U.S. State Department Denies Visas for Persecuted Assyrian Christians

From July 2015. Sunni Muslims are given preference and persecuted Christians are denied - the Obama/Kerry State Department is intent on infusing Islam into the United States where 91% are on welfare and are financial burdens to society.
State Department Denies Visas for Persecuted Assyrian Christians

July 11, 2015

https://shariaunveiled.files.wordpre...pg?w=627&h=375
Although, more than 100,000 visas have already been granted this year to Muslims not facing persecution

by, Isaiah Narciso | The Gospel Herald | h/t Carrie Dedrick @ Christian Headlines and BCN

(Washington, DC)—The U.S. State Department may have sent a signal to an Anglican bishop in Iraq that despite persecution and harassment from the terror group known as ISIS, Christians in that country will not find any support from the United States government.

According to Faith J.H. McDonnell of Philos Project, the Rt. Rev. Julian M. Dobbs, bishop of the Diocese of CANA East (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), revealed that part of U.S. foreign policy during an interaction with the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). Dobbs made his case to the State Department on behalf of a group of Assyrian Christians who are desperate to leave northern Iraq.

“There is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation,” the State Department said.

“Donors in the private sector have offered complete funding for the airfare and the resettlement in the United States of these Iraqi Christians… but the State Department—while admitting 4,425 Somalis to the United States in just the first six months of 2015, and possibly even accepting members of ISIS through the Syrian and Iraqi refugee program, all paid for by tax dollars, [said] they ‘would not support a special category to bring Assyrian Christians into the United States.'” –Faith J.H. McDonnell

McDonnell reported that the Assyrian Christians received both the permission and blessing from their own bishop to leave Iraq. Until recently, church leaders in the region have urged Christians to stay in the Middle East; now they have concluded that their chances of survival are much better if they left.

“Christianity in Iraq is going through one of its worst and hardest stages of its long history, which dates back to the first century,” Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil said. “Throughout all these long centuries, we have experienced many hardships and persecutions, offering caravans of martyrs. Yet 2014 brought the worst acts of genocide against us in our history.”

Warda added that “Christianity as a religion and as a culture from Mesopotamia [ancient Iraq]” now faced “extinction” due to the ongoing threat posed by ISIS.

McDonnell elaborated on the plight of Christians and other minorities in the region since ISIS took over the Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014.

“Christians, Yazidis, Mandeans and others were targeted for destruction, and within just the first week of ISIS’ occupation, more than 500,000 people fled the city,” McDonnell wrote. “The homes of Christians were marked with the Arabic letter ‘nun,’ standing for Nazarene. Christians were threatened with death if they did not convert to Islam, pay jizya and live as a subjected people—’dhimmi’—or flee immediately.”

Video courtesy of: AssyrianPride1000

According to McDonnell, Christians have even been threatened by some Muslims in the refugee camps run by the UN Refugee Agency, or UNHCR. However, the State Department has refused to resettle affected Assyrian Christians in the United States.

“Donors in the private sector have offered complete funding for the airfare and the resettlement in the United States of these Iraqi Christians that are sleeping in public buildings, on school floors, or worse,” McDonnell wrote. “But the State Department—while admitting 4,425 Somalis to the United States in just the first six months of 2015, and possibly even accepting members of ISIS through the Syrian and Iraqi refugee program, all paid for by tax dollars, told Dobbs that they ‘would not support a special category to bring Assyrian Christians into the United States.'”

McDonnell contended that the United States government made it clear religious affiliation does not mean support for Christians in the region in the form of asylum.

“The State Department, the wider administration, some in Congress and much of the media and other liberal elites insist that Christians cannot be given preferential treatment,” McDonnell wrote. “Even within the churches, some Christians are so afraid of appearing to give preferential treatment to their fellow Christians that they are reluctant to plead the case of their Iraqi and Syrian brothers and sisters.”

Such treatment by the State Department has even extended to Christian leaders in Iraq. According to a report on Fox News, the agency recently reversed a decision that denied a visa for an Iraqi Catholic nun who wanted to inform Americans of the persecution directed by ISIS against Christians.

“Sister Diana Momeka is a leading representative of the Nineveh Christians who have been killed and chased from their homes in and around Mosul by ISIS,” Fox News wrote. “Momeka, who has been likened to Mother Teresa for her work with the poor and persecuted, was turned down, she said, because she was ‘internally displaced’ in Iraq, and deemed a risk to stay in the U.S., where she once lived and studied for six years.”

McDonnell reported that the nun was able to testify in a full committee hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 13. However, the State Department refused to comment on the decision.

“All visa applications are adjudicated on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act and other applicable laws,” a State Department spokesman told Fox News.

Johnnie Wolfe, author of the book “Defying ISIS,” told Fox News that he advocated for Sister Diana when her visa was initially denied.

“People across the country raised a voice, including members of Congress and Senators, to put enormous pressure to change the decision. I’m glad she will be able to come and speak to leaders and the press, but it’s frustrating that it took thousands of Americans reacting in a significant way to make a sensible thing happen,” Wolfe said.

https://shariaunveiled.wordpress.com...an-christians/

U.S. and West Victimize Christians Fleeing ISIS

by Raymond Ibrahim
September 6, 2015 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/64...zes-christians

Western nations are not merely ignoring Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East, they are actively supporting it by sponsoring "moderate" rebels who in reality are as "radical" and anti-Western as the Islamic State.

• "Why the federal government has failed to take steps to expedite such reunification in cases where family and religious leaders are willing to vouch for and help those seeking asylum here... remains an unfathomable mystery." — East County Magazine, San Diego.
• Such "unfathomable mysteries" are reminiscent of the U.S. State Department's habit of inviting Muslim representatives but denying visas to Christian representatives. Since the start of 2015, 4,205 Muslims have been admitted into the U.S. from Iraq, but only 727 Christians. For every Christian granted asylum, the U.S. grants asylum to five or six Muslims -- even though Christians, as persecuted "infidel" minorities, are in much greater need of sanctuary.
• "Most European governments, especially those that are Christian explicitly or implicitly, are failing in their duty to look after their fellow Christians in their hour of need." — Lord Weidenfeld.
• When persecuted Christian minorities manage to flee the Islamic State and come to the West for asylum, they are imprisoned again. All the while, Muslims -- in the Mideast and in the West -- are being empowered and welcomed in the West with open arms.
• Not only does the West facilitate the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, but in the West as well.

According to a recent NPR report, the U.S. supported "moderate" coalition fighting both Bashar Assad and the Islamic State in Syria "has extremists in its own ranks who have mistreated Christians and forced them out of their homes" -- just as the Islamic State (IS) has done.

Christian minorities forced out of their homes who manage to reach Western nations -- including the United States -- sometimes encounter more trouble.

Despite having family members to sponsor them, a group of 20 Christians who fled the Islamic State in Iraq have been imprisoned indefinitely, some since February, at the Otay Detention Facility in San Diego, even though they have local family members and Christian leaders who vouch for them (a primary way that the majority of detained foreign nationals are released is to the supervision of American citizens who vouch for them).

Activists say that the men and women in detention have been held for too long, including by the U.S. government's own standards. Some have been imprisoned for over seven months with no hearing date for release even set.

"They are being held without a real reason.... They've escaped hell. Let's allow them to reunite with their families," said Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community in San Diego.

The detainees include a woman who had escaped the clutches of IS, and who had pleaded to see her sickly mother. Her mother died before she could see her. "She had been begging to be let out to see her dying mother," said a priest familiar with the case.

Discussing the ongoing plight of these Iraqi Christians, San Diego's East County Magazine concluded: "Why the federal government has failed to take steps to expedite such reunification in cases where family and religious leaders are willing to vouch for and help those seeking asylum here, then, remains an unfathomable mystery."
Such "unfathomable mysteries" are reminiscent of the U.S. State Department's habit of inviting Muslim representatives but denying visas to Christian representatives. Since the start of 2015, 4,205 Muslims have been admitted into the U.S. from Iraq, but only 727 Christians. For every one Christian the U.S. grants asylum, it grants asylum to five or six Muslims -- even though Christians, as persecuted "infidel" minorities, are in much greater need of sanctuary, not to mention more assimilating to American culture than Muslims.

Faith McDonnell, of the Institute on Religion & Democracy, said regarding the detainment of Iraqi Christians in San Diego:

This follows the disturbing pattern that we have seen from the State Department of ignoring the particular targeting of Christians by ISIS while giving preferential treatment for asylum to other groups with expedited processing -- like Somalis, Iraqis, and Syrians, some of whom could very well be members of jihadist movements.

The same is happening in the United Kingdom. Church leaders accuse David Cameron of "turning his back" on Christians facing genocide in Syria and Iraq by failing to grant them refuge in the UK -- even though thousands of Muslims have been allowed entry.
Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, signed a petition calling on the UK government to "welcome Christian refugees and give them priority as asylum seekers," emphasizing that "Syrian and Iraqi Christians are being butchered, tortured and enslaved."

Similarly, Lord Weidenfeld, 95, who fled Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938 with the help of British Quakers, said:

Why is it that the Poles and the Czechs are taking in Christian families and yet the British government stands idly by?
This mood of indifference is reminiscent of the worst phases of appeasement, and may have catastrophic consequences. Europe must awake and the Conservative British Government should be leading from the front.
Most European governments, especially those that are Christian explicitly or implicitly, are failing in their duty to look after their fellow Christians in their hour of need.

This is not necessarily true of east European nations. Along with countries like Poland and the Czech Republic, Slovakia recently went so far as to say it will only accept Christians when it takes in Syrian refugees under an EU relocation scheme. The Slavic nation argues that "Muslims would not be accepted because they would not feel at home," including because there are no mosques in Slovakia.


Meanwhile, many of those Christians who are granted asylum in Western countries arrive there only to be further persecuted by Muslim asylum seekers -- indicating, once again, who does and who does not really need asylum; who does and who does not assimilate in Western culture.


Most recently in Sweden, two small families of Christian asylum seekers from Syria were recently harassed and abused by approximately 80 Muslim asylum seekers, also from Syria.

The Christians and Muslims -- described by one Swedish newspaper as "fundamentalist Islamists" -- resided in the same asylum house. Among other humiliations, the Muslims ordered the Christians not to wear their crosses around their necks and not to use the communal areas when in use by Muslims.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/large/1224.jpgAsylum seekers in the Swedish city of Kalmar, where Christian refugees were forced to move out of public housing after being harassed and threatened by Muslims.

After continuous harassment and threats, these Christian refugees, who had managed to escape the Islamic State, left the Swedish asylum house "fearing for their own safety." A spokesman for the government migration agency responsible for the center they had been staying in said:

"They dared not stay. The atmosphere became too intimidating. And they got no help... They chose themselves to organize new address and moved away without our participation because they felt a discomfort."

Western nations are not merely ignoring Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East, they are actively supporting it by sponsoring "moderate" rebels who in reality are as "radical" and anti-Western as the Islamic State. And when these persecuted Christian minorities manage to flee the Islamic State and come to the West for asylum, they are imprisoned again. All the while, Muslims -- in the Mideast and in the West -- are being empowered and welcomed in the West with open arms.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/64...zes-christians