Free Republic

The German government is expecting around 175,000 people to file applications for asylum this year, the highest number in two decades. Regional politicians are acting surprised, but there have been signs of this development for years now. […] The refugees in Germany are fleeing many things: the civil war in Syria, the recent wave of terror in Iraq, torturous regimes but also, in many cases, a life of poverty and no prospects, be it in Africa or as a member of the Roma minority in Serbia. Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) estimates that as many as 175,000...

Border Security and the Immigration ColanderPosted By Michael Cutler On July 7, 2014 @ 12:56 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 12 Comments When you consider how many ways an alien may enter the United States it is absurd to focus all attention on just the Southwest Border of the United States that involves just four of America’s 50 states.In point of fact, it has been estimated that 40% of the illegal aliens who are present in the United States did not run our border and evade the inspections process that is supposed to prevent the entry of aliens whose presence...

A Massachusetts mayor is calling for an end to refugee resettlement in his city, saying Somali families are putting pressure on already strained services in Springfield, a onetime industrial center where nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line. Mayor Domenic Sarno is the latest mayor to decry refugee resettlement, joining counterparts in New Hampshire in Maine in largely rare tensions with the State Department, which helps resettle refugees in communities across America. The mayor is drawing criticism from those who say this country has a moral obligation to help the outcast and refugees who say they’re...

Along the southern border, particularly in Texas, a rising influx of young unauthorized migrants crossing the border with their parents — or, more alarmingly, alone — has overwhelmed the Border Patrol and sent the federal government scurrying for a coordinated response. It is unclear what will happen next to stem the flow or to resolve the uncertain status of the young arrivals, many of whom may have legitimate claims to stay as refugees. But administration officials, custodians of a tenacious deportation policy, deserve credit for recognizing that this is not a border-security crisis but a humanitarian one, fueled by growing...

Some 2,300 Sudanese and Eritrean refugees seeking asylum in Israel, most of them Christian, are being detained at an asylum camp in the Israeli desert, according to Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel. “The grim surroundings, the heat and the overcrowded rooms created the impression of a prison,” according to the vicariate, which stated that most refugees arrived over two years ago. Pastoral visit to Holot (Saint James Vicariate For Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel)

Miniaturization, robotics, and the hastening automation economy are coming together in interesting new ways. Personal drone delivery services could be a fast-arriving concept. Amazon announced PrimeAir in November 2013, to possibly be ready for launch in 2015 pending US FAA regulations of personal drone airspace. In the ideal case, the service would deliver ordered items within 30-60 minutes. Similarly, Dubai and the UAE announced a personalized drone delivery service including eye-scanning verification for government documents. Personalized or at least targeted micro-delivery via drones is not a new idea. One obvious use is delivering aid, medicine, and other supplies to remote,...

Top ten languages spoken by recent refugees Top 10 Languages Spoken by Arrived Refugees as of Sep 30, 2013 Arabic, the language of Islam. I warned of the consequences of the refugee resettlement programs, the “diversity visas”and the “religious visas” (with only one particular religion enjoying preferential status) in my book, Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. This runs counter to recommendations made by the AFDI 18-point platform in defense of freedom: AFDI calls for an immediate halt of immigration by Muslims into nations that do not currently have a Muslim majority population. AFDI calls...

A British-Syrian TV pundit is threatening to sue social media users who slander her or threaten her life after her recent controversial views regarding not allowing Syrian refugees to come to Britain were aired on a BBC program. Halla Diyab, a writer and producer based in London, told BBC One’s This Week news program that Syrian refugees would be better off seeking asylum in neighboring Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt - rather than coming to England where they will face a cultural barrier such as not being able to speak English. Syrian refugees shouldn’t be...

Up to 600,000 of Syria’s 2.2 million Christians have fled their homes and are now either refugees or internally displaced persons, according to Aid to the Church in Need. In all, 1.8 million Syrians have left their homes, the charity reported. “The number of Christians killed because they are targeted for their faith is growing,” said Father Andrzej Halemba, the charity’s Middle East projects coordinator. Referring to an October massacre, the priest said that “Sadad is a very clear case. They were slaughtered like animals.”

The United Nations on Sunday night criticized Israel’s policy towards illegal immigrants, as thousands of them protested in Tel Aviv, demanding that Israel recognize them as refugees and grant them asylum. The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) released a statement in which it accused Israel of “sowing fear and chaos” among the illegal aliens who, it said, should be referred to as “asylum seekers” and not “infiltrators”. “We demand that the government examine the asylum requests of the foreigners, and stop the large-scale arrests in south Tel Aviv,” said the UN agency, adding that while it supported the...

The United Nations on Sunday night criticized Israel’s policy towards illegal immigrants, as thousands of them protested in Tel Aviv, demanding that Israel recognize them as refugees and grant them asylum. The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) released a statement in which it accused Israel of “sowing fear and chaos” among the illegal aliens who, it said, should be referred to as “asylum seekers” and not “infiltrators”. “We demand that the government examine the asylum requests of the foreigners, and stop the large-scale arrests in south Tel Aviv,” said the UN agency, adding that while it supported the...

Three Palestinian residents of Ramallah, Mohammad Adawi and his two sons Naser and Nasim, arrived in Canada in 2010 requesting refugee status. According to Adawi, he was forced to flee Samaria following death threats from armed members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The three recently applied for a judicial review of a 2012 decision that refused them refugee status and claimed their story was likely fabricated, reports Shalom Toronto. The federal courts involved in the review canceled the earlier decision and opened a new hearing of their case. Adawi reports that his eldest son refused to help Hamas and Islamic...

Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan. The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky -- who later admitted in court that they'd attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known...

Refugees facing imprisonment in their home country because they are gay may have grounds to be granted asylum in the European Union, the 28-nation bloc’s top court ruled Thursday. The existence of laws allowing the imprisonment of homosexuals “may constitute an act of persecution per se,” if they are routinely enforced, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said. A homosexual cannot be expected to conceal his sexual orientation in his home country to avoid persecution since that would amount to renouncing a “characteristic fundamental to a person’s identity,” the EU court added. …

As the current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lurch forward, the burning question is: will Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank put an end to Palestinian claims? According to an Israel TV scoop, the Palestinians in the current peace talks seem not to have budged an inch on their “right of return.” Even if Israel is negotiated back to the 1967 lines, will the Palestinians renounce their “right of return”? This issue cannot be brushed aside as rhetoric: it is intimately bound with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. >>SNIP<< The...

About 50,000 Syrian Christians want to apply for Russian citizenship. In a letter to the Russian Foreign Ministry, they said that they were not planning to flee Syria, but if threatened with physical elimination, they would pin their hopes on Russia as the guarantor of their survival. Analysts think that despite the difficulties their request may involve, it won’t go unheeded. The letter reached Moscow through diplomatic channels. It says that the West-backed terrorists are prepared to go to any lengths to wipe Christians out of Syria. The authors of the letter have no intention of fleeing the “land on...

There is no civil war in Eritrea: its people flee because their isolated homeland could pass as an African version of North Korea. Like the Kim regime in Pyongyang, President Isaias Afewerki keeps Eritrea on a permanent war-footing. Most adults are conscripted into the army or forced to perform compulsory labour of some kind. Today, one Eritrean in every 20 serves in a bloated army with 320,000 soldiers. Mr Isaias justifies this eternal mass mobilisation by claiming that neighbouring Ethiopia is scheming to re-conquer Eritrea. Just as the fictional state of “Oceania” was always at war in George Orwell’s “1984”,...

The lull in the chemical weapon crisis offers a chance to divert attention to the huge flow of refugees leaving Syria and rethink some misguided assumptions about their future. About one-tenth of Syria's 22 million residents have fled across an international border, mostly to neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. Unable to cope, their governments are restricting entry, prompting international concern about the Syrians' plight. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, suggests that his agency (as the Guardian paraphrases him) "look to resettle tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in countries better able to afford to host them,"...

Sister Angélique Namaika is a familiar sight on her bicycle, which she uses to visit the girls she helps in Dungu and nearby villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Photo: UNHCR/B. Sokol 17 September 2013 – A Congolese nun known as ‘mother’ by women and girls displaced and abused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is being honoured with a top prize from the United Nations refugee agency, it was announced today. Sister Angélique Namaika will receive the Nansen Refugee Prize for extraordinary humanitarian work on behalf of refugees, internally displaced or stateless people, as well...

Pope Francis urged members of religious orders on Tuesday to use empty convents and other structures to house refugees fleeing war and hardship, not as hotels. The pope spoke during a visit to refugees at a Jesuit-run center in Rome's historic center. Francis urged members of religious orders to welcome refugees "in the empty houses and convents. Dear religious men and women, the church does not need the empty convents to be turned into hotels to earn money....