Somali gangs in Minneapolis? Open warfare?

Clan warfare maybe, but gangs too?   

This is the second ‘Somali watch’ post I promised this morning, thanks to our unofficial Somali researcher, blulitespecial.

This story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune is from the end of June and we missed it, as did most of you,  because these stories do not make it to the national media—it goes against most reporters’ notion of the beauty of cultural diversity.

Police and a Somali leader [where do we know him from?] met with members of the Somali community Friday to seek their help to find suspects in four unsolved slayings of Somali men since December in Minneapolis and Brooklyn Center.

Open warfare!

Brooklyn Center police Cmdr. Stu Robinson and Minneapolis Lt. Amelia Huffman, head of the homicide unit, told the group that police can’t solve the killings without community help.

“I was begging them to have their people come forward,” Robinson said. “Unless they step up, the cycle will continue and there will be more people dying in their community. It’s no different than other communities.”

Some Somalis at the meeting said they fear talking to police because of immigration status. [Ed:  What the heck, I thought they were all here legally!]   “I said we don’t ask and don’t care,” Robinson said. “We want to help stop the violence in your community and the greater community, that includes Brooklyn Center.”

Jamal [Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center] said word in the Somali community is that friends of Jama [one of the guys who was murdered] think they know the shooter and may try to kill him. He said he encouraged people to give tips on the suspect to police instead because “it is almost like open warfare right now among the Somali minors and youth. We are deeply troubled.”

As I read this story I wondered if some of these gang members went over to Postville, Iowa in the recent migration for meatpacking jobs.

Then there is this:

Jamal said some of his people are afraid Somali gangs are involved and may retaliate if members of the community name suspects. Some hide suspects who are in their clans, as they did in Somalia, and sometimes try to smuggle them out of the country, Jamal said.

So, in addition to gangs we now have clans!   And, then I wondered, if they can smuggle them out of the country are they also smuggling them in?  Hum!

Endnote:  I thought I recognized the name Omar Jamal.  You can read all about him here.  He was defending the Somali Hallway Rapist last summer whose violent act was caught on camera.   Busy guy, Jamal, wonder if he got the rapist freed.   Does anyone know?

Refugee Awareness blog!

I just came across this blog entitled Refugee Archives Current Awareness Blog and it looks like a great source for news on refugees.  It apparently comes from the Refugee Studies program at the University of East London (oh brother!), but nonetheless looks like it is getting information out that I am not seeing elsewhere.  There are two articles today on the Iraqi internally displaced people—an issue not being honestly covered by the mainstream media.

By the way, you may want to occasionally visit our category ‘where to find information.’

Somalis on the march to Postville, Iowa

Update:   I only posted this a few minutes ago and already the story is changing.  See the Des Moines Register and note that the bloom is already off the rose at Agriprocessors.   Teach me to read all my e-mail from Blulitespecial before I write!

I have a pair of Somali stories for you this morning, both thanks to Blulitespecial, this is the first one.

Do you all recognize the town of Postville?  It is where the Kosher meat packing plant is, Agriprocessors, the one raided by the feds in May where 389 Hispanic illegal immigrants were found working.

Word of the raid reached Minneapolis, home of the largest Somali population in the US, and Somali men are now flocking to Postville to fill the jobs vacated by the illegal workers, some of whom were apparently underaged according to a story in the New York Times two days ago.  (Sorry, you will have to google that story, the link is screwy).

Here is what the Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting:

POSTVILLE, Iowa – Scores of Somali immigrants are taking jobs at the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, replacing Hispanic workers arrested in a huge immigration raid and forcing a remote Iowa town to make another cultural shift.

Before the May 12 raid at Agriprocessors, hundreds of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants maintained a vibrant community in little Postville, a largely white community of 2,200 people in far northeast Iowa.

Now the stoops and haunts once occupied by Hispanics are being filled by about 150 Somali men.

The $13 an hour offered by Agriprocessors is drawing workers away from Tyson’s Food which has been the primary employer (Swifts too) herding Somalis from city to city and causing disruptions in places like Shelbyville, TN and Emporia, KS.

Regardless of previous claims, Somali workers such as Hassam Jilmale said he left work at a Tyson plant in Nebraska because he heard he could make more money with better conditions at Agriprocessors.

If the New York Times allegations are true, one of you volag do-gooders should be warning Hassam.

Then there is this comment by a Somali from Minneapolis involved in legal aid for Somalis.  Mark my words there will soon be special arrangements for Muslim prayer at the Jewish meatpacking plant:

“They go to these places and they’re not well equipped …” he said. “They do not speak the language. They do not know their legal rights and they live in fear of losing their jobs. They need someone who can bridge the two levels and balance the interests but they are not there.”

Then finally toward the end of the article is some mention of the town and its people.

The new Somali residents seem fine, but he [town resident] fears there is only so much upheaval the town can take.

“We’re just always adjusting and it’s scary, it’s hard,” he said. “We get all these new people and we don’t know who they are.”

Dear residents of Postville, to know what you are in for, read our archived stories on Shelbyville, TN here.  And, our category on the Somali controversy that swirled in Emporia, KS here.

Blog on Iraqi refugees: more questions then answers

We have written 201 posts on the Iraqi refugee situation and still feel like we are not getting the truth, or anything near the accurate story of the supposed “crisis” with Iraqi refugees.   I came across this blog the other day reporting on a first hand account of a visit to the UNHCR office in Jordan.  Now I have even more questions.

First, we have been inundated by the media, especially the Associated Press, telling us how bad the Bush Administration is in admitting refugees from Jordan and Syria.  However, according to this UN office in Jordan, up until sometime in 2007 the UNHCR had not registered very many refugees (the UN is the gatekeeper to refugee resettlement).   As a matter of fact, the blogger here, says that when he entered the UN office he had expected to see a long line of refugees and saw none.

In 2007 UNHCR set a submission target of 7500 Iraqis, they met this target and more with 8062 Iraqis registered and processed. A cumulative total of 4,663 persons have been submitted to these 16 countries.

So, now my question is, if the refugee crisis is so great why had the UN been dragging its feet?

The blogger then reports that he asked the UN employee about the problem of Muslims who have converted to Christianity feeling threatened by revealing that information to Jordanian Muslim officials.  Why haven’t we heard about this before?   And, we have been told over and over again that information was not collected on the religious affiliation of refugees.

I asked about the some of the concerns of the people I have interviewed. One was concerning Muslims who had secretly converted to Christianity. That they were afraid to tell the caseworkers of their conversions, afraid of reprisals as it is illegal in the Kingdom of Jordan for a Muslim to convert. Ziad assured me that anyone giving information about their case had to be forthright and need not fear any reprisals.

The UN employee then tells the blogger that single men are not given priority in resettlement, but that doesn’t fit what we are hearing on this end.   We have reported on many single Iraqi men getting into the US.  So, what is the truth?  Just the other day I reported on the Iraqi refugee who exposed himself and a few weeks back I wrote about two questionable Iraqi young men in the Bay area interviewed on a radio program (the volag representative even said they were resettling single men in California).

I also asked Ziad who was given resettlement priority. He replied that priority was given to; single females, the elderly, children separated from their parents or relatives, and family reunification.

Last, the blogger relates how Jordan is trying to push Iraqi refugees out of that country by imposing fines on those who stay too long.  According to the blogger this has pushed “hundreds of thousands” to Syria.  What the heck?  How come we haven’t heard about this?

Second option: if they choose to leave the fine would be waved. *This may account for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees who have left Jordan for Syria.

Where is Matthew Lee and all the rest of the biased and lazy mainstream media?

Vijay Kumar: biggest threat is demographic conquest

Vijay Kumar is an immigrant from India (see my earlier post here).  He is running for a seat in Congress from Tennessee, and more clearly than anyone I’ve ever heard says what the greatest threat to our way of life is:  demographic conquest by Islamic supremacists.   This is really at the heart of why I write this blog.   Yes, the whole refugee program and in fact our entire legal immigration program is a mess from top to bottom, but the core of what is wrong is our complete lack of any discrimination about who enters the US.  Our reverence for multiculturalism has completely blinded us.

Like Kumar, I grew up on the left, but came to see how the policies of the left were going to kill America.  See the entire interview with Kumar at Frontpage.   I couldn’t decide which portion of this incredible interview was the most important for you to see, this is the one I finally chose:

FP: Who are our enemies?

Kumar: I would say that the true axis of evil is Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan. These three have been the primary exporters of Jihadists throughout the world.

But the most important thing is that we have to admit that demographic conquest is the most permanent form of conquest. Therefore, we must support all nations currently struggling with radical Islamic footholds within their societies. The reality is that no place in the world where radical Islam has gained demographic dominance, has it ever been extricated. And it has been its goal for over 1400 years to aggressively spread and multiply by birth or by sword. America needs to openly face up to this reality.

The Islamists are clever. They begin by first exporting their surplus population to free and open societies. Then those immigrants begin to demand ideological tolerance and conformity to their views and then use the democratic process to change the laws. Then what laws they cannot change, is followed by civil disobedience, then unrest, then Jihad, but it was always Jihad even from the innocuous beginning.