Tag Archives: Immigrants

Ohio State assault by immigrant raises fears in Somali community

A car which police say was used by an attacker to plow into a group of students is seen outside Watts Hall on Ohio State University's campus

y Kim Palmer

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov 30 (Reuters) – Immigrants in Columbus, Ohio’s Somali community fear a backlash after a young immigrant injured 11 people in an attack at Ohio State University, the second attack by an African immigrant in the area this year.

With the second-largest Somali population in the United States, the area’s 38,000 immigrants fear the college town and state capital may be less welcoming of foreigners.

The attack also comes at a time when President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to suspend immigration from countries where Islamist militants are active and new arrivals cannot be safely vetted.

“We are at the mercy of the community that allows us to be here,” said Abdilahi Hassan, a 28-year-old restaurant owner who has lived in Columbus since he was 14.

Hassan said the assailant was not representative of immigrants from war-torn Somalia. “There are always some bad apples,” he said.

The assailant, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 20, was shot dead by a police officer on Monday moments after he plowed his car into a crowd of pedestrians and then leapt out and began stabbing people with a butcher knife.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, and U.S. officials said that Artan may have followed the same path to self-radicalization as militants in a number of “lone wolf” attacks.

In February an immigrant from Guinea wounded several people when he attacked with a machete inside a Columbus restaurant.

Last year, a Somali-born naturalized U.S. citizen was arrested after authorities said he trained with the Syria-based Nusra Front and then returned to the United States to kill Americans.

If Monday’s attacker, Artan, was radicalized, then it was by outside sources and could not have come from the Columbus community, said Burhan Ahmed, head of the Center for Somali American Engagement in Columbus.

“America saved Somalis. America is where every religion is respected,” he said.

He added that the Somali and Muslim communities were trying to educate young people to counter propaganda on the internet from sources like the Islamic State. Most Somalis are Muslim but there are also Christians in the country.

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther met on Tuesday with a group of Somali immigrants, including religious and business leaders, to reassure them they were part of the city’s fabric, city officials said.

The city government has a New American Initiative designed to help Somali refugees and other recent immigrants get settled. The program explains city services to immigrants and helps them navigate bureaucracy.

Tensions between immigrants and city residents are not unique and Columbus is prepared to deal with them, said Zach Klein, the president of the city council. He visited the Masjid Ibn Taymia Mosque on Tuesday in a show of support.

“We are the 15th largest city in the United States and we are going to have the same problems that other large cities have. We are not immune to them,” he said.

(Additional reporting and writing by David Ingram in New York;
Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Closing private detention centers for migrants would pose problems

U.S. migrant detention center bracelets and rosaries hang from a religious statue at a migrant shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal immigration agents have raised concerns about the U.S. government possibly ending its use of private detention centers used to detain undocumented migrants, a potential policy shift that some say could damage the United States’ capacity to enforce its immigration laws.

In line with a Justice Department move to phase out privately managed federal prisons, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said last month it would consider a similar change for the centers where thousands of migrants are detained, including those who have entered the country illegally and those seeking asylum or some other protected status.

There are more than 180 migrant detention centers in the United States, ranging from Pennsylvania to California, housing more than 33,000 people per day. Almost three-quarters of those detained are housed in centers that are run by or in conjunction with private contractors. (http://bit.ly/2clLZuP)

Overcrowding and impaired border security could result from closures, said recent internal memos seen by Reuters, written by agents at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), both DHS agencies.

Debate within the DHS over the matter comes amid criticism of privately run prisons and migrant detention centers for being less safe than government-run facilities. Citing such concerns, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Aug. 18 it would phase out its use of private prisons.

That announcement hammered the stock prices of the companies that dominate the for-profit prison business. Shares of Corrections Corporation of America <CXW.N> and GEO Group Inc <GEO.N> have fallen 41 percent and 25 percent respectively since the start of this year.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told an advisory council on Aug. 29 to review whether ICE should follow the Justice Department’s lead and phase out private facilities.

The Homeland Security Advisory Council is expected to make a recommendation on whether ICE should end its use of private migrant detention centers to Johnson by Nov. 30.

BIG IMPACT

The impact of such a step could be much more marked for migrant detention centers than for prisons, given that a much greater proportion of migrants are detained in private facilities.

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons holds 16 percent of federal inmates in private penitentiaries, while that figure is 73 percent for migrants in detention.

As of August, there were 182 adult migrant detention facilities. Many are in the border states of Texas and Arizona, though others are in the interior of the country, in states like Indiana and Pennsylvania. Most people they hold are originally from Central America and other countries with land access to the U.S. southern border.

CBP arrests and holds migrants temporarily before they are transferred to ICE custody for a court hearing to determine whether they should be deported. CBP is not considering ending private contracts at its facilities, but some of its agents have warned of delays if ICE has less space available to take migrants.

One DHS official who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity because of the divisive nature of the topic, said ending private detention for migrants would require Congress to spend millions more dollars because government-run operations are more costly.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has said she would end all private detention facilities if elected. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he would enforce the U.S. border with Mexico by building a wall.

FLUCTUATING MIGRANT FLOWS

Unlike federal prisoners who may be locked up for many years, migrants are typically detained for short periods, about 27 days on average. After that, they are either deported or released to await trial.

Rehabilitation is a key goal in the prison system, but it is not a feature in migrant detention centers, an ICE official said.

Before Johnson’s announcement on private prisons, ICE had defended its decision to continue using private centers. A spokeswoman for ICE told Reuters that they allow the agency to adjust quickly to fluctuating trends in migrant flows.

For example, Corrections Corporation of America was able to build a center in Dilley, Texas, within four months in 2014 to hold Central American women and children who began coming across the border by the thousands in an unforeseen surge.

Immigrant rights advocates have criticized private detention facilities for years, saying they hold people in inhumane conditions and restrict their access to lawyers.

“Private detention facilities often hold immigrants in well-documented appalling and inhumane conditions where abuse and neglect are rampant,” said U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, in a statement after Johnson’s announcement.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Bill Rigby)

U.S. Top Court appears unlikely to revive immigrants plan

mmigration activists holding American flag rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s bid to save his plan to spare millions of immigrants in the country illegally from deportation and give them work permits ran into trouble on Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court in a case testing the limits of presidential power.

The court, with four conservative justices and four liberals, seemed divided along ideological lines during 90 minutes of arguments in the case brought by 26 states led by Texas that sued to block Obama’s unilateral 2014 executive action that bypassed Congress.

Liberal justices voiced support for Obama’s action. The conservatives sounded skeptical. A 4-4 decision would be a grim defeat for Obama because it would uphold lower court rulings that threw out his action last year and doom his quest to revamp a U.S. immigration policy he calls broken.

More than a thousand people in favor of Obama’s action staged a raucous demonstration outside the white marble courthouse on a sunny spring day, with cheery mariachi music from a red-and-black clad band filling the air. A smaller group of Obama critics staged their own rally.

In order to win, Obama would need the support of one of the court’s conservatives, most likely Chief Justice John Roberts or Anthony Kennedy. But they both at times hit the Obama administration’s lawyer, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, with tough questions.

Kennedy expressed concern that Obama had exceeded its authority by having the executive branch set immigration policy rather than carry out laws passed by Congress.

“It’s as if the president is setting the policy and the Congress is executing it. That’s just upside down,” Kennedy said.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

Obama’s plan was tailored to let roughly 4 million people – those who have lived illegally in the United States at least since 2010, have no criminal record and have children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents – get into a program that shields them from deportation and supplies work permits.

Obama said the program, called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), was aimed at preventing families from being torn apart.

The case comes during a heated presidential campaign in which the status of the roughly 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally, most of them from Mexico and other Latin American nations, has been a central theme. Immigration is also a global concern, with Europe now struggling with a flood of immigrants fleeing violence in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.

The Republican-governed states that filed suit asserted that the Democratic president overstepped his authority provided in the Constitution while his administration said he merely provided guidance on how to enforce deportation laws.

A 4-4 ruling is possible because there are only eight justices following February’s death of conservative Antonin Scalia.

POSSIBLE COMPROMISE

One possible compromise outcome would be that the court could uphold Obama’s plan in part while leaving some legal questions unresolved, including whether the government can provide work permits to eligible applicants.

Obama would also win if the justices decide the states had no legitimate grounds to sue. Texas said it had “standing” to sue because it would be hurt by the additional costs it would incur by providing driver’s licenses to those given legal status.

Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted the “basic problem” that the government lacks the resources to deport everyone in the country illegally, meaning it must set priorities.

“There are these people who are here to stay, no matter what,” Ginsburg said.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized Texas’ argument about the economic harm caused by Obama’s action, saying millions of immigrants “are here in the shadows” and will affect the economy “whether we want (them) to or not.”

Verrilli said the federal government has regularly launched programs aimed at giving large groups of immigrants temporary legal status as part of its role establishing enforcement priorities due to limited resources.

Asked by Roberts if the government has the power to allow all immigrants who are in the country illegally to stay, Verrilli said: “Definitely not.”

Shortly before the plan was to take effect, a federal judge in Texas blocked it after the states filed suit. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in November.

Obama’s executive action arose from frustration within the White House and the immigrant community about a lack of action in politically polarized Washington to address the status of people living in the United States illegally.

He took the action after House of Representatives Republicans killed bipartisan legislation, called the biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration laws in decades and providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, that was passed by the Senate in 2013.

Obama, stifled by Republican lawmakers on many of his major legislative initiatives, has drawn Republican ire with his use of executive action to get around Congress on immigration policy and other matters including gun control and healthcare.

(Additional reporting by Clarece Polke and Robert Iafolla)

Canada to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees by February

Canada’s newly elected government will resettle 25,000 refugees from Syria in the next three months, according to multiple published reports, with 10,000 able to arrive by the end of 2015.

That’s a change to the Liberal government’s original plan to bring all 25,000 in by year’s end.

During his election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had promised to bring in all of the refugees before Dec. 31, 2015. But the country’s immigration officials said host communities needed more time to prepare to receive the refugees, according to a CBC report on the subject. They will be spread out through 36 different cities throughout Canada, 13 of them in Quebec.

Resettling 25,000 refugees between the Oct. 19 elections and the Dec. 31 deadline would have required the country to accept more than 340 refugees every day. Some politicians had been asking to slow down the timeline to allow more time for security vetting, the CBC reported.

Trudeau told the CBC that the adjustment to the proposal was “not about security.” While he conceded that recent terrorist attacks in Paris has affected the public perception of refugees, the prime minister insisted that the ISIS-affiliated attacks did not influence the revision to the plan.

“We want these families arriving to be welcomed, not feared,” Trudeau told the CBC.

The country’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, told the CBC that security screenings will completed on the refugees before they board a plane to Canada. If the checks uncover any doubts about applications, interviews or data, he said, the application will be put on hold.

The refugees will be a mix of privately sponsored and government-assisted individuals. They must register with the United Nations or government of Turkey, according to a BBC report.

Canada will accept the most vulnerable individuals first. These include entire families, at-risk women, and members of the LGBT community. Single men and those not accompanied by their families won’t be initially included in the relocation plan, according to multiple media reports.

Some are wondering if excluding straight, single men from the plan is really necessary.

Benoit Gomis, an international security analyst, wrote in an email to Newsweek that “the multi-layer vetting process should be sufficient enough to alleviate security concerns,” and noted that there wasn’t any evidence that suggested refugees were more dangerous than non-refugees.

“The Migration Policy Institute recently pointed out that out of the 784,000 refugees resettled in the U.S. since 9/11, only three were arrested for terrorism offenses (and they were not plotting attacks in the U.S.),” he wrote. “This type of knee-jerk reaction is common after terrorist attacks.”

HHS Confirms Abortions Offered To Illegal Immigrants

The Department of Health and Human Services has admitted that illegal alien unaccompanied minors who have been given status to stay in the U.S. by the Obama Administration will be offered free abortions.

The HHS issued a regulation that does not specifically mention abortion as a required emergency medical service but an officials from Administration for Children and Families told CNSNews.com that abortion is one of those offered services.

“The ‘lawful pregnancy-related medical services’ includes abortion,” the email statement said.

The HHS regulations also includes giving emergency contraception such as Plan B.

“Care provider facilities must provide UC victims of sexual abuse timely, unimpeded access to emergency medical treatment, crisis intervention services, emergency contraception, and sexually transmitted infections prophylaxis, in accordance with professionally accepted standards of care, where appropriate under medical or mental health professional standards,” reads one regulation that must be followed by caregivers for the illegal immigrant children.

The Health and Human Service’s Office of Refuge Resettlement acknowledged there could be religious objections to the policy and they would try to work with them but the needs of the patient will be considered first.

Hundreds of Missionaries May Be Forced From U.K.

The office of Youth With A Mission in England and Wales could lose 350 missionary families in April because British immigration officials have suspended the ministry’s visa sponsor status.

The UK Visas & Immigration office claims that YWAM committed mistakes in two of seven areas that were being audited.  The UK is working to lower the number of immigrants in the nation.  YWAM immediate submitted corrected paperwork to the UKVI.

“Whilst we recognize and support the [UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI) office’s] legitimate right to concern over compliance to the rules, we do not feel that the issues raised in the letter from the UKVI justify such a draconian outcome as losing our license would produce,” wrote YWAM Harpenden in an “urgent request” sent Friday and highlighted by the Evangelical Alliance UK (EAUK).

YWAM has been working to resolve concerns, but if they cannot by January 20th the UKVI may revoke their license and require all missionaries to leave the country within 60 days.

“The British government has said they want to reduce immigration by one third. So they are going to have to find organizations that currently have licenses and potentially take them away in order to meet that target,” said Mark Vening of YWAM to Christianity Today. “We wonder whether or not faith-based organizations are providing perhaps a soft target for that.”