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Home Front: WoT
UN Criticizes US Border Officials for Disrespecting Phony Asylum Claimants
2004-08-13
From The New York Times
A confidential report conducted by the United Nations in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security has found that airport inspectors with the power to summarily deport illegal immigrants have sometimes intimidated and handcuffed travelers fleeing persecution, discouraged some from seeking political asylum and often lacked an understanding of asylum law. ....

In conducting its study, United Nations officials reviewed more than 300 case files; interviewed dozens of inspectors, supervisors and asylum officers; and sat in on more than 100 interviews with asylum seekers at airports in New York, Newark, Miami and Los Angeles. The Department of Homeland Security granted the United Nations access to internal documents, staff members and asylum seekers on the condition that the report not be released to the public after it was completed in late October. The study was provided to The New York Times by a person unaffiliated with the United Nations who was concerned about the government's plan to expand summary deportations to the country's land borders.

In its report, the United Nations discovered that many inspectors held negative views of asylum seekers, viewing them as frauds trying to enter the United States under false pretenses. Such attitudes, the report concluded, resulted in instances where inspectors intimidated asylum seekers or treated them with derision.

At Kennedy International Airport in New York, asylum seekers were routinely handcuffed and restrained with belly chains and leg restraints. In one instance there, a Liberian asylum seeker was ordered to strip naked to determine whether he had scars consistent with torture. The inspectors then allegedly ridiculed him, using racial and sexual taunts. .... The study also described two instances in which inspectors encouraged asylum seekers not to pursue asylum claims. ...
Posted by:Mike Sylwester

#12  Ptah are you aware that an individual tax payer is not allowed to take accelerated depreciation on onion seed? Are you aware of the penalties man? Do you have a clue? Yes? Did you report the Clue? Is the Clue improved? What aren't you saying?
Posted by: Federal Jones   2004-08-13 9:00:06 PM  

#11  What I think is the most dangerous gambit is the persecuted ethnic minority gambit. The world is full of ethnic minorities. A person's membership in one of them is hard to establish or debunk, especially in countries like Iran where our government has no relations.

I am all for internment camps for assylum seekers. A very high percentage of the world hates us. While VISA holding visitors can be allowed to wander about within the restrictions of their VISA, letting undocumented folk loose on the streets is a security disaster. Allowing Kofi to cajole us into an action that works for him but is suicidal for us is a non-starter.
Posted by: Super Hose   2004-08-13 8:41:00 PM  

#10  http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iraq/956-tni.htm
ON SEPTEMBER 1, 1992, Ramzi Yousef arrived at JFK airport. He presented an Iraqi passport without a U.S. visa, was briefly detained (and fingerprinted) for illegal entry, and granted asylum pending a hearing. Yousef went to stay at the apartment of Musab Yasin, an Iraqi living in Jersey City. So too did Abdul Rahman Yasin, Musab's younger brother, who arrived in America from Iraq soon after Yousef. (Musab had an unlisted telephone number under an Israeli-sounding alias, Josie Hadas.)
Posted by: ed   2004-08-13 4:57:42 PM  

#9  THE NEWEST HIPPEST TV GAME SHOW:
"How Can America Take Its Money Back?"
We join our show already in progress:

Pat Sejak: Ok, Kofi spin the wheel. The category is "Gratitude for the gifts of America".
Kofi, or some other UN guy: America is provoking blah blah blah...disrespecting phony asylum claimants...blah blah...blah
Pat Sejak: Oh, so sorry, Kofi, the UN just lost $1m in US funding. Would you like to spin again?
Posted by: jules 187   2004-08-13 2:54:03 PM  

#8  That's only a rumor, CF, only a rumor...
Posted by: .com   2004-08-13 2:48:43 PM  

#7  Hey! Even IRS Auditors have mothers, and wives/husbands, and children....
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-08-13 2:37:41 PM  

#6  I wouldn't squeal too loudly if the next terrorist bomb hit a building housing IRS auditors...
Posted by: Ptah   2004-08-13 2:33:20 PM  

#5  You know, I wouldn't squeal too loudly if the next terrorist bomb in New York City hit the United Nations building. Anywhere else, it's gonna be brutal for Arab society, but the UN - I'd have to think long and hard...
Posted by: Old Patriot   2004-08-13 12:32:20 PM  

#4  As President i will only allow UN agents to patrol of borders and make all our enemies friends happy.
Posted by: John F. Kerry   2004-08-13 10:49:47 AM  

#3  and the problem is...the US has let the world trample on our sovereignty for way too long..it is about time we get serious about our borders...
Posted by: Dan   2004-08-13 10:41:50 AM  

#2  Tough shit, UN. Inspectors have a right ot be suspicious of asylum-seekers. ANYONE can scream that they want asylum. Until someone can come up with a sure-fire way to determine whether someone seeking asylum is legit, I'll give the inspectors the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2004-08-13 10:39:01 AM  

#1  The study was provided to The New York Times by a person unaffiliated with the United Nations who was concerned about the government’s plan to expand summary deportations to the country’s land borders.

Yeah, right. Sounds like the reporter's illegal immigrant slave domestic servant 'fetched' the report from Koffi's assistant and provided it to the reporter.

This basically shows that the U.N. cannot be trusted to keep up its end of an agreement. They agreed not to make it public and, as a result of their (possibly deliberate) lack of security the report was leaked.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2004-08-13 10:04:21 AM  

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