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A British woman has been raped by a gang of asylum seekers in Calais, it has been alleged. The journalism student wanted to highlight the plight of migrants who sleep rough in a squalid camp at the French port before trying to sneak into Britain. She was subjected to a horrific attack by six Afghan men she intended to write about, it was claimed. French riot police rounded up 200 migrants for questioning. Ten remained in custody tonight and police said it was possible all had been involved in the rape, which detectives described as 'extremely brutal'. Police said the...

A British student has been gang-raped by illegal immigrants in Calais, it has been revealed. The woman was writing a story on asylum seekers for her journalism course when she was attacked, police said. Up to 100 men have been rounded up as potential witnesses to the crime, which is alleged to have taken place in a notorious squatter camp nicknamed 'The Jungle'. Police said the attack was of a particularly 'brutal nature'.

WASHINGTON — Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States have been disproportionately rejected by judges whom the Bush administration chose using a conservative political litmus test, according to an analysis of Justice Department data. The analysis suggests that the effects of a patronage-style selection process for immigration judges — used for three years before it was abandoned as illegal — are still being felt by scores of immigrants whose fates are determined by the judges installed in that period. The data focuses on 16 judges who were vetted for political affiliation before being hired and have since ruled on at...

Schools are telling children to change out of uniform to avoid being attacked on their way home, a government adviser revealed today. [ ED: Liberalism at its finest in the UK ]

A doctor who bound a 14-year-old girl with washing line and raped her has been jailed for 12 years. The terrified girl hid in a wardrobe after calling 999 following her ordeal, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday. Mohammad Sajjad was led weeping to the cells after a judge told him his “deep remorse” was just self-pity. Sajjad, a qualified doctor who was granted asylum in the UK, had been employed as a learning disabilities healthcare assistant in the Bradford area. The court heard he three times tied the girl’s hands tightly with red washing line and bound her feet before...

Mexican law enforcement officials are walking into U.S. ports of entry in increasing numbers to seek political asylum, and the flow may soon become a flood as Mexico's battle with the drug cartels intensifies. Our first instinct is to welcome them, but there is more at stake than humanitarian sentiments. The problem is that if our immigration laws are stretched to grant asylum to law enforcement personnel on the grounds that their own government cannot protect them, any Mexican threatened by these violent criminal gangs can claim the same right of asylum. U.S. immigration law does not easily accommodate these...

Imagine yourself to be the PM of the PC kingdom of Sweden, Northern Europe. You'd face a situation of non-european mass immigration gone out of hand, while you simultaneously dispose of government vaults bulging with money donated by/stolen from humane and well educated/obedient and brainwashed Swedish tax payers. What would your decision be? Bribery is immoral, but sometimes it's just too tempting. The article (the source is SR/SVT, Sweden's equivalent to BBC): "Few refugees here are taking advantage of money from the Swedish government to subsidize returns home. Individual asylum-seekers from Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia can get more than 3000...

James Corey Glass, apprentice mortician and United States Army deserter, was keeping an unusually close eye on the text messages coming into his cellphone. He was hoping to hear that a court had blocked the Canadian government’s attempt to send him back to the United States. On Wednesday afternoon, the message came: Mr. Glass, 25, could remain in Canada while he appealed his removal order by the country’s Immigration Department. It was a welcome reprieve, he said, but well short of a guarantee that he and other deserters could make Canada their new home. The Canadian government’s effort to remove...

Parliament on Tuesday voted to allow US resisters of the Iraq war who fled to Canada to stay in this country, thus avoiding military court-martial in the United States. The non-binding motion passed 137 to 110, with support from all three opposition parties, which hold a majority of seats in the House. It urged the government to allow conscientious objectors "who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations" to stay in Canada. "Canada has always been a place which has welcomed those who seek peace and who seek freedom," opposition Liberal...

FRESNO, Calif. — The valedictorian at Fresno's Bullard High School won't be attending college in the United States this fall because he's scheduled to be deported. Arthur Mkoyan's 4.0 grade-point average qualified him to enter one of the state's top universities. But the 17-year-old and his mother have been ordered back to Armenia after their last appeal for asylum failed.

LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- Britain said Tuesday that it is granting asylum to a gay Iranian teenager who fears that he could face execution if forced to return to his homeland. Britain's Border Agency said it would allow asylum for Mehdi Kazemi, who traveled in 2005 to London to study English and while there learned that his lover in Iran had been charged with sodomy and hanged. Kazemi, 19, then sought asylum in Britain, but it was rejected, then in the Netherlands. The Netherlands' highest court rejected his claim in March, ruling that Britain was responsible for the case...

Ex-Saddam colonel fights to remain in Yorkshire Last Updated: 1:43am BST 12/04/2008 A former lieutenant colonel who served under Saddam Hussein's regime has been living in Yorkshire for the past two years. Jafa'ar Ali Hassan, 60, trained soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war and claims his uncle was a personal adviser to the tyrant. He fled his homeland via Kurdistan and is understood to have paid £12,500 to reach the UK via Turkey. Mr Hassan has been living with his wife in council accommodation in the village of Worsbrough near Barnsley, since 2006. He is now fighting deportation to Iraq after...

DEMING, N.M. (AP) - The police chief of a Mexican border town has requested asylum in the United States, where he told authorities his two officers have fled and he does not know their whereabouts. The Luna County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Border Patrol say Emilio Perez of Palomas came to the port of entry at Columbus late Tuesday night, requesting political asylum. The agent-in-charge of the Border Patrol station in Deming, Rick Moody, says Perez is in the protection of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Authorities have reported an increase in drug-related violence in Palomas, where at...

Two gay Iranians living in Britain say they fear for their lives after their partners were sentenced to death by Iranian authorities and their requests for asylum in Britain were denied. Advocates for Mehdi Kazemi, 19, and Pegah Emambakhsh, 40, say they will face harsh physical punishment, prison, and possible execution if forced to return Iran. The two cases have provoked an international public outcry and have increased scrutiny of British policies toward gay and lesbian asylum-seekers. While studying English and science in the U.K., Kazemi learned that his boyfriend had been executed for sodomy back in Iran. His father...

22 N. Korean drifters executed after return home: source SEOUL, Feb. 17 (Yonhap) -- A group of 22 North Koreans who had been returned home after their boats drifted into South Korean waters were all immediately executed by North Korean authorities, a source here said Sunday. Two fishing boats carrying the 22 North Koreans, including 14 women and three teenagers, drifted into the western waters off South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island on Feb. 8 and were sent back home after South Korean interrogators found they had no intention to defect, the National Intelligence Service said in a press release on Saturday....

More than 5 thousand Mexicans seek asylum in Canada; the majority are turned down The phenomenon "reflects a country in which the institutions do not guarantee security" The closing by the Harper government worries activists that work with the petitioners TORONTO. The number of Mexicans who petition for asylum in Canada -- around 5,500 in 2007, exceeds those each day from refugees from Colombia and Afghanistan, which are countries at war, and China. "Why?" asks Donald Sumers, who specializes in cases of immigration and asylun. "What reality is evidenced in these numbers? What's going on in Mexico?" Reflecting a country...

165,000 asylum seekers to get 'amnesty' because of Home Office blunder over filesby JAMES SLACK - More by this author » Last updated at 08:41am on 18th December 2007As many as 165,000 asylum seekers are to be granted an "amnesty" to live in Britain, it was revealed. The vast bulk of the migrants are failed refugees whose files were left lying in boxes by bungling Home Office staff. They have now been living here so long that officials have ruled that it would be a breach of their human rights to kick them out. Ministers admitted that the first...

  Davis ... blasted the bungs    Asylum seekers paid to quit UK     By MICHAEL LEA Political Correspondent Published: Today   FAILED asylum seekers have been paid £36million in “bribes” to leave Britain, it was revealed yesterday. More than 23,000 have won windfalls of up to £4,000, with costs, to set up firms in their homeland. But many are feared to be milking the repatriation scheme. About 300 have been caught trying to RETURN to Britain after launching their firms. Other foreigners here illegally apply for asylum simply to cash in. A £4,000 handout — ten years’...

Around 25 activists from the "Black Sheep" group invaded the garden of the Swedish ambassador in Berne Friday, demanding political asylum in the wake of Sunday's victory by the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SVP), the Swiss news agency ATS reported. The group's name refers to a controversial campaign poster used by the SVP during the election depicting three white sheep on a Swiss flag booting out a black sheep. The SVP – which campaigns against illegal immigration, asylum abuses and demands the repatriation of foreign criminals – came out of Sunday's Swiss elections the comfortable winner, with 29% of...

Immigration authorities are asking a court to let them sedate an Albanian restaurant owner before putting him on an airplane for deportation because they believe he will again fight attempts to remove him. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked a federal judge to give them permission to medicate Rrustem Neza of Lufkin, a 32-year-old asylum seeker agents couldn't deport in August because he was terrified and did not calm down. A physician from the U.S. Public Health Service would administer the sedative and a medical worker would accompany Neza during the flight. "Unless this Court enjoins Neza from any further...

A California-based immigration reform organization is supporting the decision by the mayor of Simi Valley to bill a church almost $40,000 for harboring an illegal alien to cover the cost for police presence during a protest. For more than a year Mexican national Elvira Arellano made national news as she was holed up inside a Chicago church in order to avoid deportation by immigration authorities. Arellano finally left the church, fled to California, and was deported back to Mexico. Now another illegal, identified only as "Lilliana," has been given sanctuary at United Church of Christ in Simi Valley, California. In...

Last Updated: 2:00am BST 01/10/2007 Four asylum seekers trying to sneak into Britain in a container lorry were astonished when they got out of the vehicle and found themselves in a police station yard. Tony Blair's new house; Asylum seekers 'enter UK in Tony Blair's new car' Security remains tight around the former PM and his Connaught Square home Any notion that they were caught by good police intelligence were soon dispelled, however, when if emerged that, unbeknown to them, the lorry was carrying a new, high-security car destined for the former prime minister, Tony Blair. The episode on Wednesday...

Top Republican Rips CIA Spy Chief By: Kenneth R. Timmerman, NewsMax.com, Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, had harsh words for the new head of the National Clandestine Service, the CIA’s top spy, in an exclusive interview with NewsMax. Michael J. Sulick, whose appointment was quietly announced 10 days ago, was called back to the agency after three years in the private sector, where he had gone following a bitter dispute with then-CIA Director Porter Goss and his top aides. Both Sulick and his immediate boss, Stephen Kappes, resigned in...

A Mexican woman whose fight to stay in the US with her US-born son attracted national attention has been sent back to Mexico as an illegal immigrant. Elvira Arellano was arrested in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon and deported several hours later. She became a prominent figure after taking refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from eight-year-old Saul, a US citizen. He is staying with people who were with her when she was arrested. Ms Arellano was handed over to Mexican authorities in Tijuana at 2200 (0500GMT) and freed, Mexican officials said. Elvira Arellano...

We will take Iraqi interpreters, says Polish defense minister Created: Saturday, August 11. 2007 In an interview with Polish Radio this morning, Polish defense minister, Aleksander Szczyglo, said that the government would be happy to give safe sanctuary to Iraqis who worked for the Polish army. He also said that a decision as to how long Polish troops would remain in Iraq would be taken in the autumn. This week the UK government announced that it was reviewing its policy of not giving asylum to Iraqis working for the coalition forces. The U.S. government is offering 1,000 special immigration visas...

FLASHBACK to February 13, 1999, as reported by CNN... Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire accused by the United States of plotting bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa, has left Afghanistan, Afghan sources said Saturday. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers. Despite repeated demands from Washington, the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden after the August 7 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania,

Egyptian police shot and killed a Sudanese woman and seriously injured four others Sunday on the Sinai Peninsula as they tried to sneak into Israel, a local police officer said. Many refugees trying to enter Israel from Egypt have been detained, and some hurt, by police, but Haja Abbas Haroun's death was the first of its kind. Haroun, 28, died instantly by police gunfire, while four others, including a woman and young girl, were critically injured and taken to a local hospital, said Capt. Mohammed Badr of the northern Sinai police force. The border guards detained 22 refugees with Haroun...

Politicians from Sweden’s two largest parties have supported an amendment to current legislation regarding asylum seekers. The move follows a Migration Board ruling last week that could lead to thousands of Iraqis being sent back to the troubled southern and central parts of their homeland, including the capital Baghdad. Under the board’s new rules, refugees must be able to show that there is a specific threat against them if they are to be considered eligible for a permanent residence permit. The head of the Migration Board, Dan Eliasson, based his decision on the Migration Court of Appeal’s assessment that Iraq...

Mystery asylum seeker kept bomb manuals By John Steele, Crime Correspondent Last Updated: 2:13am BST 06/07/2007 A failed asylum seeker who kept a collection of manuals on how to carry out car bombings, with guidance on "suitable targets" including nightclubs and airports, is facing a lengthy jail sentence. Omar Altimimi, 37, who had links to al-Qa'eda, was a "clean skin" who was unknown as a terror suspect when he arrived in England and applied for jobs with the police and as a teacher. However, he used multiple identities to cover his tracks and was so successful that police are still...

Amnesty International has condemned tighter Swiss immigration and asylum laws in its annual report on global human rights. The organisation also criticised a domestic violence law, which leaves migrant women at risk of deportation, and highlighted a UN report that found evidence of institutional racism within the police force. However, Switzerland – unlike neighbouring Germany, France and Italy – escaped censure for its role in the "extraordinary renditions" saga and other abuses linked to the US-led "war on terror". This was despite the conclusions of Dick Marty, a Swiss senator appointed by the Council of Europe in November 2005 to...

Hidden in the Senate immigration bill is a threat to the protection that America offers to people who flee their homelands to escape persecution by oppressive governments. Many countries will not issue passports to political and religious dissidents. People who have been persecuted or who legitimately fear persecution in such nations can escape threatened imprisonment, torture or death only by bribing an immigration official to issue a passport or by using someone else's passport to flee. In the past 12 years, half of the more than 100 people who have won asylum with the help of students in Georgetown University's...

One Man's Terrorist, Another's Refugee? WASHINGTON — Today's foreign terrorists could become tomorrow's U.S. refugees if the Bush administration gets its way. The intent is to grant refugee status to rebels who have fought repressive governments or advanced U.S. foreign policy objectives, particularly in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. But proposed changes to immigration rules also could cover U.S. enemies such as al-Qaida members and fighters for Hamas and Hezbollah. To some lawmakers, the revisions under consideration by the administration are too broad and potentially dangerous. Officials say the changes are meant to reverse the unintended consequences of post-Sept....

Australia has a camp for asylum seekers in Nauru Australia and the United States have announced a plan to swap up to 200 asylum seekers every year. Migrants held by the US in Guantanamo Bay will be resettled in Australia, while Canberra will send people held in its offshore detention camps to the US. The move is aimed at deterring would-be refugees by preventing them from reaching their destination of choice. But critics say the plan could backfire on Canberra, as many refugees around the world are hoping to get to America. Atlantic exchange The first asylum seekers to...

(IsraelNN.com) More than 7,000 French Jews have signed a petition asking for political asylum in the United States because of anti-Semitism in France. The petition makes pointed reference to the murder of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew who was kidnapped and tortured to death last year by an anti-Semitic gang, and says that "following the barbarous murder of a young Jew because he was Jewish, in the context of the rise in anti-Semitic acts committed by Islamic fundamentalists, numerous members of the community no longer feel safe in France." The petition was sent to the U.S. Congress and asks...

Federal immigration officials have detained three Rwandan citizens who were brought to the United States to face trial in the 1999 torture and killing of an American couple, after a judge dismissed all of the charges. Francois Karake, Leonidas Bimenyimana and Gregoire Nyaminani, reputed members of the Liberation Army of Rwanda, had faced death sentences in connection with the 1999 killings of Robert Haubner and his wife, Susan Miller. They were discharged from the D.C. Jail last week. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) now is holding the men at an undisclosed location, an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday. All three...

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — In his quest to reach the United States, Ariel Perez slipped away from Cuban informants, evaded Venezuelan border guards and kept his distance from Colombian guerrillas. But Perez, a Cuban physician who fled to Colombia from Venezuela last year, faces one final hurdle: U.S. bureaucrats. That's because Perez and dozens of other Cuban defectors who have fled from Venezuela have been waiting for months for permission from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota to emigrate to the land of their dreams. "I want to be free," said Perez, 36, who lives in a slum in the Colombian capital...

It seems sometimes that there is violence between Christians and Muslims in almost every corner of the world. Sadly, Civil Wars, tribal feuding and other strife creates migrations and refugees seeking safety and freedom. In Israel, ninety refugees from war torn Liberia that have been living in safety there for seventeen years are being told by the United nations that they must return to their African home. These people truly stand out in Israel: they are Muslims, refugees, Liberians and Black Africans of the Mandingo tribe. War torn Liberia has suffered through more than 15 years of Civil War since...

Three Rwandan rebels who were accused of murdering two Portland tourists nearly eight years ago are seeking asylum in the United States. The men were supposed to go on trial later this month in Washington, D.C., facing a possible death sentence in the brutal killings of Rob Haubner and his wife, Susan Miller, both Intel employees who were vacationing in Africa. But after a U.S. judge ruled last fall that Rwandan military officials tortured the men into confessing, the men now want the charges thrown out. Leonidas Bimenyimana, Francois Karake and Gregoire Nyaminani also are seeking asylum, a step toward...

LOS ANGELES -- An immigration judge who previously denied a gay man's asylum bid on the grounds that he could conceal his sexual orientation if he returned to his native Mexico reversed the decision Tuesday. In allowing Jorge Sota Vega to remain in the United States, Judge John D. Taylor said that gays should not be required to dress or act a certain way to avoid persecution and that Vega's lawyers proved he would be at risk if he were deported to Mexico.

Senators yesterday urged a State Department official to expedite the flow of Iraqi refugees into the U.S., a process that has been slowed to a trickle by security measures designed to stop terrorists from entering the country. "One of the reasons you are seeing so few Iraqis come into the United States since 2003 is because of an enhanced security review," said Ellen R. Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration policy. During Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's rule, about 37,000 Iraqis were granted asylum in the U.S., she told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Since Congress passed a...

Asylum seekers 'led genocide death squads' By Amy Iggulden Last Updated: 1:27am GMT 30/12/2006 Four Rwandan men living in Britain, including one given citizenship, appeared in court yesterday accused of organising the mass slaughter of Tutsis in the 1994 genocide. The four men are accused of organising the mass slaughter of thousands of Tutsis Vincent Bajinya, who changed his name to Brown on becoming a citizen last year, Charles Munyaneza, Celestin Ugirashebuja and Emmanuel Nteziryayo face extradition. They were arrested after a deal under which Rwanda becomes a temporary extradition partner with Britain. Rwanda has waived the death penalty to...

Based on the latest figures disclosed by the US Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS), Venezuela has surpassed Cuba in the number of nationals who have been granted asylum in the United States in 2005, with 153 Venezuelan refugees versus 21 Cubans. In 1996, OIS reported that US asylum was granted to 255 Cubans, while no Venezuelan citizen appeared in the records for that year. As of 2002, the number of Venezuelans granted US asylum jumped to 24. In 2003, the figure increased to 35 and in 2004 to 59. In 2005, the number skyrocketed to 153 Venezuelans granted US asylum....

A 7ft 2ins Pakistani woman is to live in Britain on benefits after claiming asylum because she is 'too tall' to return home. Zainab Bibi, 33, claims she faces constant persecution and ridicule in her own country over her height. She has lodged an asylum claim with the Home Office and has already been granted a two-year visa to remain in the UK. Miss Bibi, who in 2003 held the title of tallest woman in the world, plans to live off benefits and take advantage of free NHS healthcare. Last night critics branded the immigration system a 'laughing stock' and...

Britain is such a soft touch that even Americans are coming here to claim asylum and sponge off the state. The incredible revelation comes from immigration whistleblower Rory Clarke. And yesterday the Government was forced to admit figures that backed him up. Disgusted Rory, 34, contacted The Sun to expose the true depth of the asylum shambles. He said: Britain is seen as such a soft touch that poor people from countries such as America are even coming here now. A couple of years ago I met two black guys from the States who were over here because they thought...

EU should run asylum policy, says Sarkozy By David Rennie in Brussels (Filed: 29/09/2006) National governments should surrender their powers to judge whether asylum seekers are genuine to a new "single European asylum office", Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to say today. The office would be staffed by officials on secondment from their countries, but would judge asylum applications according to EU rules. Mr Sarkozy, the French interior minister, is in Madrid for a summit of eight EU countries facing large flows of illegal migrants and asylum seekers. A copy of his speech to the summit was leaked to AFP, the...

Swiss Voters Ratify Tougher Asylum and Immigration Laws Sunday, September 24, 2006 GENEVA — Swiss voters ratified new asylum and immigration laws on Sunday, making it more difficult for refugees to receive assistance in Switzerland and effectively blocking unskilled workers outside Europe from moving to the country. Over 67 percent voted in favor of the stricter rules on asylum, originally approved by the Swiss government in December, the office of the federal government said, announcing official results. The proposal was overwhelmingly accepted in all of Switzerland's 26 states. The government says the law is designed to prevent abuses in the...

Voters in Switzerland have backed tougher laws on asylum-seekers. In a national referendum, some 67.8% of voters supported the new measures, which the government says are needed to combat abuse of the asylum system. The new laws cut welfare payments to those whose applications are rejected, and restrict applications from those unable to produce identity documents. The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, described the referendum result as regrettable. The vote gives Switzerland some of the strictest asylum and immigration laws in Europe. Justice Minister Christoph Blocher says they will prevent abuse while protecting real refugees. Ahead of the vote,...

Swiss voters are going to the polls to decide whether the country should impose more restrictive asylum laws. The UN says that the measures under consideration in the nationwide referendum could lead to breaches of the Geneva Convention on Refugees. The laws include demands for valid identity papers and cuts on welfare for asylum seekers and the detention of rejected applicants until deportation. The Swiss government says the changes will reduce abuse of its asylum system. The Swiss Refugee Council say the measures are far too strict, especially at a time when the number of people applying for asylum in...

MPs revolt over plan to put asylum seekers on an island By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 11/08/2006) Australia's prime minister, John Howard, suffered the biggest parliamentary revolt of his decade in power yesterday over a proposal to send asylum seekers to remote island detention centres while their claims are processed. Three members of his Liberal Party voted against the Bill and one abstained. It was the worst breach of party loyalty confronted by Mr Howard since he won office from the Labour prime minister Paul Keating in 1996. John Howard shrugged off the party rebellion Despite the MPs' rebellion,...

Asylum seekers 'killed after being forced out of Australia' By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 09/08/2006) Australia's hardline immigration policy was dealt a heavy blow yesterday with claims that up to nine asylum seekers forcibly repatriated to Afghanistan were murdered on their return home. The Edmund Rice Centre, a Catholic advocacy group, investigated the fate of nearly 200 Afghan asylum seekers who were returned home after being kept at an Australian-run detention centre on the South Pacific island of Nauru. The group said that "as many as nine men returned from Nauru may have been killed, and three children of...