branstad, Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver all said Iowa simply cannot grow without legal immigration.

This is the context for the regrettable closing of Iowa’s Bureau of Refugee Services, the state’s No. 1 manager of legal immigration. Since 1975, this bureau brought 28,000 legal immigrants to Iowa and supported another 10,000 who moved to the state after legally entering the country.

The Iowa State refugee office is closing and so is Lutheran Social Services of Iowa.  Only Catholic Charities will continue.

End result: Legal immigration refugee resettlement to Iowa will plummet by more than 85 percent.

Of course, that doesn’t mean immigration to Iowa will end. Hundreds will find their own ways to the state or be recruited for hard-to-fill tech, education and science positions. [Flash! Job seekers in the tech field, education and science should get to Iowa now because they have jobs!]

If history is an indicator, thousands of illegal immigrants will continue to be drawn into the traps set by those like Rubashkin, who federal and state authorities say built a business around exploited illegal immigrants.

Refugee resettlement is an honorable part [honorable for whom?] of Iowa government and faith mission history. It also is a vital part of the state’s economic development.

The Clintons knew all about supplying Iowa big business with cheap immigrant labor as I learned in 2008, here.

The logical solution to the Palestinian refugee problem

Alexander Levkovsky on David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog posts Another Look at the Problem of Refugees. He quotes Michael Steinhardt in the Wall Street Journal to summarize the problem:

Descendants of the Arabs who left their homes in 1948 now number in the millions. The Palestinians want these people returned to Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel says no, knowing this would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

(Check out our category Israel and refugees for our many posts on the issue.)

Levkovsky continues:

All attempts to resolve that problem have failed – mostly, because of the stubborn and utterly unreasonable resistance on the part of the Arabs. But Mr. Steinhardt’s proposal (and many similar ideas) to cut this knot by employing a combination of monetary compensation and granting of citizenship to stateless Palestinians is worth considering seriously.

History provides convincing examples of how refugee problems have been successfully – although in most cases, painfully – resolved. For example, in the wake of World War II, untold millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from the territories they had lived in for centuries – from East Prussia, the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, eastern provinces of Germany proper, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. They were all accepted by the two post-war German nations as full-right citizens.

Very few people nowadays are aware of the enormous flow of refugees after World War II. I knew about it because my maternal grandmother came to America from Konigsberg in East Prussia. That city became part of Russia after the war and was renamed Kaliningrad. Since the Soviet Union dissolved and Belorus became a separate country, Kaliningrad has not been physically connected to Russia, but it is still a part of Russia. I didn’t know my grandmother and have no connection with her family, but they must have been among the millions of Germans displaced from their longstanding homes and taken in by Germany.

So, Levkovsky says,

If Arab leaders do feel true compassion for the plight of their Palestinian brethren (as they invariably insist they do), and have sincere desire to put an end to their stateless existence, they can learn from very humane laws of granting citizenship that have been adopted by many nations: Armenia, Belarus, China, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Poland, Japan, France, India, Bulgaria, and many, many others.

He gives examples of a few of the laws adopted. Here is Lithuania’s:

From the Constitution of Lithuania, Article 32(4): “Every Lithuanian person may settle in Lithuania.”

Pretty simple, isn’t it? The problem is that (as Levkovsky knows), the Arab leaders have no desire whatsoever to put an end to their brethren’s stateless existence. Their desire is to keep the Palestinians in misery and stateless as a permanent weapon against Israel. I am glad to see that this proposal has been spreading around for a while, though at a less visible level than I’d like. It calls the bluff of the Arab politicians and shows them up for the hypocrites they are.

Sheboygan gets a mosque

This is happening in small towns and cities throughout the US.  Sheboygan, WI has been riled for months over whether a use permit to convert a former store into a mosque should be granted by the town fathers.  The local refugee population was cited by the Palestinian (from Gaza) imam as one reason they needed the religious center.  Last night the mosque was approved over the objections of the majority of the citizens of Sheboygan.  Hat tip: Robert

From the Sheboygan Press:

After an hour and a half of fiery discussion, including comments from two dozen speakers, and before an audience of more than 120 people, the Wilson Town Board voted unanimously Monday night to grant a conditional use permit for Sheboygan County’s first mosque.

With the approval, Mohammad Hamad, the Imam, or spiritual leader, of the local Muslim community, said the first worship service at the former Tom’s of Wisconsin health food store at 9110 Sauk Trail Road would be held Friday, the traditional day of worship for Muslims.

Hamad said he was happy the process was over.

“I believe right now we have to focus on the future and put this harsh talk behind us,” Hamad said after the meeting.
“I was a little surprised at the misunderstanding” about Islam and the local Muslim community, he said, adding but the mosque will help open a door to better understanding.”

The proposal had drawn large crowds over the last several months to town Plan Commission meetings and several hundreds to public forums at local churches and other locations, with some saying the U.S. Constitutional guarantee of freedom of worship dictated approval while others said the mosque could attract Islamic fundamentalists and even terrorists to the area.

Read on.

In an earlier story we learned that the owner of the property is a Pakistani, the Imam is a Palestinian from Gaza and refugee families need the mosque.

Mansoor Mirza, a Pakistani-born physician who bought the four-acre property and plans on leasing it to the Islamic Society, estimated 80 to 100 Muslim families live in Sheboygan County and that 20 or 25 of them were likely to attend the mosque. Mirza recently moved to Sheboygan from Manitowoc. Mirza is board certified in internal medicine at Holy Family Memorial in Manitowoc.

Mohammad Hamad, the group’s imam, or spiritual leader, and Mirza said a large number of those Muslims are European, especially Albanian and Bosnian refugees. Others, Hamad said, hail from Tajikistan, Jordan and Syria. Hamad is a Palestinian from Gaza who moved to the United States 10 years ago. Hamad works in the Sheboygan area as a consulting engineer.

This story is filed in our ‘stealth jihad’ category for obvious reasons.

Obama’s Auntie Zeituni granted asylum

Ten years after arriving in the US and six years after receiving a deportation order, President Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, has been granted asylum.  We first told you about Obama’s aunt living illegally in the US, here, just before Obama’s election to the Presidency in 2008.

From the Boston Herald:

A jubilant Zeituni Onyango celebrated in South Boston today after learning a U.S. immigration court granted her asylum – a decision her neighbors speculated was probably helped by her nephew, President Obama.

“It’s obvious her nephew helped,” said neighbor Marion Swain. “She’s a very nice person – very well spoken. That’s life.”

Onyango faced being deported to Kenya by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but a judge ruled she can now apply for a work visa and green card.

“I don’t want to be disturbed,” said Onyango through the door of her public housing unit on L Street.

[.....]

The ruling to allow Onyango to stay in the Hub was mailed Friday and comes three months after the half-sister of Obama’s late father testified at a closed hearing in Boston, where she arrived in a wheelchair. Two doctors testified in support of her case then.

The basis for her asylum request was never made public. People who seek asylum must show that they face persecution in their homeland on the basis of religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.

“The asylum process is confidential and she wants to keep it that way, so we can’t get into details on why the judge granted asylum or the exact basis for her claim,” said her attorney Scott Bratton. He added: “She doesn’t want people to feel sorry for her.”

[.....]

Medical issues also could have played a role. Onyango’s lawyers told the Herald she was disabled and was learning to walk again after being paralyzed from Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder.

Onyango moved to the United States in 2000. Her first asylum request was rejected, and she was ordered deported in 2004. But she didn’t leave the country and continued to live in Boston.

Although regrettable, I don’t believe one’s medical circumstances are grounds for a positive asylum determination.  Does this mean that we are now going to grant asylum to Kenyans when Kenya is a relatively stable country?

Use our search function for more on ‘Aunt Zeituni.’

Somali smuggler trial opens in Virginia today

The man accused by the government of helping nearly 300 Somalis enter the US illegally across our Southern Border opens today in Virginia.   The problem is that we don’t know if the feds have found any of those Somalis yet—no illegal Somalis means no evidence!

From the Washington Examiner which has been on this story from day one:

A Virginia man accused of smuggling nearly 300 Somalis into the United States from Kenya is set to go to trial Monday morning in Alexandria’s federal court, but the government’s evidence may be slim if authorities haven’t located any of the illegal immigrants.

The search, first reported by the Washington Examiner, started in early February after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Anthony Joseph Tracy on charges that he helped smuggle the Somalis. The 35-year-old has since been indicted on charges of conspiring with Cuban Embassy officials in Kenya to help the Somalis illegally enter the United States. A separate charge that Tracy lied on a U.S. passport application was filed, but later dropped for lack of evidence, court records show.

ICE Agent Thomas Eyre has testified that authorities are “concerned” about the contact Tracy admitted having with the Somali terrorist organization Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda ally.

Read on.

For our previous posts on the case go here.