A new Canadian
UNHCR statement on Canada’s resettlement of Saudi national Rahaf Al-Qunun:
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency welcomes the expected arrival in Canada of Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun and the decision of the Canadian Government to provide international protection and a long-term solution for her there as a resettled refugee.
The quick actions over the past week of the Government of Thailand in providing temporary refuge and facilitating refugee status determination by UNHCR, and of the Government of Canada in offering emergency resettlement to Ms. al-Qunun and arranging her travel were key to the successful resolution of this case. Ms al-Qunun left Thailand en route to Canada today.
“Ms. al-Qunun’s plight has captured the world’s attention over the past few days, providing a glimpse into the precarious situation of millions of refugees worldwide.” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. “Refugee protection today is often under threat and cannot always be assured, but in this instance international refugee law and overriding values of humanity have prevailed.”
With political sentiment and public attitudes towards refugees having hardened in some countries in recent years, resettlement – the mechanism by which Ms. al-Qunun has been accepted by Canada – is available only to a fraction of the world’s 25.4 million refugees, typically those at greatest risk, such as women at risk. Ms. al-Qunun’s case was dealt with on a fast-track ‘emergency’ basis in light of the urgency of her situation.
© UNHCR/Khaled Ibrahim
Good, I’m glad. Well done, Canada.
I’m doubtful Australia would have taken her, given our present vile government. They’re known less for compassion towards desperate people than cruelty and vindictiveness.
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I am very glad that Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has found sanctuary in Canada, though there is still no shortage, of Islamic fanatics who want her dead. In fact I am sure there is a growing supply, .
In 2014 there were 59.5 million refugees, asylum-seekers and IDPs (internally displaced persons) in the world. And growing. As the overwhelming majority of them seek asylum in the liberal democracies of the West, it is no simple, easy problem.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/things-will-get-worse-unhcr-as-refugees-approach-60m-worldwide
Yearning for Wall?
OB: I don’t think that Trump’s wall will solve the problem of illegal immigration into the US. A whole lot of Mexicans think it is a great joke.They can fly over it, burrow under it, or go round the ends of it. Plenty of scope for invention and ingenuity there.
I have only been through US gates of entry 3 times. 1. San Francisco International Airport: a breeze. 2. LA International: a nightmare; a wait in a long queue for about 5 hours and airport staff who could not have cared less, and 3. exiting Canada into Alaska: best of all. Bus stopped at the gate, uniformed official got on board and stood at the front next to the driver; “Everyone stay in your seats please and hold up your passports, so I can see them all. Thanks. Welcome to the United States. On your way, driver.”
If I ever go to the US again, I will enter through Alaska. From Canada.
Omar, I stood in Saskatchewan last summer looking over a fence into Montana. It would have been easy to crawl over or under the fence. No border patrol, nothing. A couple of chairs for security to sit in, but no one there. Getting into Canada was easy; getting home from Canada was easy.
I hope never to have to go through Heathrow again, though.
iknklast:
Heathrow is a breeze compared with LA.
But I am sure lots of people living close to National borders cross them illegally and frequently to visit friends or go shopping on the other side without anyone bothering them.
In 1974, I booked a flight to London ex Sydney. Then before departure I had an almighty skiing accident that wrecked my knee. A specialist knee surgeon told me that unless I did endless boring repetitive exercises, my knee would just get weaker and weaker, and I would finish up a cripple for life.
So I limped on to my flight to London, and once there, limped into a bicycle shop and bought a bike and had it set up to my specifications. Then I put just over 1,000 miles onto the odometer riding it around Britain, including Scotland, Ireland and Wales and Cornwall.
And when I got back to London, I sold the bike for about 40 quid less than I paid for it, and my knee was completely cured, and has not given me the slightest trouble since. So if you ask me, the bicycle is the greatest aid to walking ever invented.
But beware temptation. I was down in the hold of the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead in Wales, getting set to drag the bike up the staircases through 5 decks to join the customs queue, when they opened the bow doors of the ferry. And there before me was was the road into Wales: no cops; not a soul. And beyond that, England. I took 3-4 seconds to consider all the issues legal, moral, spiritual and temporal, and decided that standing in a customs queue had whiskers all over it. And so I made an illegal entry. (I am with Oscar Wilde: I can resist anything except temptation.)
Fortunately, the staff at Heathrow Departures on my way out were so rushed they did not check my passport for an entry visa. So I avoided interrogation as a suspect IRA terrorist, and a stretch of porridge in Wormwood Scrubs.
Where I would otherwise probably still be to this day.
Omar, I haven’t entered the country through LA, so I’ve no knowledge of that. My experiences with LA were much more benign. I have entered through Chicago, and that was easy as pie. I do suspect part of that is the habit of men not noticing middle aged women, and assuming we are not going to do anything interesting, illegal, or immoral. They don’t even realize we exist and have lives, so it probably does make our lives easier in some ways.
Heathrow, on the other hand, was the most poorly organized airport I’ve gone through in all ways. My husband says it’s a breeze compared to Casablanca, and he did have an experience that led him to be unsure he was going to get home in time for his 90th birthday (which was 35 years away at the time).
What did he do? Start talking like Humphrey Bogart?
Grease the wrong palm perhaps?
;-)
Apparently they didn’t like his baggage…(he had nothing in it but his regular overnight bag with toothpaste, etc).