Refugees Southern California

A shelter for earthquake refugees from Southern California has opened in a Las Vegas recreation center, with one family already moved in. "At least I feel a lot safer," said 14-year-old Jason Barnett, whose family lost their Canoga Park apartment in Monday's quake. "I hear there's just mainly floods here." Jason, his mother, and a brother and sister caught a ride to Las Vegas with a friend Tuesday morning. They stayed with a relative until learning of the shelter at Sunrise Community Center.

Freed after three days in Mexican custody, Faruz Toma and nearly two dozen fellow Iraqis stepped onto U.S. soil Saturday, visibly relieved to be able to continue their quest for asylum in the United States. "Thank you! Thank you very much!" Toma, 30, exulted on arriving at the San Ysidro border crossing. Trundling a small suitcase and wrestling with two plastic bags crammed with his family's belongings, he summarized his feelings in halting but succinct English. "Very happy," he said.

The state attorney general's office confirmed Thursday it is investigating allegations that Laotian refugees in Southern California were shaken down for contributions to a Laos liberation group as a condition for receiving social services.

Renee Laub Vlashi has 32 in-laws she's never met, and they're arriving in Los Angeles this morning for an extended visit. She's Jewish; they're Muslim. She speaks English; they speak Albanian. She, her husband, Hajrush, and their 20-month-old daughter, Jeta, live in a pleasant house in West Hills, but it's not that big.

In a move expected to have significant impact on Southern California's burgeoning refugee population, the U.S. government has issued major changes in the way asylum is granted to aliens who fear persecution at home and seek haven here. The new guidelines, which take effect Oct. 1 and will cost up to $9 million to implement, come after a decade of legal debate and negotiation and are intended, in part, to answer critics who say asylum has not always been granted even-handedly or efficiently.

Southern Californians stand to lose hundreds of million of dollars in federal assistance for mass transit and for newly legalized immigrants and refugees under President Bush's $1.23-trillion budget released on Monday. Cutbacks in spending also threaten the closure of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo and promise further delays in modernizing the outmoded air traffic control center in Orange County.

Renee Laub Vlashi has 32 in-laws she's never met, and they're arriving in Los Angeles this morning for an extended visit. She's Jewish; they're Muslim. She speaks English; they speak Albanian. She, her husband, Hajrush, and their 20-month-old daughter, Jeta, live in a pleasant house in West Hills, but it's not that big.

Whatever Palestinian businessman Jamal Al Sarabi saved from destruction in the war with Iraq, he lost in the peace that followed. Al Sarabi was the co-owner of two home appliance stores in Kuwait that were ransacked by Iraqi soldiers soon after Iraq invaded Kuwait almost two years ago. But it was only after liberation that he discovered how complete his losses were.

Freed after three days in Mexican custody, Faruz Toma and nearly two dozen fellow Iraqis stepped onto U.S. soil Saturday, visibly relieved to be able to continue their quest for asylum in the United States. "Thank you! Thank you very much!" Toma, 30, exulted on arriving at the San Ysidro border crossing. Trundling a small suitcase and wrestling with two plastic bags crammed with his family's belongings, he summarized his feelings in halting but succinct English. "Very happy," he said.

A Los Angeles businessman with close ties to the right-wing Republican Nationalist Alliance party in El Salvador has been named by Los Angeles police as a suspect in a series of "death squad" threats against Salvadoran refugees and Catholic priests in Southern California. The suspect, Carlos Rene Mata, 35, is the owner of Pipil Express, an international overnight delivery firm with more than 80 offices in California, New York, El Salvador and Guatemala.

A shelter for earthquake refugees from Southern California has opened in a Las Vegas recreation center, with one family already moved in. "At least I feel a lot safer," said 14-year-old Jason Barnett, whose family lost their Canoga Park apartment in Monday's quake. "I hear there's just mainly floods here." Jason, his mother, and a brother and sister caught a ride to Las Vegas with a friend Tuesday morning. They stayed with a relative until learning of the shelter at Sunrise Community Center.

Whatever Palestinian businessman Jamal Al Sarabi saved from destruction in the war with Iraq, he lost in the peace that followed. Al Sarabi was the co-owner of two home appliance stores in Kuwait that were ransacked by Iraqi soldiers soon after Iraq invaded Kuwait almost two years ago. But it was only after liberation that he discovered how complete his losses were.

The state attorney general's office confirmed Thursday it is investigating allegations that Laotian refugees in Southern California were shaken down for contributions to a Laos liberation group as a condition for receiving social services.

In a move expected to have significant impact on Southern California's burgeoning refugee population, the U.S. government has issued major changes in the way asylum is granted to aliens who fear persecution at home and seek haven here. The new guidelines, which take effect Oct. 1 and will cost up to $9 million to implement, come after a decade of legal debate and negotiation and are intended, in part, to answer critics who say asylum has not always been granted even-handedly or efficiently.

Southern Californians stand to lose hundreds of million of dollars in federal assistance for mass transit and for newly legalized immigrants and refugees under President Bush's $1.23-trillion budget released on Monday. Cutbacks in spending also threaten the closure of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo and promise further delays in modernizing the outmoded air traffic control center in Orange County.

A Los Angeles businessman with close ties to the right-wing Republican Nationalist Alliance party in El Salvador has been named by Los Angeles police as a suspect in a series of "death squad" threats against Salvadoran refugees and Catholic priests in Southern California. The suspect, Carlos Rene Mata, 35, is the owner of Pipil Express, an international overnight delivery firm with more than 80 offices in California, New York, El Salvador and Guatemala.

A 20-year-old man was stabbed to death Sunday night at a Buddhist temple during a celebration of the Cambodian New Year, police said. The victim, whose name was not released, was stabbed multiple times during an argument with another man attending the celebration, said Officer Ursula Guillory of the Los Angeles Police Department. Police dogs were called out to Wat Khmer Temple in the 1700 block of Beverly Boulevard to search for the killer, who fled the scene. No further details were available.

Unable to persuade Hong Kong, Thailand and other "first asylum" countries to change their policies on Vietnamese refugees, Southern California Vietnamese leaders said Saturday that they will focus new attention on establishing regional holding centers to prevent people from being sent back to Vietnam against their will. Returning from the International Conference on Indochinese Refugees in Geneva, the local delegates representing Orange County's estimated 100,000 Vietnamese said the fate of tens of thousands of refugees holed up in camps throughout Southeast Asia remains uncertain because most of the countries housing the refugees have refused to reject the policy of forced repatriation.