Illegal Protest

Refugees pose ‘potential crisis’

Mayor Francis asks the feds for help to deal with influx of Mexicans

Doug Schmidt and Dave Battagello, The Windsor Star

Published: Wednesday, September 19, 2007

With city shelters filled and a surge of further refugee claimants expected to flood into Windsor, Mayor Eddie Francis is pleading for financial help from Ottawa.

“When there is a possibility of adding thousands to the local social assistance system as a result of refugee claimants crossing the border into Windsor, we will become overwhelmed and our current resources will not suffice,” Francis wrote in a letter sent Wednesday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Over the past three weeks, 45 families and 31 individuals — approximately 200 people — entered Canada at the Detroit River crossings and applied in Windsor for shelter and social assistance after filing refugee claims with the Canada Border Services Agency. Municipal agencies dealing with the sudden influx of mainly Mexican refugee applicants are renting out hotel rooms and bracing for predicted thousands more to come.

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Concepcion Montiel and her daughter Perla, 2, arrived in Windsor Monday by bus with two other families. Montie said a lack of jobs in Florida, the fear of deportation and the perceived opportunities promised in Canada persuaded her to move her family north.

“We don’t have the means, ability or capacity to deal with this additional cost. We are not able to deal with this potential crisis locally,” Francis wrote Harper.

“I don’t believe that Windsor’s residents and taxpayers should have to foot the bill for U.S. immigration policy,” Francis told The Star. He was referring to the suspected source of the problem — a recently begun crackdown on illegal immigrants in economically struggling regions of the U.S. South.

With the bulk of the latest arrivals being long-time Mexican illegals dislodged from their homes and workplaces in southwestern Florida, fingers are being pointed at unscrupulous outfits charging money and then directing desperate individuals and their families toward the Windsor border crossing.

“We are aware of these operations — they have been advertising incorrect and false information,” said Marina Wilson, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Wilson said Canadian immigration authorities have started contacting the Mexican and Haitian communities in Florida, as well as local media there, to get the word out that nothing has changed in Canadian refugee policy.

“The fact someone wants to come here for better economic opportunity or a better quality of life … that’s no basis for a successful refugee claim,” said Immigration Refugee Board (IRB) spokesman Charles Hawkins.

But a group operating out of Naples, Fla., vowed to continue sending the so-called economic refugees to Windsor.

“They ask, ‘Is Canada an option?’ and I say, ‘Yes, it is an option,’” Jacques Sinjuste of the Jerusalem Haitian Community Center said in a phone interview Wednesday. For a US$300 “donation” (most of those interviewed in Windsor claim they paid US$400), JHCC staff download forms off the Internet, help applicants fill them out and give directions on how to get to the Canadian border.

Sinjuste said he’s simply providing a “referral” service.

“Most of the time when the people come, they say they’ve heard something (about Canada). I say that I’ve heard the same thing,” he said.

Jacquie Rumiel, director of programs for new Canadians at the YMCA, where refugee claimants are referred by Windsor’s border guards, said the new people she’s seeing are “mostly” Mexicans coming from Florida.

To be successful, refugee claimants must prove they are fleeing persecution at home, something most of the Mexicans arriving in Windsor would be hard-pressed to do. The IRB’s Hawkins said there was only a 13 per cent acceptance rate of refugee claims filed by Mexican nationals during the first six months of the year, compared to an overall rate of 47 per cent.

But the average processing time for a refugee claim in Canada is currently 14.2 months, said Hawkins, a period during which the applicant is eligible for financial and other support. A failed claimant then also has the right to seek leave to appeal his or her rejection to federal court.

Despite the high number of failed applications cited by the IRB, Sinjuste said he gets calls to his Naples centre from “a lot of people” who’ve arrived in Windsor.

“They say everything is okay — they are doing good, going to schools, going to work,” he said.

Sinjuste said he was visited last week by an official from the Canadian consulate general in Miami but couldn’t remember if he was told to stop helping economic refugees go to Canada.

“I don’t think they tell me that,” he said. Federal bureaucrats confirmed the meeting but said they couldn’t divulge details.

Others are warning about the types of activities Sinjuste is engaged in.

“The way he’s misleading the most vulnerable is infuriating,” said Pegg Roberts, executive director of Detroit’s Freedom House, which runs a shelter and assists asylum-seekers with their refugee claims. Sinjuste said he uses the Freedom House website to download refugee claim forms and advises the people he assists to seek help there.

“I do not help economic refugees,” said Roberts, adding her non-profit organization assists the fleeing victims of torture and war crimes and has no affiliation with the JHCC.

“This is a problem the U.S. has allowed to create. It’s really unfair for Canada to have to face this,” said MP Joe Comartin (NDP — Windsor-Tecumseh), his Party’s public safety and national security critic.

“This is very much being driven by (the U.S. Department of) Homeland Security,” he said, predicting that, “with few exceptions,” most of these “economic claimants” will eventually be sent back.

The DREAM Act, with it’s nice sounding name, is really a silent amnesty, a piecemeal amnesty, and your Senator is about to vote on it this week - not in a bill of its own but snuck into a DEFENSE bill of all things. By tucking it away in an unrelated bill, pro-amnesty Senators hope to dupe YOU the American people into not knowing enough to OPPOSE IT.

Here is why you should oppose it with as much FERVOR as we mustered in June to fight the “Comprehensive” approach. They are now using the “Stealth” approach and this battle is that much harder to fight because these politicians are sneaky bastards..

The “DREAM” Act is now known as Senate Amendment 2919 and it has been tacked onto the Defense Authoization Bill that is currently being debated in the Senate.

A Sleeper Amnesty: Time to Wake Up from the DREAM Act

by Kris W. Kobach, D.Phil., J.D.

Backgrounder #2069

(Senator Dick Durbin)

The DREAM Act (S. 774)[now it is SA 2919 in the Defense Authorization Bill] is a nightmare. It is a mas­sive amnesty that extends to the millions of illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of 16. The illegal alien who applies for this amnesty is immediately rewarded with “conditional” lawful per­manent resident (green card) status, which can be converted to a non-conditional green card in short order. The alien can then use his newly acquired status to seek green cards for the parents who brought him in illegally in the first place. In this way, it is also a back­door amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens who brought their children with them to the United States.

What is less well known about the DREAM Act is that it also allows illegal aliens to receive in-state tuition rates at public universities, discriminating against U.S. citizens from out of state and law-abiding foreign students. It repeals a 1996 federal law that pro­hibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens.

On its own, the DREAM Act never stood a chance of passing. Every scientific opinion poll on the subject has shown over 70 percent opposition to giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens.

Not surprisingly, the DREAM Act languished in committee for five years after it was first introduced in 2001—until the opportunity arose to hitch it to the Senate’s “comprehensive” immigration bills of 2006 and 2007.

To understand just what an insult to the rule of law the DREAM Act is, it is important to look at the history behind it.

A Brief History of the In-State Tuition Debate
In September 1996, Congress passed the land­mark Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). Led by Lamar Smith (R– TX) in the House of Representatives and Alan Simp­son (R–WY) in the Senate, Congress significantly toughened the nation’s immigration laws. To his credit, President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law.

Read more at The Heritage Foundation here

Well.. seems the HRC realizes THEY DON’T HAVE ANY CASE and that is why they keep on postponing this hearing. They should just DROP THE CASE already and admit they have lost!

Here are some stories on the issue, which is absolutely ridiculous for the HRC to suggest that Joey Vento is discriminating against ANYONE!

Michele Malkin Geno’s Says Speak English
Michele Malkin The Attack on Geno’s
Joseph Farah Speak English
BizzyBlog Geno’s Update - Welcome to the Club Joey Vento

H/T to Immigration Watchdog for complete coverage of this travesty in Phoenix, complete with phone numbers for the Mayor of Phoenix and the Governor of Arizona who have let this happen in their state.

Rest in peace Nick Erfle of Phoenix.. may you have not died in vain.

The two officers stopped the three, a man and two women, on Pinchot to talk to them and asked for identification. Police rarely issue citations for jaywalking, telling people instead to just cross at a safer spot in the future, Tranter said.

The man didn’t have identification but gave officers a name and birth date that Erfle ran through a police computer. That search turned up a misdemeanor warrant for shoplifting out of Tucson.

Police would later find out the man hadn’t given his real name. Martinez likely used an alias because he was trying to hide the fact he had felony warrants for aggravated assault and false imprisonment, stemming from a 2006 domestic-violence incident.

But the officers didn’t know any of that and tried to arrest him on the misdemeanor warrant.

That’s when Martinez shoved Erfle to the ground, pulled a gun and fired multiple times. Police said it all happened in a matter of seconds.

“There was three shots, and there was a pause, and then one more shot,” said Bob Newnum, who lives nearby.

Read more at Immigration Watchdog here