CHERISHED CHICANO ‘REFUGEES,’ HATED HAITIAN ‘ILLEGALS’

Like so many of the positions he takes, George Bush’s stand toward the United Nations has been marred by opportunism. The United Nations correctly condemned the invasion of Iraq, so Bush used the equally proper disdain Americans have for the United Nations to frame the march to war as an act of national sovereignty in the face of a supranational intruder – the United Nations. In the conspicuous absence of WMD or official Iraqi links to al-Qaida, Bush flip-flopped again, chummily invoking the U.N.’s honor as a reason for war. He had to invade Iraq, or so he said, to enforce a U.N. resolution (an honor killing, if you will).

In character, Mr. Bush has recently renewed his vows to yet another U.N. convention. Refugees accepted into the U.S. will now be able to apply for citizenship. In strict conformity (well, sort of) with the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees have so far enjoyed rights galore, receiving the same prerogatives as any other foreigner who is a legal resident, including medical care, schooling and the right to work.

The administration, moreover, places no numerical ceilings on the number of refugees it is willing to accept. At the moment, there are between 8 and 14 million in the country and well over half a million new arrivals each year. Even the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) thinks this is excessive and advises that voluntary repatriation “is the preferred long-term solution for the majority of refugees.” “Repatriation,” however, is a concept that is abhorred by this and other administrations before it. “Permanent asylum” is preferred.

By now, I’ve thoroughly confused every immigration expert reading this, so let me clarify (or add to the befuddlement).

I’ve actually been talking about illegal aliens, not refugees. All this humanity is being heaped on illegal aliens by our Republican and acquiescent Democratic turncoats. In the United States, illegal aliens have as many rights and benefits as do bona fide refugees under the above-mentioned U.N. convention!

Not even the liberal UNHCR conflates what it calls in politically correct idiom “economic migrants” and “refugees.” Presumably the UNHCR can trust liberal governments like Mr. Bush’s to do this for them. In fact, the UNHCR defines a refugee as a person who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to … avail himself of the protection of that country.”

Whatever the Immigration and Nationality Act’s definition of a “refugee” is, it’s been extended well beyond the approximately 80,000 presumably real refugees a year the United States takes in. According to the de facto laws of the United States, a refugee is also a person who is outside the country of his nationality – that being mainly Mexico – and is unwilling to return to that country – that being mainly Mexico.

White, poor, endangered ethnic minorities – like the South African Boers, of whom at least 1,200 have been slaughtered by blacks – need not apply. Ditto people who are fleeing a civil war.

As armed gangs fan out across Haiti, ransacking, looting, burning and killing, Mr. Bush has shown his brutality, threatening to turn asylum seekers back if they wash up on Florida‘s shores. It’s worth remembering that not even at high-tide levels (during the last overthrowing of Jean-Bertrand Aristide) did the number of Haitian boat people apprehended by the U.S. Coast Guard exceed 42,000. A mere drop in the ocean when compared to the millions of Mexicans over which our two-faced politicians are forever fawning.

If it takes an immigration hawk to highlight this hypocrisy – turning away Haitians but ushering in Hispanics – it also takes one to honestly admit that Haitians are by no means desirable candidates. They largely speak Creole, and their faith is more Black Magic than Roman Catholicism. Thoroughly schooled in violence, Haitians are, at the same time, utterly uneducated, although not in the ways of the world – they’ve been ravaged by AIDS-HIV, and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Still, if the Haitians who embark on the 600-odd-mile journey are not legitimate candidates for refugee status, who is? And why?

The reason a few hundred wretched Haitians are threatened with an Operation Wetback, while millions of illegal Mexicans are practically canonized, lies with our potentates and their corrupt politics.

Unlike Mexicans, Haitians do not constitute a sizable voting block with a network of political organizations and consulates. As Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies demurs, the nodes of this network have a hand in domestic American politics – they lobby local officials to promote acceptance of the Mexican government’s illegal-alien ID card, driver’s licenses, in-state tuition for their illegal charges, and a myriad of other taxpayer-funded perks.

A “compassionate conservative” president continues to misplace compassion, rejecting a positive U.N. value – kindness toward those who’ve been robbed (refugees) – yet rolling out the welcome mat for those who do the robbing (illegals).

©By ILANA MERCER
WorldNetDaily.com
March 5, 2004