Tag: Refugees

All Those Refugees

Note–this post will probably make me few friends and make me sound heartless and lack any empathy…..

We all have seen or read stories and photos of the women and children fleeing ahead of the Russian onslaught to neighboring countries those heart wrenching….all the destroyed buildings and lives….the long lines waiting for a ride to the nearest border…..all the crying and hugs…..and all the calls for the West to do more.

There reports state….

The number of Ukrainians fleeing abroad is now 3,556,924, the United Nations’ Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday, with more than 2 million crossing the border into Poland.

“This is another tragic milestone for the people of Ukraine and it has been achieved in just under one month,” UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh told a briefing, adding that 6.5 million people had been internally displaced within Ukraine.

Biden and his Boyz are preparing a plan to help Ukrainian refugees….

Biden was considering using his presidential authority to grant humanitarian parole to refugees or designating them under a program that was used to evacuate refugees out of war zones in Afghanistan.

The options would not guarantee permanent legal status, but the White House believes most Ukrainians would want to eventually return to their homes after finding safe havens in Europe.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared last week that refugees seeking asylum in the US will not be turned away, after reports of several being denied access to the country at the Mexican border.

Under the White House proposals, refugees would be flown in to the country and given support services, avoiding the dangerous and uncertain ordeal asylum-seekers face at the physical US border, the network said.

(nypost.com)

Of course the US has done what it does best…throw money at a problem…sadly it is seldom the solution that is needed.

Ukraine can expect about $900 million in humanitarian aid to flow its way….

I think everything that can possibly be done to help the refugees should be done….I need to ask….why was the refugees from the war in Syria not this big of an issue for the media?

The Syrian refugee crisis remains the world’s largest refugee and displacement crisis of our time. Since the Syrian civil war officially began March 15, 2011, families have suffered under brutal conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, torn the nation apart, and set back the standard of living by decades.

About 6.8 million Syrians are refugees and asylum-seekers, and another 6.7 million people are displaced within Syria. This means 13.5 million Syrians in total are forcibly displaced, more than half of the country’s population. Nearly 11.1 million people in Syria need humanitarian assistance. And about half of the people affected by the Syrian refugee crisis are children.

The refugee problem in Syria is about 3 times as bad as Ukraine and yet it got little notice here in the West….there was not nearly the coverage that those from Ukraine….why is this?

What is it that makes one refugee crisis more important than another?

Is it race?  Religion?  Region?

What is it that makes the difference?

Questions with the sound of crickets as the answer.

Another thing that pisses me off….the Congress stands applauds and vote almost overwhelmingly to send cash to Ukraine….but yet that same Congress cannot have that much agreement when it comes to cash for the hungry here or the benefits for 9/11 responders or the benefits that our veterans desire…..why is that?

It is evident that the Congress no longer works for the American people…..and it has not for many years.

What makes people half a world away more important than the starving senior down the street?

Again the sound of crickets.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Human Traffickers Paradise?

When the “Vlad the Invader’ sent his troops into Ukraine and the current conflict began and the inevitable flow of refugees into the surrounding countries began…I wrote in a post…

Another fear is that since most if not all these refugees are women and children will they be open to exploitation like so many other refugee women…..there will be predators hovering around the refugees looking for a way to pounce…..

Here is the post that I grab my quote…..

Refugees Begin Their Ordeal

My early prediction is starting to come reality…..this article was posted in the France24 website…..

One man was detained in Poland suspected of raping a 19-year-old refugee he’d lured with offers of shelter after she fled war-torn Ukraine. Another was overheard promising work and a room to a 16-year-old girl before authorities intervened.

Another case inside a refugee camp at Poland’s Medyka border, raised suspicions when a man was offering help only to women and children. When questioned by police, he changed his story.

As millions of women and children flee across Ukraine’s borders in the face of Russian aggression, concerns are growing over how to protect the most vulnerable refugees from being targeted by human traffickers or becoming victims of other forms of exploitation.

“Obviously all the refugees are women and children,” said Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, the UNHCR’s head of global communications, who has visited borders in Romania, Poland and Moldova.

“You have to worry about any potential risks for trafficking — but also exploitation, and sexual exploitation and abuse. These are the kinds of situations that people like traffickers … look to take advantage of,” she said.

The U.N. refugee agency says more than 2.5 million people, including more than a million children, have already fled war-torn Ukraine in what has become an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Europe and its fastest exodus since World War II.

In countries throughout Europe, including the border nations of Romania, Poland, Hungary, Moldova and Slovakia, private citizens and volunteers have been greeting and offering help to those whose lives have been shattered by war. From free shelter to free transport to work opportunities and other forms of assistance — help isn’t far away.

But neither are the risks.

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220312-concern-grows-over-traffickers-targeting-vulnerable-ukrainian-refugees

The countries that are taking in these refugees need to be extra vigilant to see that these parasites do not take advantage of these poor people…..for as the conflict drags on and on……some circumstances will become dire for some and that is the perfect medium for traffickers to strike.

Make the protection of these women and girls a major priority.

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Refugees Begin Their Ordeal

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused panic and the beginning of a refugee crisis as those running from the fight rush to the closet border to seek salvation by neighboring countries.

Vlad the Invader is creating a massive humanitarian crisis….

Dragging suitcases and carrying children, tens of thousands of Ukrainians rushed to the borders Saturday as invading Russian troops pressed their advance into Ukraine, moving toward the country’s capital of Kyiv. Nearly 120,000 people have so far fled Ukraine into Poland and other neighboring countries in the wake of the Russian invasion, the UN refugee agency said Saturday, per the AP. Some walked many miles through the night, while others fled by train, car, or bus, forming lines miles long at border crossings. They were greeted by waiting relatives and friends or headed on their own to reception centers organized by neighboring governments. “This may go up, it’s changing every minute,” said Shabia Mantoo, the spokeswoman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “It’s very fluid and changing by the hour.”

The agency expects up to 4 million Ukrainians could flee if the situation deteriorates further. Those arriving were mostly women, children, and the elderly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky banned men of military age from 18 to 60 from leaving. Some Ukrainian men were heading back into Ukraine from Poland to take up arms against the Russian forces. In contrast to other conflicts around the globe, Russia’s unprovoked attack on the Western-looking democracy has ignited a huge outpouring of support for the fleeing Ukrainians. This included an unconditional welcome from nations like Poland and Hungary that didn’t want to accept those fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa. Regular people were also opening up their homes to refugees and volunteering at welcome centers.

In Poland, a Facebook page was formed where people were offered rides in private cars from the border and other help. Volunteers even came from elsewhere in Europe to pick up refugees. Despite the goodwill, however, the crush of people became a very real ordeal. Jeremy Myers, from Manchester, England, was on vacation in Ukraine with his Ukrainian girlfriend when the war started. They fled Kyiv and waited 23 hours in a fenced-off area where there was no food or water and that was controlled by armed guards on the Ukrainian side. He witnessed people fighting and getting crushed and a woman who fainted. Mantoo said most Ukrainians were heading to neighboring Poland, Moldova, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia but some even fled into Belarus—from which some Russian forces entered Ukraine. Some planned to head further on to other countries in Europe.

So far countries around Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, etc have met the refugees with open arms and kindness…..

But as the conflict drags on will all this goodwill continue?  Will these refugees become a drag on the local economy will the kindness continue?

Another fear is that sense most if not all these refugees are women and children will they be open to exploitation like so many other refugee women…..there will be predators hovering around the refugees looking for a way to pounce…..

It please me to see so much kindness being shown toward these unfortunates….but the world needs to be vigilant to make sure that sex traffickers do not find a ripe market.

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Coming To A State Near You

We have heard about the Afghans that the US helped escape from Afghanistan….and the question is where will they go?

Some of these refugees will be coming to the US….but where?

This article explains where the refugees will settle once they arrive in the US…..

The Biden administration notified governors and mayors on Wednesday of the number of Afghan evacuees their state is expected to receive in the coming weeks, two senior administration officials told Axios.

Why it matters: Although their exact immigration pathway is still unclear, an initial group of 37,000 Afghans will soon be headed to states across the country after many faced harrowing journeys from Afghanistan.

  • Former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D), who President Biden appointed on Friday to oversee Afghan resettlement, made calls to state and local leaders notifying them on the number of Afghans to expect.
  • In conversations with nearly every state on Wednesday, not one official declined to take in Afghans, one senior administration official told Axios. “I have to say it was a very warm conversation with state and local leaders.”

https://www.axios.com/afghan-refugees-each-state-data-bea47ca4-0212-4a41-98bd-a2ea9f15a5bc.html

Check out the map included in the article to see how many refugees your state will accept….

How will this play out?

I do not expect these poor people will be welcome with open arms…..I think back to the late 70s and the Vietnamese refugees…that was not always a pretty picture.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Now What?

First let me say…..I think we are did a marvelous thing helping Afghans and their exodus from the Taleban and the plight to come.

Roughly 88,000 people who worked for the US government during the war, as well as their family members, are in the application pipeline for special immigrant visas (SIVs). Some are being sent to other countries to wait; others who are further along in the process are being sent to the US directly for resettlement.

There are also many thousands more who aren’t eligible for those visas but who might try to apply for refugee status through a recently created US priority program. But they will have to stay in third countries — where they will need financial support, among other kinds of aid — for months while they are being processed. US vetting requirements, capacity limitations at refugee resettlement agencies, and a finite number of slots available under the current refugee admissions cap could all contribute to delays in bringing them to American soil.

https://www.vox.com/22636742/afghan-siv-refugee-resettlement-biden

Just me thinking out loud.

The exodus from Afghanistan has been a humanitarian crisis in warp speed….the refugees are being relocated to Qatar, Germany, Mexico, the US and several other counties….we have seen all this before.

Think 1970s….Think Vietnamese ‘Boat People’…..

Now that we are relocating these people….what we saved them from will create more misery for them in the long run…..I fear.

What will their lives become?

I will use my region as an example….I have no indication of other areas to compare my thoughts with…..

When the Boat People started arriving some were given confiscated fishing and shrimp boats that had been ceased by the Coast Guard….since my region at one time was dependent on seafood as a way of life…this way the new arrivals could earn a living and become a functioning member of society.

This irritated the locals that were already struggling with a diminishing source of income.

The new arrivals caused many violent skirmishes with the locals….the biggest bitch they had was that the Vietnamese trolled the bottom and did not throw back anything that was not the harvest they searched for…..

The new arrivals were not accepted into Gulf Coast society and they set up areas that have become known as “Little Saigon”…..they became a society unto themselves…..it took a generation or more for that to change and yet not much has changed within the area unknown as “Little Saigon”.

Is this the new norm for the entering Afghan refugees?

Refugees are being accepted by poorer countries that are struggling to assist their indigenous people….so how will this improve the lives of people fleeing Afghanistan?

From what are we saving these people?

Some reports state that the US will take around 50,000 refugees….

Up to 50,000 Afghans could be arriving in the U.S. under a rarely used humanitarian program that allows people to enter the country without visas.

Refugee resettlement agencies were told to prepare to receive as many as 50,000 Afghans arriving on “humanitarian parole” in a meeting with government officials last week, Jenny Yang, a senior vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, told Newsweek.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/50-000-afghans-could-be-allowed-into-u-s-on-humanitarian-parole/ar-AANJKG0

In today’s America how will this play with the Right and their hatred of refugees and especially Muslims?

Could this generate more violence against minorities…especially the new arrivals?

Questions that NO one is asking or even contemplating for the news is laser focused on the sensationalism of the ‘exit’.

The ‘exit’ helps generate ratings boons….then the next phase will do the same.

We are entering a dangerous time for the new arrivals…..and the news will trot out new ‘experts’ once the generals and other pundits have grown hoarse from bitch and analyzing the ‘exit’.

The question remains……But what now?

As I was writing this draft my question was answered…..

One Republican lawmaker on Tuesday ratcheted up the rhetoric of fear about Afghan refugees and said that accepting them into the United States will endanger Americans.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) was asked by Greta Van Susteren on her “Full Court Press” show why he voted against the ALLIES Act, which was a bipartisan effort to help get Afghan military partners and their families to safety in the United States.

“Because I don’t think it’s appropriate to bring poorly vetted people from an Islamic state to the United States of America,” he said. “I represent the United States of America and American citizens, and it’s my job and I think it’s this Congress’s job to ensure their safety.”

https://www.rawstory.com/scott-perry-afghan-refutees/

This should set up the next election rhetoric nicely….scare the shit out of the voter .

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–31Aug21

We all have seen the chaos at the Kabul airport with Afghans rushing and pushing to get the Hell out of the country to avoid any Taleban retaliation….so this report makes the situation even more bizarre…..

US gave Taliban lists of names. Some lawmakers and military officials have been outraged by reports that American officials gave the Taliban lists of names of Americans and Afghan allies so they could get past the group’s checkpoints, Politico reports. With the Taliban’s history of killing collaborators with foreign forces, one defense official describes the move as putting the Afghans on a “kill list.” National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne acknowledged that the US has “shared information with the Taliban that has successfully facilitated evacuations from Kabul.”

Seriously?

The US gave the names of people trying to avoid the Taleban….what part of that makes sense?

I question the wisdom of this move…..

And now the last soldier is out and has turned off the lights…..

Taliban guards at Kabul’s airport and officials at the Pentagon have confirmed that the last US planes have flown out. Celebratory gunfire erupted across the Afghan capital marking the symbolic end of 20 years of war, with the Taliban back in power, the AP reports. In Washington, the US confirmed the withdrawal of its last troops, which faced a self-imposed Tuesday deadline. In announcing the completion of the evacuation and war effort. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29pm Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul. The evacuation effort, set to end Aug 31, was wrapped up a full day early, with military equipment loaded onto transport planes before the last US service members flew out, reports the New York Times.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Price Of War

While I was doing some research for a post on my opinion blog, Gulf South Free Press, I came across an article that shows the cost of conflict and the price of survival for some refugees……

Walk among the plastic tents in one corner of this sprawling, dust-swept desert camp packed with Syrian refugees, and a young woman in a white headscarf signals.

“Come in, you’ll have a good time,” suggests Nada, 19, who escaped from the southern border town of Daraa into Jordan several months ago. Her father, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard and a traditional red-checkered headscarf, sits outside under the scorching sun, watching silently.

Nada prices her body at $7, negotiable. Her daily income averages $70 a day.

Several tents away, a clean-shaven, tattooed young Syrian man, who says he was a barber back in the city of Idlib, offers his wife. “You can have her all day for $70,” he promises. He says he never imagined he would be selling his own wife, but he needs to send money back to his parents and in-laws in Syria, about $200 a month.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-jordan-desperate-syrian-refugees-turn-to-prostitution/

I am not sure that this story is accurate….I find the the “Times” has been known to print some propaganda from time to time…..

My question is what happens to these women when the conflict ends and they try to go home…..will this attempt at survival be used against them?

Please forgive the thought here….but these women are f*cked both physically and literally……this is so sad.

Just something to think about on this day waiting for the next storm to hit land.

The Rohingya Search For A Home

Who?

A little told saga here in the US is the saga of the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar (Burma) and their plight along the way…….

First of all the Rohingya are Muslims in a Buddhist country that are not wanted and suffer horrific acts upon them and are being forced out of their country simply because of religion.  To me that is tacky and uncouth…..

The BBC does an excellent job explaining the situation in Myanmar (Burma)…….

The plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people is said to be the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.

Risking death by sea or on foot, more than half a million have fled the destruction of their homes and persecution in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar (Burma) for neighbouring Bangladesh since August 2017.

The United Nations described the military offensive in Rakhine, which provoked the exodus, as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Myanmar’s military says it is fighting Rohingya militants and denies targeting civilians.

Read more of the plight of these people…….

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41566561

The US is well aware of the plight of the Rohingya and is sending aid to Myanmar (Burma)…..this is a statement about that aid from the State department……

The United States supports a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Burma that respects the human rights of all its people. We are working to immediately address the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State, strengthen Burma’s transition to democracy, expand economic opportunity, improve health and resilience of vulnerable populations, further national reconciliation, empower local communities and civil society, and strengthen respect for and protection of human rights and religious freedom.

https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/11/275606.htm

The US has sent $151 million in aid to Burma in the past….keep that in mind for my next piece of info…..

“We want to see Myanmar succeed,” he told reporters at a joint press briefing alongside Suu Kyi. “You can’t just impose sanctions and say therefore the crisis is over.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was speaking after a one-day stop in Naypyidaw, as global outrage builds over impunity for a military accused of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya.

His comments came as de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi hit back at accusations that she has been silent over the refugee crisis, saying she has focused instead on speech that avoids inflaming sectarian tensions.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/tillerson-sanctions-against-myanmar-will-not-solve-rohinyga-crisis

What utter bullshit from an a/hole that has no idea what he is doing…..he is an incompetent fool…..

You are telling me that sanctions and loss of US aid would not have an effect?

To that I say…BULLSHIT!

Something has to be done to help these people in their struggle….so try sanctions….bet we will get a response.  Who will protect the Rohingya?

More on the situation……

Kuala Lumpur – Rohingya refugees fleeing the recent outbreak of violence in Myanmar have begun arriving in Malaysia, amid warnings that this could mark the start of a dangerous new wave of people smuggling.

NGOs say traffickers are targeting Rohingya in Myanmar and those in refugee camps in Bangladesh, where conditions are dire, as this 101 East film shows.

https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2017/rohingya-exodus/index.html

My country needs to stand up for the principles it was founded on……if we cannot do that then all is truly lost.

Closing Thought–10Oct17

Nowhere To Run!

We all have seen the horrific refugee crisis that the many wars in the Middle East has created….millions upon millions trying to find a spot that they can live without worry about their livelihood or their family.

Even if every war in the Middle East was cease today the refugee crisis would not be abated……

Plagued by heat and dust: Desert dust storms such as here in Kuwait could occur more often in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of climate change. In addition, temperatures on very hot days could rise to 50 degrees Celsius on average in the region (approximately 122 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Credit: Molly John, Flickr, Creative Commons

The number of climate refugees could increase dramatically in future. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia have calculated that the Middle East and North Africa could become so hot that human habitability is compromised. The goal of limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius, agreed at the recent UN climate summit in Paris, will not be sufficient to prevent this scenario. The temperature during summer in the already very hot Middle East and North Africa will increase more than two times faster compared to the average global warming. This means that during hot days temperatures south of the Mediterranean will reach around 46 degrees Celsius (approximately 114 degrees Fahrenheit) by mid-century. Such extremely hot days will occur five times more often than was the case at the turn of the millennium. In combination with increasing air pollution by windblown desert dust, the environmental conditions could become intolerable and may force people to migrate.

More than 500 million people live in the Middle East and North Africa – a region which is very hot in summer and where is already evident. The number of extremely has doubled since 1970. “In future, the climate in large parts of the Middle East and North Africa could change in such a manner that the very existence of its inhabitants is in jeopardy,” says Jos Lelieveld, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Professor at the Cyprus Institute.

Source: Climate-exodus expected in the Middle East and North Africa

Soon climate change will show the world that it is a problem that should not have been ignored until it was too late.

Does Anyone Know What It Says?

Remember the Muslim Ban?

Everyone has an opinion whether it is good or bad….even though the first EO was whacked on the pee pee we have a new one…..the updated version…..I waited a couple of days to see what the chatter would be all about…..

The White House is rolling out its new travel ban after the first one got hung up in the courts. The big difference, as expected, is that Iraq is no longer on the banned list after promising to beef up screening, reports the AP. That leaves six Muslim-majority nations: Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The new directive, scheduled to take effect March 16, will prohibit new visas from being issued to travelers from those nations for 90 days, but those with current visas won’t be affected. The revised order generally makes more exceptions than the first one, notes the Washington Post, including for those who are permanent legal residents of the US. President Trump signed it Monday, though not in a public ceremony as with the first.

“If you have travel docs, if you actually have a visa, if you are a legal permanent resident, you are not covered under this particular executive action,” adviser Kellyanne Conway told Fox News on Monday, per CNN. The order also will suspend the nation’s refugee program for 120 days, making exceptions for those already cleared, and it will cap the total number of refugees at 50,000 for fiscal 2017, down about half from last year. So will the narrower scope appease critics? Early reaction suggests not. “The president has said he would ban Muslims, and this revised version—in these preliminary fact sheets—still does that, even if they have removed Iraq from the list,” says the director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

People will debate and argue but really how many know what the EO states?

My guess is….very few…..but I can help with that…..Want to know the difference between Trump’s last executive order and his latest? Data visualization specialist and longtime friend of Just Security, John Emerson, gave us this line-by-line comparison of the two documents. Anything in red is text that was cut from the original order. Anything marked green is new material while white is unchanged text.

Source: A Line-by-Line Comparison Between Trump’s Original Muslim Ban and Today’s | Just Security

The problem is that few see the benefit from this ban…even the American Conservative does not see the need……

Benjamin Wittes acknowledges that the Trump administration made a number of important concessions in its revised travel ban order, but still says this:

To be sure, the new version of the executive order will have consequences—all of them bad. It will keep large numbers of people from six countries out of the United States for no good reason [bold mine-DL]. It will delay resettlement of large numbers of refugees and prevent altogether resettlement in the United States of a smaller number of refugees. As with the earlier version of the executive order, the overwhelming majority of people affected by this one will not be terrorists or even people against whom there is whiff of suspicion. The overwhelming majority of those affected, rather, will be innocent victims of horrific violence and folks who just want to come to the United States for reasons of tourism or business [bold mine-DL]. It’s terrible policy that

Source: The U.S. Doesn’t Benefit from the Revised Ban | The American Conservative

Now go ahead…..debate your butts off!