(AP) Greece said Friday it will call on the European Union to impose sanctions on member states that refuse to accept refugees, as senior European officials visited Ankara and Athens to try and stem a surge in migrant arrivals overwhelming Greek islands. […]
(Reuters) Greece’s prime minister accused Turkey on Friday of appearing to “exploit” Europe’s migrant crisis for its own ends and said Ankara could and should control migrant flows to the continent. Greece, the route into the European Union for nearly a million […]
(NZ Herald) The government has scrapped the controversial family-link policy for African and Middle Eastern refugees. The rules have been described as “racist and discriminatory” by new Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon. The government has also increased the overall number of African […]
(AFP) EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Thursday there was an “urgent need” to stop illegal departures from Turkey as Greece struggles to cope with a sharp increase in the refugee arrivals. “Irregular arrivals to Greece increased over the past weeks and […]
(Jerusalem Post) A German court in the southern city of Augsburg on Wednesday sentenced a radical Islamist Palestinian asylum seeker to a 10-year prison term for attempting to murder judges and prosecutors. Haidar A., the extremist Palestinian, had previously been sentenced in […]
(VOA) The U.S. reached its self-imposed cap of 30,000 refugee arrivals Monday, the last day of the 2019 fiscal year, as the Trump administration eyes another major reduction in refugee admittances from across the globe for 2020. More than half of refugees […]
(AFP) Greece said Monday it wanted to start sending back thousands of migrants to Turkey, a day after a deadly fire sparked riots at an overcrowded camp on the island of Lesbos. The decision, taken at an emergency cabinet meeting, came as […]
(AP) Migrants protesting at an overcrowded camp on the Greek island of Lesbos set fires and clashed with police Sunday, killing at least one person, authorities said. A burned body was brought to a local hospital and there is information about an […]
(Stuff) No-one knows what to do with Mohyadin Farah, a Somali who came here as a refugee with a history of sexually assaulting women. He’s been to jail, been in psychiatric care and even been considered for removal from the country. Nothing […]
(AP) There’s no room left at Europe’s largest refugee camp. New arrivals on the Greek island of Lesbos have to fend for themselves outside its barbed wire perimeter — in a maze of tents, each sprayed with a number in black paint. […]
(Reuters) A British court said on Wednesday it had no power to stop the deportation of a 10-year-old girl at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) after authorities rejected her mother’s asylum application. The girl’s mother, who travelled to Britain from Bahrain […]
(Hill) The Trump administration on Thursday proposed slashing refugee admissions to 18,000 for fiscal year 2020, marking a record low total since the program began in 1980. The Trump administration last year set the refugee cap at 30,000. The administration has made […]
(AFP) French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said France “cannot host everyone,” intensifying his tough rhetoric on immigration. Macron had last week signalled a tougher line on immigration in the second half of his mandate, arguing the government must stop voters drifting […]
(Reuters) Interior ministers from five European Union countries said on Monday they had agreed a new scheme to distribute migrants saved from the Mediterranean in a deal aimed at relieving the pressure on southern EU states. The plan will be presented to […]
(AFP) Italy has seen a rise in so-called “phantom” boat arrivals as traffickers ferry migrants across the Mediterranean from Tunisia rather than Libya without being spotted, a prosecutor warned Saturday. The closing window of opportunity to reach Europe before the onset of […]
(AP) A perpetually overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos can’t accommodate any more newly arrived asylum-seekers after the number of people already housed exceeded the camp’s intended capacity by 400%, authorities said Friday. Migrants who made it to Lesbos […]
(Hill) The Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday sent a letter to the Trump administration requesting an in-person consultation regarding the country’s refugee admissions ahead of the new fiscal year. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman and ranking member of the […]
(Local) Plans to accommodate “unwanted” migrants on Lindholm, an uninhabited Danish island, have been officially scrapped by the Social Democratic government. Minister for Immigration and Integration [Mattias] Tesfaye gave on Thursday official confirmation that the facility, plans for which were put in […]
(Deutsche Welle) While reviewing successful asylum applications, German officials found that only a tiny minority of asylum-seekers provided false information or tried to trick the officials, according to official data cited by Süddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday. Germany’s migration agency, BAMF, looked into […]
(BBC) Interpol says it has detected more than a dozen suspected “foreign terrorist fighters” crossing the Mediterranean Sea during a six-week operation. The international police organisation carried out more than 1.2 million searches at ports in six countries between 24 July and […]
(Reuters) The European Union must introduce a new, automatic system of taking in migrants saved from the Mediterranean, the leaders of Italy and France said on Wednesday, as they sought to patch up bruised bilateral relations. Italy has long complained that it […]
(AFP) A German court sentenced a Moroccan trucker Wednesday to life in jail after finding that he murdered a 28-year-old student hitchhiker last year in a case pounced on by the far right. The 42-year-old driver named as Boujemaa Lamrabat, a Moroccan […]
(AFP) French police began clearing around 1,000 migrants from a gymnasium near the northern port of Dunkirk on Tuesday after a court ruled it was a health and security hazard. The mayor of Grande-Synthe in December 2018 opened up the sports hall […]
(AFP) With an eye on re-election, France’s Emmanuel Macron has signalled a tougher line on immigration, arguing that the government must end its “lax” approach to prevent voters from drifting to the far right. Setting out his priorities for the second half […]
(Deutsche Welle) Italian anti-terrorism officials are investigating a 23-year-old man suspected of stabbing an army corporal outside Milan’s main train station, Italian media reported on Tuesday. The suspect attacked the patrolling soldier from the back with a letter opener, causing the victim […]
(Swiss Info) The number of Turkish refugees in Switzerland has risen by around 130% since a failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan three years ago, according to the NZZ am Sonntag. The newspaper, quoting information from the State Secretariat for […]
(Deutsche Welle) Although the site is remote, it has plenty of symbolism: Beginning this Sunday, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders from some 15 countries will meet in the southern Italian city of Matera, one of Europe’s 2019 cultural capitals, to take part […]
(AFP) Italy on Saturday allowed rescue ship Ocean Viking to disembark 82 migrants on Lampedusa, in a reversal of the hardline policy under the country’s ex-interior minister Matteo Salvini. Far-right leader Salvini was forced out of office last month after bringing the […]
(Middle East Eye) Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, one of America’s leading Muslim scholars, apologised for “any pain that I caused” over comments he made about Syrian refugees in a 2016 video that emerged on social media earlier this week. In a 10-minute-long statement released […]
(Hill) Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the respective chairs of the House Judiciary Committee and Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee, demanded that the Trump administration … consult with Congress before determining the number of refugee admissions to the country for […]
(Toronto Sun) Now that the election campaign has kicked off and Justin Trudeau is once again Liberal leader, it’s time to weigh in on how the Muslim vote is likely to pan out. Trudeau has the unsavoury reputation in some corners of […]
(CBS) Human smuggling is a big business in Athens and CBS News has found evidence that ISIS members are being moved through Greece to the rest of Europe. In central Athens, an area around Omonia Square is notorious as a center of criminal […]
(BBC) Eighty-six people attempted to cross the English Channel in a single day — amid claims that people smugglers were using threats about Brexit to pressure migrants. Border Force officials intercepted six small vessels travelling towards the UK on Tuesday. It is […]
(AFP) The German captain of rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3, Carola Rackete, who was temporarily arrested in Italy for docking without permission so she could let rescued migrants land, said Tuesday her “actions were justified.” Rackete, 31, was arrested on June 29 and […]
(Chicago Sun-Times) The Chicago chapter of the country’s largest Muslim civil rights group is asking a federal court to force immigration agents to rule on asylum applications that have been in the pipeline for years. Asylum applicants have the right to live […]
(AFP) Far-right Dutch MEP Geert Wilders on Saturday said nationalist parties were experiencing “tough” times but predicted that they would make a come-back. “It’s a tough time. We will come back,” Wilders said, speaking at an event in northern Italy. “I believe […]
(Hill) Democratic presidential contenders and others spoke out against reports during the weekend that the Trump administration will seek to cut refugee admissions to zero next year. While administration officials have not yet developed a formal recommendation, the administration previously set the […]
(NY Times) The White House is considering a plan that would keep most refugees who are fleeing war, persecution and famine out of the United States, significantly cutting back a decades-old program, according to current and former administration officials. One option that […]
(AFP) The number of migrants arriving by sea in Spain has plunged with Morocco stopping boat departures since signing lucrative agreements with Madrid and Brussels, experts say. So far this year 15,683 migrants have arrived by sea, 45 percent down on the […]
(Reuters) Turkey plans to resettle 1 million refugees in northern Syria and may reopen the route for migrants into Europe if it does not receive adequate international support for the plan, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. Turkey, which hosts 3.6 million […]
(Reuters) Morocco and Spain pledged on Wednesday to cooperate more closely to curb illegal migration, an issue fuelling the growth of far-right and populist politics in Europe, following a near halving of migrant arrivals in mainland Spain this year from 2018. The […]
(Canadian Press) A British Columbia man who glorified terrorism by the Islamic State group in multiple Facebook posts has been ordered released from immigration detention by the Federal Court nearly a year after the Immigration and Refugee Board deemed him inadmissible and […]
(Deutsche Welle) Some 640,000 Germans now have an alarm gun license, some 30,000 more than at the end of last year, according to research by the Rheinische Post newspaper. The number has risen hugely since 2014, when some 260,000 people carried such a license. […]
(NL Times) Jawed S., the 20-year-old Afghan man who stabbed two American tourists at Amsterdam Central Station last year, came to the Netherlands to “kill unfair and cruel people,” he said during the first day of his trial at the high-security court […]
(NL Times) The trial against Jawed S., the man suspected of stabbing two American tourists at Amsterdam Central Station on August 31st last year, starts in the high-security court in Amsterdam on Monday. The two victims will be present at the trial. […]
(Breitbart) A Swedish municipality that took in one of the highest numbers of asylum seekers per population faces a crisis as natives move out and decimate the local tax base. The municipality of Filipstad took in many asylum seekers during the migrant […]
(AFP) Germany’s far-right AfD party surged in elections in two ex-communist eastern states Sunday, reflecting anger over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s migrant policy and a wealth gap 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell. The Alternative for Germany became the second-strongest party in […]
(AP) An Afghan man was in a “psychotic state” and on drugs during a stabbing in France that killed one person and injured eight others, but investigators haven’t found any terrorist ties, a regional prosecutor said Sunday. A psychiatric evaluation of the […]
(AFP) An Afghan asylum-seeker who killed a man and stabbed several others in the French city of Lyon sparked a row about immigration on Sunday as new details emerged about his rampage. Investigators said the killer appeared to have psychological problems and […]
(AFP) Talks between Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party resumed on Saturday after a quarrel that had threatened to stop the nascent coalition in its tracks. Tensions remained however on the hot-button issue of migration, a highly emotive subject […]
Thank you for reading Eye on Islamism.