Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

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HIAS head Gideon Aronoff abrubtly resigns

Posted by Christopher Coen on May 19, 2012

The president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Gideon Aronoff, has announced that effective May 31 he is resigning. An article at JTA has the details:

…Gideon Aronoff of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society…announced Wednesday in a letter to friends that he will be stepping down effective May 31; Mark Hetfield, senior vice president for policy and programs at HIAS, will be the interim president and CEO…

…Aronoff’s tenure at HIAS was not without controversy. As president and CEO, he was an unapologetic proponent of HIAS’ advocacy and support for non-Jewish immigration to America — something some Jewish critics saw as outside the scope of HIAS’ raison d’etre.

Aronoff never saw it that way…

…There’s also a pragmatic reason for pursuing a more universalist mission, Aronoff said: If HIAS simply were to be dormant except in times of great Jewish need, it wouldn’t have the capacity or ability to respond when the Jewish world suddenly needs it.

“It would be both irresponsible and unethical to not help others where we can and to not preserve and build capacity for future Jewish emergencies,” he said. “You can’t run a resettlement network for a few hundred Jewish refugees nationally. It’s not possible to not have a resettlement network when, 10 years from now, you need it. So from a pragmatic basis, the work with non-Jewish refugees is essential.”

When I asked him where those Jewish emergencies might emerge, he cited instability in a number of Latin American countries with Jewish populations, mentioned the political problems in Hungary, and said that French Jews were really shaken by the shooting attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse in March that left four dead… Read more here

Posted in HIAS, Jewish | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Discussion of refugees’ problems hijacked to pathologise a religion or culture

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 27, 2012

Refugees who show and attempt to openly talk about personal problems can find others who wish to hijack the discussion for their own ulterior motives. An article from Australia highlights the same phenomena we see in the US. The article is at WAtoday, an online publication in Western Australia:

WHEN a Muslim man beats his wife why does the broader community focus on his religion rather than on the crime?

The question of culture, religion and violence was at the heart of the discussion when the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, met representatives of migrant and refugee women’s groups…last week.

“As soon as we use a preface like Muslim or Afghan, suddenly the issue becomes about culture, not domestic violence,” said Judy Saba, a psychologist…

Ms Manjoo, a South African who has spent the past three years investigating the dark world of domestic and state violence against women, is on an informal study tour of Australia…

She is here to listen – and what she heard from the dozen women representing mainly Muslim, African and Asian women’s groups was of the struggle to deal with issues such as domestic violence without impugning their communities.

Joumanah El Matrah, from the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights, said when groups tried to draw the government’s attention to violence against minority women the discussion was hijacked by those in the wider public who focused on “Muslim” violence.

“We are in a bind because the community is vilified,” she said. “Putting the issue in the public space feeds into the stereotype of Muslim men beating their wives…

…Ms Manjoo said pathologising a religion or culture created the illusion that a problem like domestic violence did not exist in the dominant culture, but was about “the other”… Read more here

Posted in Australian refugee resettlement prgm, religion, UN, xenophobia/nationalism/isolationism | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

With schools overloaded Catholic Family Service in Amarillo to limit resettlement to “family reunification cases”

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 11, 2012

Catholic Family Service in Amarillo has decided to reduce new refugee resettlement numbers by half due to concerns of overload from the local school district, according to an article in the Amarillo Globe-News. Resettlement will now be limited to “family reunification cases” – refugees who are resettling to be reunified with local family members. (The article also gives various confusing numbers for the amount of money the State Department gives for initial resettlement needs (intended as seed money). As of last year the amount was $1800 per refugee, with $700 available for resettlement agency overhead, $900 minimum to each refugee, and $200 that resettlement agencies may redirect to the neediest refugees at the agency. The $1800 was supposedly increased this year, but no numbers yet available.)

Catholic Family Service has lowered the number of new refugees it helps settle in Amarillo to help school officials better handle unique needs posed by refugee children and help the organization meet budget cuts.

Roughly 800 to 900 of the 1,100 refugee students enrolled in Amarillo schools had little to no formal schooling when they arrived in the U.S., and that has created a major learning block, said Kevin Phillips, executive director of student performance for the Palo Duro High School cluster…

…Catholic Family Service, a nonprofit organization, is one of two groups that receives federal funds to help newly arrived refugees settle in Amarillo. Executive Director Nancy Koons said the organization has decided to take in no more than 200 arrivals per year, down from 400 in previous years. Koons said the arrivals will be limited to “family reunification cases.”…

…Koons said [Amarillo Independent School District] principals and school nurses have expressed concerns about the challenges posed by refugee children.

“It seems like we were creating needs by bringing in too many refugees,” she said… Read more here

Posted in Amarillo, Catholic, Catholic Family Service, Amarillo, children, funding, R&P, schools, Somali Bantu | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Clues don’t necessarily point to hate crime in killing of Iraqi refugee

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 6, 2012

Although police have not finished an investigation of the killing of an Iraqi woman in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon on March 21, new clues seem to point away from the suggestion by a threatening note left at the crime scene that this was a hate crime. Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, resettled to the US in the 1990′s. An article at Reuters points to new clues linked to the crime:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Court papers filed by police in the beating death of an Iraqi-American woman near San Diego cite her divorce plans and daughter’s apparent suicide attempt last year, but do not point to further evidence that the murder was a hate crime.

Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, was found bludgeoned in her rented home in a refugee community of the San Diego suburb of El Cajon on March 21 and died of her injuries several days later, after doctors removed her from life support.

A threatening note found at the scene has given rise to suggestions that Alawadi may have been targeted because of her ethnicity, though police have cautioned against drawing that conclusion during the investigation.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed last week and obtained by Reuters on Thursday, a relative of Alawadi told detectives the victim had “been planning on divorcing her husband and moving to the state of Texas.” The documents show that divorce papers were found in her car.

The whereabouts of the victim’s husband, Kassim Alhimidi, at the time of the incident, also had not been confirmed, police said in the court papers… Read more here

Posted in hate crimes, Iraqi, Islamic, San Diego | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

FBI ‘community outreach’ to foster trust and generate goodwill?

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 29, 2012

Documents uncovered by The Associated Press revealed that the New York Police Department conducted an extensive surveillance campaign of the Muslim population in the northeast. Now it turns out that the FBI in San Francisco used a public relations program announced as “mosque outreach” to collect information on the religious views and practices of Muslims in Northern California. The claimed intention of the FBI outreach programs was to foster trust between law enforcers and members of the Muslim community so they could work together to fight crime and avert terrorism. We learn now, however, that the FBI was operating the community outreach in Northern California as part of a secret and systematic intelligence gathering program, and conducted without any apparent evidence of wrongdoing. The legacy of this deception will, no doubt, be to undermine trust for genuine outreach programs. An article at Msnbc.com has the story:

The FBI in San Francisco used a public relations program billed as “mosque outreach” to collect information on the religious views and practices of Muslims in Northern California and then shared the intelligence with other government agencies, according to FBI documents obtained by civil rights groups.

The heavily redacted documents, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, raise “grave constitutional concerns,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“In San Francisco, we have found that community outreach was being run out of the FBI’s intelligence division and was part of a secret and systematic intelligence gathering program,” conducted without any apparent evidence of wrongdoing,” said Shamsi. “The bureau’s documentation of religious leaders’ and congregants’ beliefs and practices violates the Privacy Act, which Congress passed to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights.”…

…The documents indicate that FBI was keeping records of conversations and activities within mosques and other Muslim organizations from 2004 through 2008, information that was provided by employees engaged in the outreach programs.

The announced intention of the FBI outreach programs is to foster trust between law enforcers and members of the Muslim community so they can work together to fight crime and avert terrorism…

…documents still under analysis by the ACLU indicate FBI San Francisco continued to mingle outreach and intelligence gathering through 2011, according to Shimsa.

The documents undermine trust for genuine outreach programs, said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that makes policy recommendations to lawmakers and leaders.

“I think the recent documents further underscore how well-intentioned community leaders who talk with the FBI are instead the targets of this broad, intelligence-gathering effort,” she said. “It’s easy to see then how that community leader who had a conversation with an FBI agent finds himself being harassed when traveling or crossing borders.”

“These documents are illustrating the actual experiences of American Muslims that we have been hearing for a number of years now,” she added…

…Rules governing FBI surveillance were relaxed in 2008 to give more leeway to FBI “assessments” — a stage of surveillance that takes place before the opening of a formal investigation. These more lenient standards, critics say, allow information gathering on individuals without probable cause.

Rights groups are asking the Department of Justice to restore stricter rules on surveillance and to prohibit racial and religious profiling in all cases.

“What we need is for the FBI to go back to the standards set after the Hoover-era abuses.… guidelines put in place that required the FBI to engage in surveillance only if there’s evidence of wrongdoing,” said Khera of Muslim Advocates. Read more here

Posted in California, FBI, Islamic, NYC, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, security/terrorism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

NYPD Apparently Targeting Buffalo-Area Citizens and Refugee Population Based On Ethnicity and Religion, Not Criminal Activity

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 18, 2012

It seems that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has focused on Buffalo-area Muslims and Somalis (including people and citizens resettled as refugees), not based upon on known criminal activity, but instead based upon these people’s ethnicity and religion. Although the NYPD, unlike the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department need not predicate domestic surveillance on information that their target is engaged or about to engage in criminal activity, the NYPD did not fully consult with local police and other federal security agencies about its activities in Buffalo. There is no sign that the Strategic Intelligence Unit announced its activities to the Buffalo area’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a cooperative effort that includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. There is also the concern that actions by the NYPD could be jeopardizing the good relationship that local law enforcement authorities have with the local Somali and Muslim populations, including US citizens. An article at the Buffalo News explains:

The New York City Police Department’s focus on Buffalo-area Muslims continues to this day. Further, an internal document indicates the surveillance began even before NYPD detectives met with the Erie County undersheriff in December 2008 to describe their “Somalia Project.”…

…At the same time, there is no sign that the Strategic Intelligence Unit announced its activities to the Buffalo area’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a cooperative effort that includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

The Associated Press in recent months revealed the NYPD’s covert efforts to examine Muslim businesses, infiltrate mosques and keep an eye on Muslim students on college campuses, not just in New York City but in locations around the Northeast. The Muslim Student Association website at the University of Buffalo was among those monitored, a separate NYPD document shows.

The NYPD calls its surveillance and intelligence-gathering legal and necessary and does not apologize for the program. The department after 9/11 determined it “could not rely solely on the federal government” for its defense. Says Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly: “Our primary mission, our primary goal, is to keep this city safe.”

Yet ethnicity and religion, not criminal activity, seem to have sparked the NYPD’s interest around the Northeast, including Buffalo…

…Unlike the NYPD, the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department must predicate domestic surveillance on information that their target is engaged or about to engage in criminal activity.

“I can tell you that we don’t predicate any investigation based on somebody’s race, or color, or national origin, or on the exercise of their First Amendment rights,” said William J. Hochul, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York. “In terms of the bigger picture, why was the NYPD doing what it was? I don’t have all the details.”…

…If the NYPD did not provide a heads-up on its activities to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, it should have, said a former agent-in-charge here for the FBI.

“If I had still been up there that would have bothered me a lot,” said Peter J. Ahearn, who headed the FBI office in Buffalo from 2001 to 2006 and now works as a consultant helping businesses deal with government. “With the reputation the NYPD does have, and I know this factually, they will do different things in cities around the country and not even let law enforcement know they are there.

“There are reasons to be concerned,” he said. “If you are not talking to law enforcement, and the local police department rolls up on you, it creates an officer-safety issue. Also it can prove detrimental to the efforts that the local law enforcement community is making in the Muslim community. We had some very good community outreach up there.”

Dr. Khalid Qazi, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, agrees.

“This is all related to the security of the homeland, I don’t have any doubt about that,” he said of the NYPD’s foray into Buffalo. “The only question in my mind is, when we are working very cooperatively, and in a very proactive fashion for the security of the homeland, whether these types of actions are counterproductive.

“And I guess the issue always will be, where do we stop so we don’t compromise the civil rights and civil liberties of innocent Americans?”…

…Yahye Y. Omar, chairman of the Imams Council of Western New York, also is active on the West Side, especially as executive director of HEAL — Help Everyone Achieve Livelihood — a nonprofit that helps immigrants and refugees.

He is engaged in a long-standing effort to make the Islamic way of life less mysterious to outsiders, and to encourage Somali youth to consider how they can enrich their community.

In 2010, he helped establish a law enforcement education program for Somali high school and college students. It brought in representatives from the FBI, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and the State Police to speak about the role of law enforcement, and careers. On a wall of his office, Omar has proudly placed a photo of a local Somali now with the Baltimore Police Department…

…Omar expressed [his] sentiments about the NYPD surveillance…why does the New York police force need contacts in the Somali and Muslim community here after its members have cooperated so much with local authorities?… Read more here

Posted in Buffalo, Dept of Homeland Security, Dept. of Justice, FBI, Islamic, NYC, security/terrorism, Somali | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Welcoming The Stranger Without Becoming Overly Involved

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 7, 2012

A Catholic volunteer in Kansas City seems to have found the right balance between welcoming refugees to her community without becoming overly involved. She’s found a way to connect with the refugees via her heart and mind while realizing the goal is their autonomy. An article in the Kansas City Star tells her story:

When Bernadette Coulter responded to a note in her church’s bulletin about helping in a conversational English class for refugees, she had no idea what she was getting into.

That was six years ago. On Friday, Coulter was sitting with her husband and friends in a federal courtroom watching Mamur Karabaev, an Uzbekistan refugee she calls her “adopted” son, affirm his American citizenship during a naturalization ceremony.

Karabaev is the last of a dozen refugees who escaped Uzbekistan after a massacre and found their way eventually to Coulter. She calls them her “boys.”

“I never expected to be this involved,” the Shawnee woman said. “It has been very fun and exciting and rewarding, heartbreaking and frustrating.

“I would do it again in a heartbeat.”…

…Barbara Smith, a friend and member of Good Shepherd Catholic Church with Coulter, said she has watched the story unfold from the beginning…

…Friends of Coulter, a 63-year-old retired hairdresser and mother of three, speak of her humility and willingness to help others. Becoming involved in the refugees’ lives, that’s just something Coulter would do, Smith said.

“One person can make a difference and she did it,” Smith said.

But what Coulter did may not always work so well, one person warned.

David Holsclaw, director of English as a second language at the Don Bosco Center, said relationships such as the one between Coulter and Karabaev are the exception to typical stories he’s heard about volunteers who may be over-involved.

“There are some volunteers that go nuts and become way too involved and really become problematic,” Holsclaw said…

…Developing an emotional connection can be detrimental to the resettlement process, he said.

For her part, Coulter thinks being a volunteer helped her.

“I think I had an advantage not being constrained by rules or regulations,” she said. “I was able to jump in feet first.” Read more here

Posted in Catholic, Kansas City, Uzbek, volunteers | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

State Dept. Allowed Catholic Lobbyist To Sit In At ”Stakeholder” Meeting While Barring Public

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 5, 2012

It turns out that the State Department let a Catholic lobbyist sit in on the public refugee resettlement program’s so-called “stakeholders” meeting last month, while only giving the public a last minute notice of the meeting. Lobbyist Jennifer Murphy of the Catholic Public Policy Commission of Tennessee attended the meeting. They never told us where they met either, did they?

Posted in Catholic, moratorium / restriction, State Department, Tennessee | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Israeli Police Now Luring Desperate Refugees Into Crime

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 1, 2012

Israel’s ruling government has decided that African refugees fleeing persecution are persona non grata, and will not be allowed to work in Israel – even though Israel is in desperate need of low-wage labor. Israeli police are now attempting to lure the refugees, who are hungry and have no place to stay, into stealing from supposed drunks with loads of cash hanging out of their pockets. An article at Haaretz tells us about a new police operation:

Undercover Tel Aviv police, posing as drunks and prostitutes, have begun arresting refugees and asylum seekers by luring them to steal wallets and other items.

Dozens of undercover police officers operated last weekend around the central bus station, where many of the refugees who entered the country illegally live. In a joint operation of the Tel Aviv Region police and the Border Police’s Barak unit, policewomen disguised as prostitutes stood on street corners and arrested everyone who tried to attack them. Others pretended to be drunk women looking for a cab home…

…These illegal refugees, who are not entitled to work, are brought daily to the Magistrate’s Court in Tel Aviv to be remanded, usually after they were caught stealing property worth a few hundred shekels at most. They steal mobile phones and sell them for NIS 150 in stores in the area. Sometimes they work in groups of two or three who steal together to buy food and pay rent… Read more here

Posted in Islamic, Jewish, police | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Israeli Government Ramps Up Hatred Of African Refugees Fleeing Persecution

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 24, 2012

Over the past several weeks has came news that Israel will deport southern Sudanese refugees to South Sudan, claiming that their safety is now ensured by the South’s declaration of independence last summer — even though the fledgling country is far from safe or stable for these refugees (see Haaretz article). What sense this makes escapes me since the southern Sudanese are natural allies of Israel, having experienced large-scale murderous attacks by the Islamist government of Sudan. At the same time, Israel is also ramping up hatred of other African refugees feeling persecution. (Israel has re-branded these refugees as “infiltrators” and “a threat to the fabric of Jewish society” — refusing to accept 1500 people per month, mostly African Muslims, while importing workers for cheap labor from East Asia – primarily the Philippines and Thailand.) When will we hear US refugee agencies speak out against these human rights violations? An article in Aljazeera explains the situation:

…The notion of a “Jewish and democratic state”, never a feasible reality, continues to unravel as its inherent racism is revealed in a new way. Any political discussion of refugees that are of the wrong ethnicity inevitably refers to African migration to Israel as an “existential threat”. Labelling these refugees as “threats” allows the state to criminalise and imprison them…

…State officials estimate that around 2,000 asylum seekers enter the country every month. Most of the men end up in Levinsky Park in southern Tel Aviv. At any time during the day or night, one can find young black African men sitting on the park’s benches, swings and concrete walls. In late January, a man who lived in the park died from exposure during the night.

The majority of the men who live in Levinsky Park are from Eritrea and Darfur…

…While community members and organisations have responded to the refugee-related crises developing in the country’s founding city by setting up an emergency shelter and serving warm dinners to a hungry crowd, these generous gestures are the exception in a state that fosters growing hostility to outsiders…

…”This is how the public becomes racist,” Yohannes Bayu, the director of African Refugee Development Centre (ARDC), tells me, explaining the government’s campaign against African asylum seekers, who are labelled as “labour infiltrators”…

…the media and the government has ramped up this hatred,” explains Bayu.

But Bayu adds that overt racism in Israeli society has become common, “People are attacked on the streets. People are not allowed to rent houses to African refugees.”…

…The desperate men – and some women – who leave their families and homelands behind in Africa escape torture, forced military conscription and murder. As confirmed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Eritrea and Sudan have been two of the top producers of refugees over the past two years. These states’ betrayals of their own citizens have rendered tens of thousands stateless.

Conventions and detentions

Israeli politicians’ claims that only a “drizzle” of the African immigrants are rightfully refugees is quickly belied by the fact that almost none of the men are deported. Of the approximately 17,000 asylum seekers who reached Israel in 2011 via Egypt, only 270 have been returned to Egypt. Israel is a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees…

However, allowing asylum seekers to remain in the country without rights hardly fulfills the directions of the Convention, which was composed in 1951 after the world saw and acknowledged the dangers posed to stateless human beings.

Before reaching Israel’s borders, asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan must survive a harrowing journey across the Sinai. They routinely experience rape and enslavement, and are reportedly the targets of organ traffickers.

Whether jumping the fence or walking across the border into Israel, asylum seekers are immediately picked up by border police and taken to a detention centre where they are held for weeks or months. …immigration authorities will begin holding these men to the extent of [a] new law – three years – once [a] new detention centre is built…

…for now the scenario for these men follows a predictable pattern: They are released in less than three months and given a three to six-month visa and then bussed up to Levinsky Park in Tel Aviv, where they are left to fend for themselves… Read more here

Posted in abuse, Eritrean, Jewish, left-wing, NGO's (Non-governmental organizations), safety, Sudanese, UN (United Nations), xenophobia/nationalism/isolationism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

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