Tuesday, June 28, 2016

OMNI REFUGEE NEWSLETTER #2

OMNI
UNITED STATES, REFUGEES, ASYLUM NEWSLETTER #5, June 28, 2016
COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
(#1, August 2, 2014; #2 Nov. 24, 2015; #3 Dec. 17, 2016; #4 April 7, 2016)
207517 pageviews - 1589 posts, last published on Jun 21, 2016 

Contents #4 at end

Contents Refugees Newsletter #5, June 28, 2016
United Nations Refugee Data
Welcoming Refugees
United Nations
UN for Displaced Women and Children
The Progressive Magazine
US Big Deal: 10,000 [3000] Syrians [and Central Americans]
Resettling Refugees in Arkansas
Urgent Need to Protect Refugees Crossing the Mediterranean
By June ’16, 3400 Dead or Missing
Ongoing Effort to Understand Fear and Hatred of Immigrants and Refugees
The central delusion of Western civilization
Google Fear of Refugees
OMNI Climate Change Refugees Newsletter #1


UNITED NATIONS NEWS
6/27/2016
 The United Nations said 65 million people have been displaced by conflicts around the world, with 41 million considered internally displaced. Refugees will be a focus of the September meeting of the UN General Assembly.
Full Story:
More Summaries: 
Related Summaries
12/18/2015
   The United Nations refugee agency says in a report on the world's forcibly displaced people in the first half of 2015 that "one in every 122 humans is today someone who has been forced to flee their homes." The total of 20.2 million refugees worldwide, meanwhile, is the highest since 1992. The UN today is recognizing International Migrants Day, about which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "Let us commit to coherent, comprehensive and human-rights-based responses guided by international law and standards and a shared resolve to leave no one behind."
Full Story:
More Summaries:
6/19/2015
 In 2014 a record 59.5 million people were refugees, asylum seekers or displaced due to conflict, violence or war, says an annual global trends report by the United Nations refugee agency. That total figure is up 16% from 2013 and 59% from 2004, says the report, which was released in advance of World Refugee Day on Saturday.
Full Story:
More Summaries:
8/29/2014
 More than 3 million Syrians are registered refugees, says the United Nations, with 6.5 million internally displaced. The combined total is nearly one-half of Syria's population. "The Syrian crisis has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them," says Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Full Story:
5/14/2014
Violence and conflict caused a record 33.3 million people to be internally displaced during 2013, a rise of 4.5 million from 2012, say the United Nations refugee agency and Norwegian Refugee Council. Most of the increase was due to the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Full Story:




WELCOMING REFUGEES
May 11, 2016
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News covering the UN and the world
SIGN UP    FORWARD
un wire:   TOP STORY

A "more effective global response" is necessary to provide assistance to the rising numbers of refugees, migrants and displaced people around the world, writes United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. This month's World Humanitarian Summit and September's special UN General Assembly meeting are opportunities to craft such a response. "I will spare no effort to ensure that the United Nations does everything in its power to help refugees and migrants everywhere," Ban writes.
LinkedIn (5/10),  Inter Press Service (5/10) 
LinkedIn Twitter Facebook Google+ 

The refugee in international law - ‎Goodwin-Gill - Cited by 1481
Psychological well-being of refugee children - ‎Ajduković - Cited by 200

UN FOR DISPLACED WOMEN AND CHILDREN, Google Search, June 28, 2016
https://www.womensrefugeecommission.o...
Women's Refugee Commission
The Women's Refugee Commission advocates vigorously for laws, policies ... the rights of refugee and internally displaced womenchildren and young people, ... are currently almost 60 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) ...
unstats.un.org/.../Print.aspx?...Refugees...displaced-person...
United Nations
May 26, 2015 - School attendance for refugee children by sex, age and level of education. ... Refugee and internally displaced women and girls are less likely ...
www.unhcr.org/4bbb2a...
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
by SH Rimmer - ‎2010 - ‎Related articles
refugees or IDPs and their relation to transitional justice. I argue for .... IDP cohorts show a majority of womenchildren, elderly and people with disabilities.
www.unhcr.org/.../refug...United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Refugee and displaced women and children. The Economic and Social Council,. Recalling that the majority of refugees and displaced persons are women and children...


The Progressive Welcomes REFUGEES
The May 2016 number of The Progressive Magazine foregrounds “Welcoming Refugees” with three articles, the editorial, and several related items.   The articles are on Obama’s detainees, Syrians in Ohio, and justice for kidnapped and raped indigenous women in Guatemala (violence in Central America), and the GOP’s diversity problem.    The cover shows families from around the world walking toward people with open arms.

A Guatemalan court gave kidnapped, raped, enslaved indigenous Q’eqchi’ women compensation.  Lawrence Reichard.  "Justice in Guatemala."  The Progressive Magazine (May 2016).  And two Army officers were sentenced to prison for WAR CRIMES, another important first.  People are fleeing from Central America for good reasons.
Dick

Despite the reasons for fleeing, ICE still deports families.
Who’s Pounding on the Door?
The Progressive Foundation , By John Heid
…you only leave home when home won’t let you stay. no one leaves home unless home chases you fire under your feet hot blood in your belly it’s not something you ever thought of doing until the blade burnt threats into your neck...
—Excerpted from “Home” by Warsan Shire

The sign beside our front door reads in black and white: “US Border Patrol: Do Not Enter Without A Lawful Search Warrant.” Who knows how effective it really is? After all, the majority of house raids are carried out by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and most raids happen in the dark of night by its armed, aggressive agents who jackboot their way into homes forcibly removing mothers and children alike in handcuffs. The sign presents a minor legal hurdle, if that. Still, I dusted it off on Christmas morning.

The night before, the White House had announced that raids to deport Central American women and children would begin in January. A few days later, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced: “Our borders are not open to illegal immigration. If you come here illegally, we will send you back consistent with our laws and values.” Laws and values? Who’s values and what laws sanction nighttime raids on families? The policy and strategy of house raids runs roughshod over the rule of law, let alone ethics.  (continued at http://www.nukewatchinfo.org/Quarterly/2016%20Spring/Page%208%20Spring%202016.pdf)



U.S. Struggles With Goal of Admitting 10,000 Syrians [and admitting and deporting Central Americans]
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, MAY 30, 2016  [I first read a portion of this article in the AD-G June 1, 2016.]
Feryal Jabur and her husband, Nayef Buteh, arrived in November in Detroit with their son, Arab Buteh, 8. They are among about 2,500 Syrian refugees admitted to the United States in the past eight months by the Obama administration, which wants to have 10,000 resettled by October. CreditSalwan Georges for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama invited a Syrian refugee to this year’s State of the Union address, and he has spoken passionately about embracing refugees as a core American value.
But nearly eight months into an effort to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States, Mr. Obama’s administration has admitted just over 2,500. And as his administration prepares for a new round of deportations of Central Americans, including many women and children pleading for humanitarian protection, the president is facing intense criticism from allies in Congress and advocacy groups about his administration’s treatment of migrants.
They say Mr. Obama’s lofty message about the need to welcome those who come to the United States seeking protection has not been matched by action. And they warn that the president, who will host a summit meetingon refugees in September during the United Nations General Assembly session, risks undercutting his influence on the issue at a time when American leadership is needed to counteract a backlash against refugees.
“Given that we’ve resettled so few refugees and we’re employing a deterrence strategy to refugees on our Southern border, I wouldn’t think we’d be giving advice to any other nations about doing better,” said Kevin Appleby, the senior director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York.
“The world notices when we talk a good game but then we don’t follow through in our own backyard,” Mr. Appleby said.
The delay is frustrating for Mr. Obama, who has made a point of speaking out against anti-immigrant sentiment both in the United States and abroad, arguing that Republicans, particularly the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, are playing on misplaced fears about terrorism.
“We’ve got to push back against anti-immigrant sentiment in all of its forms, especially by those who are trying to stoke it just to seek political gain,” Mr. Obama told a gathering this month of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in Washington.
At the White House, he has instructed his top advisers that they must not fall short of meeting his goal to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States by the fall. But an onerous and complex web of security checks and vetting procedures, shared among several government agencies, has made the target difficult to reach.
At the same time, White House officials concede that the challenging election-year politics surrounding the issue — 47 House Democrats joined Republicans in November in voting for legislation to further tighten the screening process — make it impossible to quickly take in substantially more Syrians by removing any of the tough vetting procedures.
Mr. Obama “has been very clear that he expects us to find a way to make this happen consistent with our security standards,” Amy Pope, a deputy homeland security adviser, said of reaching the target of 10,000 refugees. “The dynamics within Congress have certainly made it difficult to lean far forward in terms of refugee processing, but our obligation is to leave the refugee process in better shape than we found it.”
[Read the expose of doublethink, doubletalk, cant, hypocrisy, and fear by Julie Hirschfeld Davis (The New York Times), "Critics Call President's Syrian Refugee Talk Hollow," AD-G (June 1, 2016).
The consequence of Obama's and Congress's multilayered fecklessness (one of many descriptors needed) is their outrageous failure to embrace the refugees. They should say we can do at least as well as Canada’s 25,000 and aspire as high as Germany’s 100,000, instead of that paltry 10,000, as yet not 3000.  –Dick]
Photo
Central American families in Roma, Tex., in April after crossing into the United States to seek asylum. CreditJohn Moore/Getty Images
The Central American migrants [read refugees] pouring across the Southern border pose a different but no less challenging problem. Individuals who enter the United States illegally do not necessarily qualify as refugees, although a growing proportion of Central Americans are arriving with claims of asylum, asserting that they are seeking refuge from violence and mortal threats in their home countries.
While administration officials say they are working to address the root causes of the migration and to set up new programs to extend humanitarian protection to those who need it, their primary response has been to try to deter Central Americans from making the dangerous journey to the United States. One method has been to deport those whose asylum claims have been rejected.
“We have to control the border, that’s our job, and we have to honor our humanitarian obligation,” Cecilia Muñoz, the director of Mr. Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, said in an interview. “The situation in Central America, as terrible as it is, the legal standard may not be fully up to addressing why people are leaving.”
Humanitarian groups have denounced the administration’s approach, arguing that the president must recognize the Central American migrants as refugees.
“The administration’s entire foreign policy has been built upon enforcement, not protection,” said Anna Greene, the director of policy and advocacy, United States programs, for the International Rescue Committee. “If this situation was playing out far from our borders, our government would be funding a humanitarian response and demanding that other countries abide by their international obligations.”
The criticism comes as some of Mr. Obama’s allies on Capitol Hill are arguing that he has not done enough to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis. Twenty-seven Democrats led by Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, who was Mr. Obama’s partner in the Senate and maintains close ties with the president, told him in a letter this month that the administration “can and should do much more” to accept Syrian refugees.
“The Syrian situation is the most pressing humanitarian crisis of our time,” Mr. Durbin said in an interview, “and if we do not respond in a positive and proactive way, we’re going to have future generations asking, ‘Where were you?’”
The administration has scrambled to pick up the pace of resettling Syrian refugees, officials say. The Departments of State and Homeland Security sent a surge of personnel to Jordan this year to interview about 12,000 refugee applicants referred by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and officials have begun processing cases in Beirut, Lebanon, and Erbil, Iraq. But the numbers remain stubbornly low.
Germany has not said how many refugees it might accept. In 2015, it registered 447,336 new applicants for asylum, about 25 percent of them Syrians.
A program begun by the United States in 2014 to allow Central American children with a relative in the country to qualify as refugees has approved only 300, an administration official said. Secretary of State John Kerry announced in January that he would create another initiative to admit as many as 9,000 refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras after processing outside the United States, but the program has not begun.
Administration officials argue that Mr. Obama is doing more than most — the United States admits more refugees over all than any other country and is the largest contributor to humanitarian relief.
“When you step back and look at the longer-term picture in terms of the United States’ record on the U.N. refugee program,” Josh Earnest, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, said this month, “it’s hard for other countries to criticize.”    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/us/politics/as-us-admits-migrants-in-a-trickle-critics-urge-obama-to-pick-up-the-pace.html?_r=0
Resettling Refugees in Arkansas
www.arkansas-catholic.org/.../Canopy-group-will-make-sure-refugees-ar...
Apr 4, 2016 - Clint Schnekloth, stand with refugee couple Faez Arso and his wife Ahlam ... The goal is to learn how Canopy can make northwest Arkansas a ...
www.baxterbulletin.com/...refugees-ark.../85192512/
The Baxter Bulletin
May 31, 2016 - Arkansas took in about 1 out of every 1 million refugees who sought shelter worldwide last year. ... Arkansas sells home health program for $39M to private firm ..... A local group called Canopy NWA wants to raise that number despite a ... The group operates in Northwest Arkansas through Catholic Charities ...
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/.../catholic-charities-eyei...
May 23, 2016 - Here is news from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Arkansas ... a new group Canopy NWA for the purpose of creating a new refugee ...
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/
May 23, 2016 - C .Richard UN/US State Dept Refugee Admissions Program ... CanopyNWA ... Here is news from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette:.


URGENT NEED TO SUPPORT REFUGEES TRYING TO CROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN
“Dead, Missing ’16 Migrants Put at 3,400.”  AD-G (June 16, 2016). 
More accurately died or missing during the first five months of 2016.   That’s “12 percent above the 2, 780 deaths or disappearances…for the same period in 2015.”  For all of 2015, 5,400 died or were reported missing.  Data source: International Organization for Migration.  [The proper term for fleeing people should be refugees not migrants.  --Dick]



The Ongoing Effort in These Newsletters to Explain US Fear and Hatred of Immigrants and Refugees
The central delusion of Western civilization
Library of Social Science via uark.onmicrosoft.com 
6-28-16
11:10 AM (23 hours ago)
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif
The Central Delusion of Western Civilization

The most persistent delusion of Western thought—that goes on and on and on, and continues to dominate public discourse—is the belief that people upon the political stage act “rationally”—responding to their “interests.”
There is no evidence supporting this claim.
Belief that human beings are governed by rational thought processes is one of the foundational myths of Western civilization.
Fear of immigration grows out of identification of one’s nation (a body politic) with one’s own body, leading some people to imagine that immigrants are “creeping in” to their own body or—worse yet—intent upon “rape” (violation of one’s body).
The political “reality” in which we are immersed—manifests a gigantic (shared) delusion.

This message was sent to jbennet@uark.edu by oanderson@libraryofsocialscience.com 

GOOGLE “FEAR OF REFUGEES” for a wide range of examples and analysis.   The Washington Post report on Sweden’s IKEA attack, for example,  reveals how complicated refugee violence can be, very often not reducible to labels or stereotypes.


END REFUGEES NEWSLETTER #2

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