California bank cuts off money transfers to Somalia, other African countries

05/19/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note: I’ve been away so hopefully will be able to catch up with the news in a bunch of short posts this morning.

“Somali pirate” greeted by Rep. Keith Ellison in forum to protect money transfer system to Africa. http://www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2014/05/actor-barkhad-abdi-joins-ellison-protect-money-transfer-system-somali-c

The banks (and the feds) fear, of course, that the money being sent from Mom & Pop money transfer companies will end up in the hands of terrorists.

You have to sign up to get the full story at Foreign Policy, but here is how the story begins thanks to blogger Michele Kearney:

Rules designed to keep money out of the hands of terrorists could soon cut off support to millions of ordinary East Africans too. Last week, another financial institution — Merchants Bank of California — started closing accounts belonging to companies that collect money from African immigrants in the United States and send it to Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and other African countries.

The money-transmitter companies function like smaller versions of Western Union and MoneyGram, but they can send money to far-flung African villages that the big guys don’t serve. They rely on banks to make the international wire transfers necessary to get the money there. It’s part of a worldwide system of informal financial transactions between residents of impoverished countries and the friends and relatives living abroad who regularly send them money. The World Bank estimates that immigrants will send home $436 billion this year.

Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison is one of the chief advocates for keeping the money flowing to Somalia. And, the more refugees we resettle, the more money that flows out in remittances to the third world.

Refugee lobbyists plan to bombard Congress during Refugee Advocacy Week; want more refugees and more money

05/19/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Refugee Council USA is the lobbying arm for the refugee contractors who might have to protect their non-profit status and their lucrative contracts from charges that they are lobbying Congress for themselves. News hat tip: Joanne.

Erol Kekic, a former Bosnian refugee employed by Church World Service, is the present director of the RCUSA, the contractors’ lobbying arm. http://lancasteronline.com/lifestyle/faith_and_values/refugee-resettlement-banquet-sept/article_3cce1f6f-ae59-5fb3-adc8-e727c17ad728.html?mode=jqm

If you were thinking ‘why bother’ sending comments to the US State Department and to your US Senators and Members of Congress for the fiscal year 2015 refugee plans (here), please, think again in light of the the fact that the “advocates” are really ginning-up this year for a big push!

I believe they have figured out that “pockets of resistance” are forming in cities and towns across America and they must now push Congress harder for what they want!

Before we give you their latest “advocacy” campaign for the week of June 2-6 in advance of World Refugee Day (June 20th), here are the members of RCUSA (the nine major federal contractors are in red, they get almost all of their funding from US taxpayers!):

Here is what they say on their “advocacy” (community organizing) page of their website about World Refugee Day advance work:

As we mark World Refugee Day on June 20, we invite you to join us in celebrating refugees’ courage in overcoming adversity and the many gifts they bring to our communities across the United States.

Together we can raise awareness about the need for improved policies and services to help refugees rebuild their lives in the United States. This year, we have designated June 2-6 as National Refugee Advocacy Week. Here are some actions you can take to help refugees in your community that week.

~Invite a policymaker to a World Refugee Day event in your area.

~Organize an in-district meeting with your members of Congress. Your Senators and Representatives will be in their local offices June 2-6, making it a great opportunity to meet with them to discuss important refugee policy and funding issues. Introduce them to a refugee!

~Call Congress to support refugee funding and legislation – and get others to join you

~Write a letter to your members of Congress encouraging support for refugees

For resources on how to carry out these advocacy action items and more advocacy ideas and tips, check out the Refugee Council USA’s 2014 World Refugee Day Advocacy Toolkit.

The toolkit is a great resource for you too! Learn about the bills they are promoting and the committees they are aiming their lobbying toward.

One of the Leftists’ favorite techniques is to tell “stories” (sweet stories only of course) about refugees. I’m thinking ‘what the heck!’ that is what we (at RRW) do too—tell stories about the programs problems and its cost, and the not-so-sweet stories (crimes, national security, cultural clashes) about refugees as well.

Aim our “advocacy” for restraint for the week of May 26-30!

So since they are aiming to bombard Congress for more money and more refugees during the Week of June 2-6, let’s aim our advocacy for the week of May 26-30 (especially as the State Department comment period ends May 29th). Since RCUSA has lobbyists and money (some of it yours!) they will surely outnumber our comments and phone calls, but let’s at least muddy the waters for members of Congress!

Check out our Ten Reasons for a Moratorium on Refugee Resettlement, here. We will be sending those to the US State Department, to Members of Congress and the Senate (especially to members of the key committees)!

RRW will be on vacation for a few days!

05/16/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you are a new reader and have just arrived here for the first time, below are some of the areas you can explore until we resume posting the latest news on Monday.

Check our “about” page.

Facts on how refugee resettlement works in America are here. See also ‘why we need a moratorium’ here.

Note the “top posts“ in the right hand sidebar and get an idea of what posts readers are most interested in.

See the categories in the left hand sidebar. Note especially for our readers worldwide that we have categories for Africa, Australia, Canada and Europe.

Have a look at the category entitled “where to find information” for reports, documents, statistics.

Our search function (upper left) works really well; type in a couple of key words and you will most likely find something. We have written 5,587 posts, so I use the ‘search’ daily myself. Warning! Don’t type ‘Somalis Minneapolis’ though unless you have all day to read!

The tags are pretty handy too, but we only started using them a couple of years ago and so posts going back to 2007 won’t appear.

I hope to be able to post comments while I’m away, but come on commenters!—I won’t post any threats, personal verbal attacks on other people (you are free to attack me! call me names if it makes you feel better!) or foul language!

Utah: Burmese Muslim refugee sentenced in brutal rape/murder of little girl

05/15/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Diversity is strength alert!

Esar Met got life in prison. You get to pay his tab for decades to come.

For long-time readers, Esar Met should be a familiar name. He was convicted of raping and murdering a fellow refugee—a little Christian girl—in the apartment complex where naive resettlement agency employees and the US State Department had placed him.

Right after the murder in 2008, it was not too difficult for a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune to discover that Met lived in a separate part of the same refugee camp as did his victim—Hser Ner Moo—for a reason!

Burmese Muslims and Christians do not mix in their home country and no one should be expecting them to “melt” into our American cultural stew either!

Besides that issue, Met clearly had mental problems back in the camp and for that reason alone should have been barred from entry into the US. So where was the highly touted “screening” we are always told precedes a refugees arrival in America?

I don’t have time to rehash this terrible story and the trial, so click here for everything we have on Met.

Now the taxpayers of Utah get to take care of him in prison for life!

From Fox13 (Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

SALT LAKE CITY — Insisting that he was innocent in the gruesome sexual assault and beating death of a 7-year-old girl, Esar Met was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

“I didn’t kill that girl. I don’t know who killed that girl,” Met told the judge through a Burmese interpreter.

Met, a Burmese refugee, reiterated his alibi and said he did not understand American laws when he was arrested in connection with the death of Hser Ner Moo. He said in his native country, law enforcement officers torture suspects and he feared the same would happen to him.

The medical examiner testified that she died in “excruciating pain” and her mother wonders if coming to America was the right thing to do.

Met was convicted of killing Hser Ner Moo, who vanished from her refugee family’s South Salt Lake apartment back in 2008, when she left home to play with friends. The next day, her body was found in the apartment Met shared with four others, in a basement shower stall.

In their own statements to Third District Court Judge Judith Atherton, Hser Ner Moo’s family said Met destroyed them. Hser’s mother, Pearlly Wah, told Met that since her daughter died her family “has never had any peace.”

“Maybe if I hadn’t come to this country, my daughter would still be alive,” she said, wiping tears and speaking through an interpreter. “This man, he was so brutal to my little girl.”

A jury deliberated for five hours in January before convicting Met of aggravated murder and child kidnapping. Prosecutors said the 7 year old was, “sexually assaulted, repeatedly beaten, strangled, had her arm bent and broken, and ultimately killed by a massive blow or blows to her chest.”

Can you imagine the cost of incarcerating this young Muslim for life! No doubt he will demand special religious accommodation.

So much for “welcoming” states with do-gooder-itis!

Ten reasons there should be a complete moratorium on refugee resettlement

05/15/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note: This (below) is the testimony I delivered (in person) to the US State Department in 2012 for it annual hearing to determine the “size and scope” of refugee admissions for the upcoming fiscal year. I submitted the same testimony in 2013 and will do the same this year. Since the ‘M’-word has been mentioned in two of our previous posts, here and here, I’m joining the chorus (again!).

Originally posted here in April 2012:

This is the comment I sent to the US State Department yesterday [two years ago—ed] to be included in their record of the May 1 meeting where mostly contractors and refugee advocates make a pitch to the State Department to resettle more refugees from this country, or that one, to the US in FY2013.

Ten Reasons there should be no refugees resettled in the US in FY2013—instead a moratorium should be put in place until the program is reformed and the economy completely recovers.

1) There are no jobs. The program was never meant to be simply a way to import impoverished people to the US and place them on an already overtaxed welfare system.

2) The program has become a cash cow for various “religious” organizations and other contractors who very often appear to care more about the next group of refugees coming in (and the cash that comes with each one) than the group they resettled only a few months earlier. Stories of refugees suffering throughout the US are rampant.

3) Terrorist organizations (mostly Islamic) are using the program that still clearly has many failings in the security screening system. Indeed consideration should be given to halting the resettlement of Muslims altogether. Also, the UN should have no role in choosing refugees for the US.

4) The public is not confident that screenings for potential terrorists (#3) or the incidences of other types of fraudulent entry are being properly and thoroughly investigated and stopped. When fraud is uncovered—either fraud to enter the country or illegal activity once the refugee has been resettled—punishment should be immediate deportation.

5) The agencies, specifically the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is in complete disarray as regards its legally mandated requirement to report to Congress every year on how refugees are doing and where the millions of tax dollars are going that run the program. The last (and most recent) annual report to be sent to Congress is the 2008 report—so they are out of compliance for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011.*** A moratorium is necessary in order for the ORR to bring its records entirely up-to-date. Additionally, there needs to be an adequate tracking system designed to gather required data—frankly some of the numbers reported for such measures of dependence on welfare as food stamp usage, cash assistance and employment status are nothing more than guesses. (The lack of reports for recent years signals either bureaucratic incompetence and disregard for the law, or, causes one to wonder if there is something ORR is hiding.)

6) The State Department and the ORR have so far failed to adequately determine and report (and track once the refugee has been admitted) the myriad communicable and costly-to-treat diseases entering the country with the refugee population.

7) Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government, especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.

8) Congress needs to investigate and specifically disallow any connection between this program and big businesses looking for cheap and captive labor. The federal government should not be acting as head-hunter for corporations.

9) The Volag system should be completely abolished and the program should be run by state agencies with accountability to the public through their state legislatures. The system as presently constituted is surely unconstitutional. (One of many benefits of turning the program over to a state agency is to break up the government/contractor revolving door that is being demonstrated now at both the State Department and ORR.) The participating state agency’s job would be to find groups, churches, or individuals who would sponsor a refugee family completely for at least a year and monitor those sponsors. Their job would include making sure refugees are assimilating. A mechanism should be established that would allow a refugee to go home if he or she is unhappy or simply can’t make it in America. Short of a complete halt to resettlement-by-contractor, taxpayers should be protected by legally requiring financial audits of contractors and subcontractors on an annual basis.

10) As part of #9, there needs to be established a process for alerting communities to the impending arrival of refugees that includes reports from the federal government (with local input) about the social and economic impact a certain new group of refugees will have on a city or town. This report would be presented to the public through public hearings and the local government would have an opportunity to say ‘no.’

For these reasons and more, the Refugee admissions program should be placed on hold and a serious effort made by Congress to either scrap the whole thing or reform it during the moratorium. My recommendation for ~~2013, 2014~~ 2015 is to stop the program now. The Office of the President could indeed ask for hearings to review the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980-–three decades is time enough to see its failings and determine if reauthorization is feasible or whether a whole new law needs to be written.

I suspect the major impediments to reform will be the contractors who make their living from the program (and use the refugees for political goals) and big business which has entwined itself with the federal agencies, the Volags and certain Members of Congress (on both sides of the political aisle) to keep the captive labor coming.

Please get your comments in to the US State Department for FY 2015, go here for instructions! You have only until May 29th. Be sure to ask for a copy of the complete public record (all of the testimony, everyone’s testimony!) to be sent to you. And again, the most important point of this exercise is to alert your US Senators and Members of Congress to your concerns.

***Hey, check it out! Progress! They are only two years out of compliance now! ORR still owes Congress reports for 2012 and 2013, but at least it isn’t 3 years!