Free Republic

Democratic presidential front-runner (Joseph R. Biden), who has denounced President Trump’s efforts against Central American asylum-seekers, vigorously opposed resettling as refugees South Vietnamese who had helped the U.S. during the war. The Washington Examiner ('No obligation': Joe Biden opposed helping South Vietnamese refugees reach U.S. in 1970s) Thursday, citing (records) from the administration of President (Gerald R. Ford), that as a U.S. senator, Mr. Biden tried to deny refuge to hundreds of thousands fleeing the imminent North Vietnamese victory and likely Communist persecution. Mr. Biden’s arguments about refugees reverse what he and other Democrats now insist are the only moral...

Australia on Sunday announced plans to ratchet up its tough policy against refugees by banning any asylum seeker who attempts to reach its shores by boat from ever visiting the country. A previous government introduced a policy on July 19, 2013, banning refugees who arrive by boat from Indonesian ports after that date from ever being resettled in Australia. Under legislation to be introduced to Parliament next week, thousands of asylum seekers who have returned to their homelands in the Middle East, Africa and Asia would be banned for life from ever traveling to Australia as tourists, to do business...

It would have been too much to ask for Hollywood to give the Reagans their due in the forthcoming movie “The Butler.” You knew that going in. But either way, casting Jane Fonda in the role of Nancy Reagan was surely meant to push buttons, stir up controversy and generate interest in--and hence, profits for--the movie. This being the reality, let me then push some other buttons. The problem with casting Jane Fonda as former First Lady Nancy Reagan is not just that Fonda is nearly twenty years older right now than Mrs. Reagan was when she entered the White...

Sunday marks 35 years since 66 Vietnamese refugees, fleeing the communist takeover of their homeland on a small, leaky boat, found deliverance. They were without food and water, and ships from Panama, Norway and Japan had ignored their distress signals (violating the most basic rule of the sea). They despaired of rescue.Captain Meir Tadmor of the Israeli cargo ship Yuvali was on his way to Japan when he saw them on 10 June 1977. The Yuvali’s Chief Engineer wrote the following late last year: I was there. In South China Sea, close to Vietnamese coast, we met small fishing boat,...

OTTAWA (The Borowitz Report) – The Canadian coast guard was on alert today, preparing for what it fears could be a massive invasion of boat people from Wisconsin. Conor McGlindon, commander of the Royal Canadian Mounted Coast Guard (RCMCG), said that satellite photos had revealed a “substantial flotilla” in the making, as Wisconsinites prepared to flee their state for their neighbor to the North. “Word has gotten around that we have policemen, firemen, and basic school lunches up here,” Mr. McGlindon said. “You can’t blame these boat people for seeking a better life. But we are under orders to intercept...

LABOR is now a rabble in a panic in what seems to be Julia Gillard’s last weeks - maybe even days - as Prime Minister. It has finally woken up to its deadly choice. It can either have a leader loathed by voters, or one loathed by its MPs. It can stick with the incompetent and scandal-ridden Gillard, and suffer humiliating defeat. Or it can surrender to the popular Kevin Rudd, and risk tearing itself apart again under a self-obsessed power freak. Labor can dream of other options - Regional Australia Minister Simon Crean, Workplace Minister Bill Shorten or Defence...

Border agents arrested 20 illegal immigrants Tuesday morning who were attempting to enter the country by sea at Calafia State Beach in San Clemente. When the small craft the immigrants were riding in land landed, the occupants attempted to flee. Agents with the U.S. Border Patrol arrested 17 men and three women, all from Mexico. A 36-year-old woman suffered a broken leg while jumping from the boat, according to a statement from the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego. She was taken to a hospital for treatment. The others were taken to a Border Patrol station for processing. No further...

A BOAT carrying 22 people claiming asylum has been intercepted by HMAS Childers off the Western Australian coast. The boat, the 104th to claim asylum status since Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party took office, was stopped last night near West Island at Ashmore Reef. Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said the latest arrival would not sway the government from its strategy for dealing with the problem of asylum seekers arriving by boat. "People smugglers seek out and exploit vulnerable persons who, having faced uncertainty, conflict and violence, pursue stability and safety,'' Mr O'Connor said in a statement issued today.

SRI Lankans are using civil war as an excuse to seek asylum abroad, the country's high commissioner to Australia says. Senaka Walgampaya said many Sri Lankan asylum seekers were actually "economic refugees" wanting a better life in Australia. "As far as we can see, all the people who are seeking asylum in Australia are seeking to come here for a better life," he told Channel 10. "Also, most of them have their friends and relatives here ... they are coming here to join up with them." Mr Walgampaya said the Sri Lankan civil war was being used by nationals as...

KEVIN Rudd and the architect of the Howard government's Pacific Solution, Philip Ruddock, yesterday clashed over whose administration was tougher on boatpeople, with Mr Ruddock claiming recent policy changes left Australia exposed to a "pipeline" of 10,000 unauthorised arrivals a year. As Coalition figures lined up yesterday to take advantage of the surge in boatpeople, West Australian Premier Colin Barnett slammed the decision to grant asylum to 42 Afghan men whose boat blew up following an act of sabotage. But the Coalition's criticism drew a counter-attack from the Prime Minister, who said yesterday the Howard government's tough rhetoric on asylum-seekers...

June 14, 2009Obama's Other Controversial ChurchBy Andrew Walden "This is a guy (former Weatherman terror-bomber Bill Ayers) who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." -- Barack Obama on the Campaign trail, 2008 As President Obama prepared to commemorate D-Day, the Associated Press dug up old details and photos to write a warm fuzzy story about the WW2 service record of Obama's maternal grandfather...

From The Sunday Times June 15, 2008 Cubans flee island over ‘sham’ reforms Optimism within Raul Castro’s Cuba is fading as his new freedoms make little impact on the poor Tony Allen-Mills ON a routine patrol off the Caribbean resort of Cancun earlier this month, the crew of a Mexican naval vessel spotted unusual activity aboard an arriving yacht. When officers inspected the boat, they found 33 Cuban migrants on board. The Cubans were heading for Miami by a roundabout route - instead of braving the short but heavily policed crossing from western Cuba to Florida, they were planning to...

At Accuracy in Academia’s Immigration Forum on Capitol Hill, John Keeley of the Center for Immigration Studies spoke about how a woman at another meeting had told him that in Poland there are about 22,000 illegal immigrants. Keeley told her that 22,000 was a “slow Saturday night” coming into Tucson, Arizona. The Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS, has worked for the past twenty-one years on returning to what it calls the “historic norm in America” on immigration. In that connection, Keeley told the audience that bureaucrats are “anything but overworked.” Keeley argued that the term comprehensive to bureaucrats is...

Democrats, reeling from the Republicans' success at courting churchgoers, are focusing new attention on a religious and political anomaly: Jim Wallis, one of the few prominent left-leaning leaders among evangelical Protestants. At the start of the Congressional session, Senate Democrats invited Mr. Wallis to address their members at a private session to discuss issues. A group of about 15 House Democrats invited him to a breakfast discussion about dispelling their party's secular image. And NBC News has enlisted him to appear as a guest during its inauguration coverage opposite Dr. James C. Dobson, one of the most prominent evangelical conservatives....

One of the pillars of liberal orthodoxy is to refer to all U.S. military operations as "another Vietnam." Many consider their ability to influence our government's withdrawal from that country as a "great moral victory" against an "unjust war." There's one problem: We lost that war. And in the wake of our withdrawal — celebrated as "finding peace" — communism reigned on the Southeast Asian peninsula. For that "great moral victory," 2 million Vietnamese were imprisoned, killed or became boat people in search of a new country. But more importantly, America's status as a "paper tiger" took root. Our enemies...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- President Jean-Bertrand Aristide says international community must come to Haiti's aid to prevent thousands of deaths and a wave of boat people MORE...

U.S. Watches for Possible Increase in Boat People From Troubled Haiti By George Gedda Feb 10, 2004/Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Coast Guard is monitoring waters off Haiti for signs that the number of Haitians trying to flee will increase due to the violence wracking the country, a State Department official said Tuesday. No increase has been detected thus far, but U.S. authorities are watching the situation closely, said the official, who asked not to be identified. In 1992, tens of thousands of Haitians tried to escape a repressive military government then in power. Many were picked...

Because it detected an increase in third country nationals, including Pakistanis and Palestinians, attempting to sneak into the United States from Haiti, and because it feared that lax immigration enforcement would lead to a new boatlift from that country, the State Department recently urged the White House to adopt a policy of detaining illegal aliens arriving by boat from Haiti until they could be deported or granted asylum. When Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft released a legal opinion last week accepting State’s advice, he was castigated by a lead editorial in the Washington Post. Meanwhile, a big story fell through the...

In a cruise dubbed the “fantastic voyage,” Haitians will have a chance to turn their image as “boat people” upside down. With the Cruising Into History Haiti 2004 Initiative, launched by the Haiti Support Project, Haiti will finally be honored for what organizers call its triumphant accomplishment of breaking the chains of slavery. On Aug. 14-21, 2004, an estimated 3,100 passengers will be transported to Haiti from Miami on a mega-ship as a part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution.“We want people to get on board,” said Ron Daniels, founder and chairman of Haiti Support...