Free Republic

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...

Report says success of application may largely depend on who hears the case - U.S. immigration judges grant asylum at vastly different rates -- raising key questions about the uniform application of the law, according to a new report released today. In San Francisco, Judge Anthony Murry denied asylum in 87 percent of the 430 cases he heard from fiscal 2000 to the beginning of fiscal 2005, while Judge Miriam Hayward denied it in 24 percent of the 662 cases she heard in the same period. The greatest disparity found by the study -- conducted by the Transactional Records Access...

EXCLUSIVE Home Office asylum racket Let's do business ... bent official Dzumbira, left, shakes Sun man's hand outside Lunar House immigration HQ - as genuine asylum seeker looks onPicture: PAUL EDWARDS     By ANTHONY FRANCE A CORRUPT immigration officer boasted to The Sun that he has helped 200 bogus asylum seekers enter Britain for cash. Senior Home Office worker Joseph Dzumbira, 35, bragged to an undercover reporter that he could get anyone refugee status for up to £2,000. He agreed to provide fake documents and IDs and coach bogus asylum seekers on how to cheat the system using loopholes...

Latin America: As rumors fly about Fidel Castro's demise, truths about his regime's failures slip out. His vaunted overseas "free" medical program for the poor, once a propaganda coup, is falling apart. In Bolivia, at least 30 Cuban doctors out of 719 defected to freedom, according to Bolivian media. In Venezuela, 4,000 Cuban doctors out of 15,000 also fled the country, Union Radio reported. These Cuban doctors were at the forefront of Castro's last-ditch effort to rejuvenate his communist dictatorship. Castro cooked up the Venezuelan "Barrio Adentro" plan just three years ago with Hugo Chavez to obscure his record of...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — The suspect charged with killing an Easley, S.C., pawn shop owner earlier this month has filed for refugee status in Canada.

Hellooooooo Infidels!!!

Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall on behalf of herself and several other county attorneys and sheriffs, recently said a Arizona proposed immigration provision is an unconstitutional intrusion by the state into immigration policies, which are solely the purview of the federal government. That struck me kind of odd since to be a purview of the federal government the power must first be delegated or, incidental to a delegated power, upon Congress by the US Constitution. There is a significant reasons why Congress has no delegated power leading to jurisdiction under the US Constitution in matters of immigration or Asylum. To...

EL ARISH, Egypt - Egyptian police captured six Sudanese, including a one-year-old boy, who were trying to cross into Israel early Friday to seek asylum, a security official said. The six were arrested at dawn as they tried to get over the coil of barbed wire that marks the border in Egypt's northeast Sinai desert, said Brig. Gen. Adel Fawzi, the chief of the North Sinai criminal investigation department.

VIENNA - The night air in Vienna has finally turned warm, filling the city's trams with visitors. On the Ringstrasse, tourists take in the city, pointing out the City Hall and the parliament. "Did you see that one girl - so young! And wearing a veil," a woman clucks in lightly accented English, staring out the window of tram D. "They will form a separate culture." The sentiment isn't isolated. Earlier this month, Austria's Interior Minister Liese Prokop announced that 45 percent of Muslim immigrants were "unintegratable," and suggested that those people should "choose another country." In the Netherlands, one...

China, U.S. in talks on 4 defectors from North May 22, 2006 ¤Ñ WASHINGTON ¡ª The United States has begun negotiations with China over four North Korean defectors, three men and a woman, who broke into the U.S. consulate in Shenyang, China. It was confirmed on Friday that the four North Koreans who had been sheltering in the South Korean consulate recently entered the neighboring U.S. consulate by climbing the wall between the two embassy buildings. A South Korean diplomatic source said yesterday, "The ball is now in the U.S. court," and, "We know that negotiations between the United States...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch politician known for her outspoken criticism of Islam, plans to leave parliament and move to the United States after admitting she lied to win asylum in the Netherlands. Hirsi Ali, 36, sought asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, claiming to be escaping from an arranged marriage. She gained Dutch citizenship in 1997 and was elected to parliament in 2003. A storm erupted about her asylum application last week after a Dutch television documentary interviewed members of her family about her background. They said she had not been forced into an arranged...

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has waived a provision of U.S. anti-terror law to allow about 9,300 members of the Karen minority of Burma to be considered for political asylum in the United States, the State Department said Friday. Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the waiver does not mean all will be granted asylum but allows them to apply. “What good news. This law gives hope to many lives,” said Kyaw Soe of Fort Wayne, one of between 2,000 and 3,000 Burmese refugees who fled their native country and settled here. “I believe that a generous city like...

China Demands That Albania Return Ex-U.S. Detainees By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, May 10, 2006; Page A20 BEIJING, May 9 -- China demanded Tuesday that five Chinese Muslims flown to Albania after release from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay be turned over to Chinese authorities for prosecution as terrorists. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said Albania's decision to accept the five and consider their application for political asylum on a request from the Bush administration violated U.N. conventions and international law. He said China had lodged formal complaints with the Albanian and U.S. governments...

First Group of N.Korean Refugees ‘Headed for U.S.’ Some five or six North Korean defectors are reportedly preparing to enter the U.S. under the protection of its embassy in a Southeast Asian country as Washington prepares to make good on a pledge to grant asylum to more refugees from the Stalinist country. Sources in the U.S. government and Congress said Thursday as soon as procedural matters with the Asian country are resolved, the North Koreans will make their way to the U.S. Another official said the defectors are staying at a safe house in the U.S. legation in a Southeast...

FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer has defended tough new asylum laws, and said that the government has to prevent people exploiting Australia's generosity. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone has announced a new hardline policy under which asylum seekers who arrive in Australia without visas are sent offshore for processing. Even if they are found to be refugees, they will be kept offshore until they can be sent to another country. Cabinet's national security committee signed off on the plan following weeks of high tension between Australia and Indonesia over 42 successful Papuan claims for protection. Mr Downer said Australia did not want...

(snip)... "Ours is a system that rewards criminals, facilitates the movement of terrorists, (and) supports foreign agents," said Maxwell, who had been in charge of the Office of Security and Investigations at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services until resigning in February. ...snip...Maxwell testified before the House International Relations Committee's terrorism and nonproliferation panel. He alleged that the agency has awarded immigrant benefits, including citizenship, without complete background checks. In addition, he said, the agency has failed to investigate more than 500 criminal complaints against its own employees for allegations that include bribery, harboring illegals, money laundering and aiding known terrorists...