Canada’s new “immigrant” from America

Vancouver seems to have more than its fair share of possible terrorists sneaking across the border.  First, we heard about the Sri Lankan ship that came ashore with “refugees” and now we hear about a mysterious ‘American’ who was stopped while coming across the border into Canada with nearly $1 million in GOLD.

VANCOUVER, B.C. — Paranoia and naivete led a Syrian man to lie about why he was crossing the border with nearly $1 million in gold and what’s been called “terrorist resources,” says the lawyer for the man who has been held as a potential security threat since early last month.

Khaled Nawaya, a flight instructor, was arrested by Canada Border Services agents when they found $800,000 in gold coins and other currency in his car and pockets on Oct. 6, as he crossed into Surrey, B.C., near Vancouver.

“He didn’t want to be taxed on it,” lawyer Phil Rankin said Tuesday.

The Saudi-born would-be immigrant to Canada holds Syrian citizenship, but had been in the US since he was 17.    Besides the illegal amount of cash and gold he was carrying he had a few other suspicious items in his possession.

…. his actions, along with other politically-charged items found in his vehicle, are now being used by government officials to build a case depicting him as a national security threat.

The 35-year-old faces the Immigration and Refugee Board on Thursday to learn whether authorities have grounds to keep him in custody

He’d been living in the U.S. since he was 17 and had gained approval for permanent residency in Canada.

[.....]　

Besides the gold, Canadian agents found a ring bearing the insignia of Hezbollah, which has been listed as a terrorist organization by the Canadian government since 2002.

They also seized 9/11 conspiracy theory-themed DVDs and a scarf adorned with the images of a former Israeli prime minister and a U.S. president depicted as monkeys.

His lawyer says the items are easily explainable.  Read the whole article for the explanations!   The lawyer concludes:

“I think they’re [he and his brother in America] probably sympathetic to what’s going on in the Middle East,” he said, but that’s no indication of “sinister” activity.

Oh, and did you notice, he is a flight instructor.  Me thinks this lawyer has an uphill battle.

Lou Dobbs leaves CNN

Outspoken immigration critic and likely the only independent thinker at CNN has announced he is finished there.  It is not clear what he will do next, but it is clear that CNN will continue to sink further in the ratings.   From the NY Times:

Lou Dobbs, the longtime CNN anchor whose anti-immigration views have made him a TV lightning rod, said Wednesday that he is leaving the cable news channel effective immediately.

“Some leaders in the media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and engage in constructive problem-solving,” Mr. Dobbs said just after 7 p.m., suggesting that he would remain involved in the civic discourse, but perhaps not on television.

“I’m considering a number of options and directions,” Mr. Dobbs added.

Wednesday’s program will be his last on CNN, one of his employees said earlier in the evening.

We previously told you about attempts by the Southern Poverty Law Center to get him fired, here.  And, more recently we mentioned the shooting at his NJ home, here.

USCCB lobbied hard for Pelosi Health Care bill

Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media lines up some of the reasons why the US Conference of Catholic Bishops helped push the Pelosi/Obama so-called health reform bill over the finish line late Saturday night and wonders where is the separation of church and state.

Kincaid explains and suggests some reasons why the USCCB might be in Pelosi’s pocket, including their immigration advocacy.  After you read this, I’ll add one more reason he has missed.   Hat tip:  Janet Levy

The AARP and American Medical Association supported H.R. 3692, the Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2009, but a careful analysis of the media coverage demonstrates that it was the U.S. Catholic Church that provided the winning margin. Yet, the liberal media are failing to raise the issue of the alleged separation of church and state.

Contrary to some media reports, the U.S. Catholics Bishops never opposed a national health care scheme. In fact, their main objection was to a provision for federal funding of abortion. Once that provision was eliminated, the Catholic Bishops embraced the bill.

On Saturday, after Catholic lobbyists had finalized a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent Catholic in the U.S. Government, the Politico reported that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had “delivered a critical endorsement” to Pelosi “by signing off on late-night agreement to grant a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions.” The anti-abortion amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, a Catholic Democrat, passed. Hence, the Bishops are now officially in favor of a bureaucratic plan that could spell the end to freedom of choice in health care and financially bankrupt the U.S.

“A half dozen lobbyists for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops joined negotiators in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to come to terms,” reported the Christian Science Monitor.

[.....]

NBC’s Doug Adams reported that the Catholic Bishops were “lobbying hard.”

The shocking turn of events once again demonstrates the extreme left-wing drift of the Catholic Church, which is the nation’s largest religious denomination with 67 million members and run by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But their role in passing Pelosicare is not the only evidence of such a turn. The Bishops poured more than $7.3 million of parishioners’ money into the corrupt left-wing organization ACORN over the last decade before publicity over the organization’s scandals forced suspension of the funding.

Please read Kincaid’s whole article.

Here is what Kincaid has missed—federal funding.   The USCCB is the largest federal contractor* for resettling refugees and running immigrant programs in the US.  That $7.3 million that went to ACORN is chump change and may not have even come from parishioners—it might have come from taxpayers.  

We recently learned that 100 Catholic Charities got a whopping $85,557,665 from the US Treasury to run their many immigrant and other welfare programs in 2009 alone!

Add to the $85 million dispersed around the US to Catholic Charities, note that the US State Department funded the DC office of the USCCB to the tune of $25 million (FY2009)!   I sure hope the USCCB is keeping their refugee money separate from their lobbying money.  Anyone doing any auditing?  What do you think, Pelosi had a little leverage here!

There is more.  We are funding with our tax dollars a multi-million dollar far left Catholic expansion of power throughout the government.   Take the case of Tennessee where Catholic Charities is now in charge of the millions of dollars that goes to Tennessee each year for refugee and immigrant federal programs.   The federal regulations mandate that a state agency manage the program for the many “church” and other non-profit groups operating to take care (LOL!) of immigrants within the state.  In Tennessee there is no state overseer, the fox essentially has the hen house.

So if one questions the issue of separation of church and state, think about the fact that Catholic Charities of Tennessee and the US State Department/Dept of Health and Human Services (the federal government!) make decisions for Tennessee regarding refugees and immigrants.  There is no decision-making role for the state or local government in deciding who is resettled in the state or how many.  The only role is that the state and local governments supply welfare assistance.  States should be guarding against this trend.

If amnesty is given to millions of  illegal aliens, as the USCCB is also lobbying for, you can be sure these Catholic offices roles will expand even further.  This is how the federal government with the help of its quasi-government agencies, like Catholic Charities, usurps the role of state governments.

We have already heard that Pelosi twisted many arms and offered loads of pork to legislators to secure their vote, certainly the USCCB had a lot of funding to lose if they didn’t go along with the program.  And, who knows what they were promised in the future.

* Here are the Top Ten federal contractors resettling refugees, running immigrant welfare programs AND lobbying!  They have 300 plus subcontractors.

Catholic leaders: Illegal entry does not define who you are

There is nothing earth-shattering here, but since we had previously discussed the National Association of Evangelicals on the issue of amnesty, I thought it only fitting to tell you about how leading Catholics are working toward Comprehensive Immigration Reform (called Amnesty for short).  

This is an account of a conference a few days ago at Georgetown University at which Cardinal McCarrick says the window is closed at the moment to push for Amnesty—no kidding!

From the National Catholic Reporter:

“A toxic political atmosphere” is preventing much-needed humane reform of the “broken immigration system” in the United States, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick said Nov. 3 at a forum on immigration and human dignity at Georgetown University.

Calling for “comprehensive immigration reform,’ the retired Washington archbishop said, “We have to change what is broken, lest more people will suffer. We have to be courageous and persistent and change the system.”

McCarrick was lead speaker of a three-member panel at the forum, put on by Georgetown’s Woodstock Theological Center and co-sponsored by CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.), the Migration Policy Institute and the Jesuit Conference, USA. More than 300 people attended.

In one way or another all the speakers urged new attention to immigration reform — which McCarrick bluntly said is now on a political back burner to the more currently dominant issues of the economic crisis, U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the health care reform debate.

The golden opportunity for immigration reform two years ago is gone, and those seeking comprehensive, humane reform need to watch closely for the next open window and seize it, he said.

“Our receptivity to immigrants defines who we are” as Americans, said Donald M Kerwin Jr., a Woodstock Center associate fellow and vice president for programs of the Migration Policy Institute. “What immigrants want today is what your parents and grandparents wanted” as immigrants in previous generations.

Kerwin, who for 15 years was director of CLINIC, a national program established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide legal assistance to refugees, asylum seekers and other immigrants seeking visas and legal residency in the United States, sharply disputed the use of “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” as terms defining or identifying those who enter the country without legal status.

“The rejection of ‘illegal alien’ is not a quibble. … It’s a line drawn in the sand” to say that these are human beings with rights and legitimate aspirations, whose illegal entry does not define who they are, he said.  [I think it says an awful lot about them!]

A little research into CLINIC

I don’t have time today to look too deeply into CLINIC (some interesting stuff on their website) because I am going away for a few days and have to get out of here, but I was curious who was funding this legal office.   Turns out you are—not entirely, though!  On average CLINIC gets about a half a million dollars a year from the US taxpayer to legally defend immigrants including refugees, and apparently to lobby.    The money passes through a Washington, DC office run by Kerwin for 15 years.

If you are interested check out their latest Form 990 here.   And, also go to that wonderful new source of information USA Spending.gov for information on their federal grants.

By the way, as regular readers know the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the top ten federal refugee contractors,  is one of the largest recipients of federal grant dollars.  I wonder do they ever consider that if millions of illegal aliens are legalized overnight that they will compound even further the poor job prospects for legal refugees.

And, why are we giving millions and millions of tax dollars to rich churches and their political activities?

LA doctor accused of faking exams for immigrants

Doesn’t this give you confidence in our immigration system? The Associated Press reports Officials: LA doctor faked immigrant medical exams: 

A Los Angeles doctor has been arrested for allegedly falsifying the results of medical exams for immigrants applying for visas.

Officials say 72-year-old Levon Tebelekian is charged with fraud and making false statements after a joint investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the California Medical Board.

ICE’s Miguel Unzueta says immigrants applying for permanent residency must undergo a medical exam to ensure they don’t have any medical conditions or diseases that could threaten public health.

Investigators say immigrants paid Tebelekian up to $150 to complete the medical examination form, but never saw the doctor.

If convicted, the physician faces up to 80 years in prison.

The local NBC station adds this charming anecdote:

In one case, he allegedly told an undercover ICE agent that he was not going to “disturb his blood” and that he “did not look like he had AIDS,” according to an affidavit.

But why should the doctor be prosecuted? Obama is lifting the ban on immigrants and travelers with HIV/AIDS anyway, as Ann reported last week.

Center for Immigration Studies report explains how the Sierra Club justifies more immigration

If you follow immigration issues generally, one of the most perplexing questions is how did it come about that the major environmental organizations (especially the Sierra Club) in the US don’t want to work to slow immigration when it is clear that more people means more environmental degradation.  Jerry Kammer has written a very detailed piece for the Center for Immigration Studies entitled, “Strategic Negligence: How the Sierra Club’s Distortions on Border and Immigration Policy Are Undermining its Environmental Legacy” that seeks to explain how this happened and tells us that some true conservationists are trying to turn that around.   Please read the report.

Mr. Kammer is just missing one key element in my opinion.

That key element is that Carl Pope, the Sierra Club’s long-time Executive Director, is more a Marxist than an environmentalist.   The new communist movement in this country has coalesced around the Apollo Alliance (Pope sits on its board of directors).   Pope is more comfortable with the far left labor unions, leftwing foundations, the big corporations and the likes of revolutionary Van Jones (be sure to watch the Pope/Jones interview linked in here) then he would be with David Brower.    The powerful alliance that helped elect Obama must have poor demanding immigrants to “change” our government—the goals of the ”social justice movement” are more important to Pope and Jones than saving a little biodiversity.   

I only wonder that it took so long for people truly concerned about the environment to organize against open borders communists.  No, I don’t really, because they are mostly on the political left too and couldn’t begin to grasp that Far Left (communists!) had taken over the environmental movement that they began.

P.S. to all the environmentalists concerned with population growth generally, well-educated Americans have been having fewer children while the Somalis, Bosnians and other Muslims pouring into the US have no such concern—six kids and up is what they are aiming for—because they don’t give a damn about the environment!

Obama Administration to lift ban on immigrants/travelers with HIV/AIDS

President Obama, while signing legislation yesterday that extends taxpayer funding of medical care and treatment to people with HIV, announced the final steps to lifting a ban on those entering the US with HIV/AIDS.  Guess we will be taking care of more of the world’s HIV population right here.*   From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON – President Obama said yesterday that the United States will overturn a 22-year-old travel and immigration ban against people with HIV early next year.

The order will be finalized on Monday, Obama said, completing a process begun during the Bush administration. The United States has been among a dozen countries that bar entry to travelers with visas or anyone seeking a green card based on their HIV status.

This next section of the article is inaccurate because refugees with HIV have been allowed entry.  The reporter should have used the word ‘immigrants’ instead of ‘refugees.’

The law effectively has kept out thousands of students, tourists, and refugees and has complicated the adoption of children with HIV.

Those countries still banning people with HIV/AIDS are as follows.  I wonder at the accuracy of the list.   Do Iran and Syria, for example, let in people with the disease? 

The 11 other countries that ban HIV-positive travelers and immigrants are Armenia, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Sudan, according to the advocacy group Immigration Equality.

I don’t have the time, but if you are interested you might want to visit Immigration Equality and see if you can find any mention of the list.

* The Bush Administration is credited with spending a lot of money in Africa to fight HIV/AIDS, but I just talked with a young man in my town who spent 2 years in Africa recently with the Peace Corps.  He said the Africans in his area of Africa refused the condoms because they believed they were contaminated with the AIDS virus and that it was a US plot to infect them.   Consequently, his Peace Corps compatriots who were assigned to work on HIV/AIDS had nothing to do.

Now someone is shooting at Lou Dobbs’ house!

Back in July we told you that the Southern Poverty Law Center had started a campaign to get Lou Dobbs fired from CNN because they disapproved of his speech.  Now comes news, thanks to Susan again, that Dobbs’ New Jersey home was recently fired upon.  Watch Youtube here for Dobbs’ description of what happened.

Melanie Phillips: Labour plotted to transform Britain. Sound familiar?

Melanie Phillips, courageous chronicler of the rise of Islam and anti-Semitism in the UK and the author of Londonistan, has a stunning piece in the Daily Mail. She writes:

For years, as the number of immigrants to Britain shot up apparently uncontrollably, the question was how exactly this had happened.

Was it through a fit of absent-mindedness or gross incompetence? Or was it not inadvertent at all, but deliberate?

The latter explanation seemed just too outrageous. After all, a deliberate policy of mass immigration would have amounted to nothing less than an attempt to change the very make-up of this country without telling the electorate.

There could not have been a more grave abuse of the entire democratic process. Now, however, we learn that this is exactly what did happen. The Labour government has been engaged upon a deliberate and secret policy of national cultural sabotage.

Since 2001, Britain has gained some 2.3 million immigrants. The total population is about 61 million. The U.S. population is about 308 million, or five times as many. So this would be equivalent to the U.S.  gaining about 11.5 million immigrants during the last nine years. And Britain’s immigrants include far more Muslims than ours.

Why was this done?

But now look at the real reason why this policy was introduced, and in secret. The Government’s ‘driving political purpose’, wrote Neather, was ‘to make the UK truly multicultural’. 

It was therefore a politically motivated attempt by ministers to transform the fundamental make-up and identity of this country. It was done to destroy the right of the British people to live in a society defined by a common history, religion, law, language and traditions.

It was done to destroy for ever what it means to be culturally British and to put another ‘multicultural’ identity in its place. And it was done without telling or asking the British people whether they wanted their country and their culture to be transformed in this way.

Spitefully, one motivation by Labour ministers was ‘to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.

This reminds me of the change in refugee policy during the Clinton years. Instead of bringing refugees into gateway cities like New York and Los Angeles, which are used to immigrants and usually have existing communities of those nationalities, the State Department decided to settle refugees in small cities all across America. They usually did this without the foreknowledge, agreement, or preparation of those cities and towns. I have no damning quote about their motivation, but when I heard this policy I immediately thought, “They want to rub ordinary Americans’ noses in multiculturalism and diversity, and show them up for the narrow-minded bigots they are.” And here’s another parallel:

But the most shattering revelation was that this policy of mass immigration was not introduced to produce nannies or cleaners for the likes of Neather. It was to destroy Britain’s identity and transform it into a multicultural society where British attributes would have no greater status than any other country’s.

A measure of immigration is indeed good for a country. But this policy was not to enhance British culture and society by broadening the mix. It was to destroy its defining character altogether.

It also conveniently guaranteed an increasingly Labour-voting electorate since, as a recent survey by the Electoral Commission has revealed, some 90 per cent of black people and three-quarters of Asians vote Labour.

That is a parallel to the Democrats’ wish to grant amnesty to the millions of illegal aliens living here, and to open our borders to further immigration from third-world countries. I don’t know the motivation of Republicans — I guess they’re just suicidal.  Poor immigrants here vote overwhelmingly Democrat. That’s the party that takes money from the productive citizens and gives it to the unproductive. Not that all poor immigrants are unproductive, but they are vastly undereducated for decent jobs and often require government support of one kind or another (like food stamps and Medicaid) during their entire lives. But the left apparently believes that bringing them here is worth it if in the process our unique culture and qualities can be destroyed, and the evil conservatives can be vanquished forever.

National Association of Evangelicals: less than truthful!

Update October 24th:  Here is Roy Beck on the revelation that only 25% of the NAEs members signed on to their Senate testimony.

Don’t you just love it when a bunch of ‘holier-then-thous’ pontificate about moral issues and then turn out to be a sack of liars. (Whatever happened to not bearing false witness?)  It sure looks like that is what is going on with the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).  I told you about them  about 10 days ago when they testified in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens and led Congress and the sycophant media to believe they represented over 30 million people.

According to Mark Tooley writing at American Spectator, they don’t.  What they didn’t say at the time of their testimony is that only 11 of the 40 member groups of the NAE endorsed the policy:

The NAE website shows only 11 of NAE’s over 40 member denominations endorsing the immigration stance. And only 11 individuals are signers, though reportedly 75 NAE board members voted for it.

This honest (not!) Christian pastor testifed to Congress that there was no dissent in coming up with the policy position:

NAE’s president, Minnesota megachurch pastor Leith Anderson, unveiled NAE’s new advocacy earlier this month to the U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship.

This next paragraph gave me great relief because the Salvation Army is one of the few charities my family still supports and I was so disappointed to see them taking the open borders/pro-amnesty postion as part of the NAE.  I am glad it wasn’t true.

Still, Anderson proclaimed that NAE’s board had voted with “no dissent” for the pro-CIR stance. Unmentioned was that evidently some NAE board members had abstained, including the Salvation Army. “Please know that Salvation Army leadership chose to abstain from signing the final resolution on immigration reform,” reported an Army spokesman. “While the [NAE] news releases did not report this specifically, the fact remains that any resolution produced by the National Association of Evangelicals does not automatically become the official policy of a member organization (ie: The Salvation Army) unless they choose to make it so. In this case, The Salvation Army chose not to adopt the resolution nor will it become our stance on immigration reform. In actuality, The Salvation Army has never established any official position on this topic and has chosen to remain politically neutral on the matter.”

Dear Salvation Army, get out of this group of radical leftists where the ends justify any means (even lying!).