Category: Ethnic Community Based Organizations

You pay for refugee “community organizing”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I haven’t mentioned ECBOs in awhile but noticed a week or so ago that they were still busy and being funded by you.

By the way, I’m going away without computer for a few days so this will be my last post until maybe Monday.  Also I won’t be able to post your comments until then.

Back to ECBOs—Ethnic Community Based Organizations. We have a whole category I started sometime back on these mini-ACORNS. [Remember ACORN, Obama, Wade Rathke and the Breitbart bust?—ed].  They are community organizing groups that you fund with your tax money and they organize their “ethnic” groups in various cities across the US.

Last week I told you about the ECBO “Somali Community Center” in Nashville which became the “Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee” presumably because they got into grant trouble under the old name and they wanted to look more “inclusive,” but it’s still headed by Somalis.

Here is what the Office of Refugee Resettlement says about ECBO’s:

This program provides assistance to refugee community based organizations and other groups that address community building, facilitate cultural adjustment and integration of refugees, and deliver mutually supportive functions such as information exchange, civic participation, resource enhancement, orientation and support to newly arriving refugees (and other refugees that maybe in need of such assistance regardless of their resettlement date) and public education to the larger community on the background, needs and potential of refugees. In short, the purpose is to promote community organizing that builds bridges between newcomer refugee communities and community resources.

As regards to the first part of that statement, one might wonder if it wasn’t the job of the Volags in the first place to help refugees adjust and integrate.  Surely community colleges could do that too through English language programs.  And, I’m not sure why we need to spend money on public education to teach Americans what the refugees need (again, isn’t that the job of the agency that has chosen your city as a resettlement site)?

Of course, the “civic participation” part is about getting them ready to vote and in the meantime teaching immigrants how to demonstrate and make demands.

But, it’s that last line that is so telling—it’s about teaching refugees to tap into the wide variety of social welfare programs we now have in place.  It’s teaching them how to get their stuff!

Go here and check out the list of those ECBOs being funded with your tax dollars.

Seattle Somalis suspended by Hertz for praying on company time…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and the Somali spokesman is paid for by you—the taxpayer!  What a racket!

Hertz had an agreement with the EEOC that Muslims would clock out to pray, but many refused.   Always pushing, pushing, pushing—that is the stealth jihad.  BTW, seventy per cent of Hertz shuttle-bus drivers at the Seattle-Tacoma airport are Somali Muslims (silly Hertz, really silly!).

From the Seattle Times:

In the three years she’s worked as a shuttle driver for Hertz at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Zainab Aweis, had always taken time out of her shift each day to pray.

An observant Muslim, she prays five times a day — with one, sometimes two of those prayer times falling during her shift.

“That was the one benefit of the job,” the 20-year-old*** said.

On Friday, she and 33 other drivers — all of them Somali Muslims — were suspended indefinitely from their jobs after they took religious breaks to pray while at work without first clocking out.

A spokesman for Teamsters Local 117, which represents the workers, said it is trying to get the workers back on the job.

Both the company and the union late Thursday said they were waiting to hear back from the other.

While the drivers were allowed two, 10-minute breaks during their work shifts during which they could pray, Teamsters officials said managers had agreed in negotiations that workers would not have to clock out and in, though the contract itself does not address the matter.

And the workers and their union said Hertz had previously not required that workers clock out for prayer. The union said it has filed an unfair-labor-practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against Hertz for failing to notify the union in advance of what it called a policy change.

But Hertz said the rules aren’t new; that it had been trying for some time to enforce the terms of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settlement it reached with the workers two years ago that required them to clock out.

A Hertz spokesman said the workers had been repeatedly told they needed to clock out and that the 34 suspended workers had not complied.

To add insult to injury, you pay the salary of the Somali mouthpieces.

Mohamed Hassan, of the Somali Community Services Coalition, said the workers cannot afford to be away from their jobs. “They need to pay rent and buy food for their children.”

I’ve reported previously about Ethnic Community Based Organizations (they are called ECBOs in government mumbo-jumbo language)—-we have a whole category on ECBOs here.   You can think of these organizations as mini-ACORNs geared specifically to particular ethnic groups.  The Somali Community Services Coalition is an ECBO.  They are funded almost exclusively by you!  Then they teach their people how to access social service benefits and get jobs and if a political issue arises the mainstream media runs to them first for comment (as they have done here).

I just checked the Somali Community Services Coalition’s most recent Form 990, here.  Although the IRS has changed the forms making it extremely hard sometimes to find the government share of an organizations income, it appears that this ECBO had an income of $282,830 that comes from government grants (federal for sure and probably some local or state grants).   They paid out $193,363 in salaries ($40,000 plus of that went to an EX-director) and another $22,500 in some sort of contractor payment and $46,389 in rent (probably some inside deal with a landlord there too!).

Note that over $100,000 of their income in 2009 came from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, here.

So what did you pay for?  You paid for a political mouthpiece organization.

*** Check out the strict driving requirements for teen drivers in Washington State, here.  How on earth has she been driving a shuttle bus for three years if she is only 20 now?

Portland, ME Somalis want non-citizens to have voting rights

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story I found more than a week ago, but haven’t gotten around to posting until now (cleaning out my queue before going away for a few days).

Buried in an article about yet another Somali Ethnic Community Based Organization (mini-ACORNS) forming in Maine, we learn that Somali community organizers are pushing for the right to vote for non-citizens.

By the way, the reason these Somali ECBO’s* keep popping up is that Somalis have brought their clan conflicts to American and they can’t get along with each other.  You can see by the tone of the critics of the latest political organizing group that is pretending to be a place for the youth to learn English and keep out of trouble.

From Maine Public Broadcasting Network:

According to the state, Portland’s Somali population now stands at around 5,000. Over the last decade a handful of grassroots groups have cropped up to support that community. But a new group IS aspiring to overcome funding and political challenges to be the largest and most comprehensive of them all, and serve as the voice for the Somali community in its adopted city.

“The most important goal we have is to unify the community,”> said Mahmoud Hassan.

He is helping to lead the brand-new Somali Community Resource Center as vice-chairman of the board. The plan is to hold English and citizenship classes in a space newly-leased on Forest Avenue, to mentor troubled youth, and help people apply for jobs. But leaders also want to use the center to encourage more political participation, to use it as a place.

“Where you can get the word out in terms of what’s happening around us, what they can do to effect the political process, not only in the local level but also statewide and federal level,” Hassan said.

It seems so incredible to me to learn recently that here in Maryland, in Takoma Park the center of the socialist state of Maryland, non-citizens can vote in local elections.  Looks like someone is now teaching Somalis to go for that same idea in Portland.

The past year has seen a spike in political engagement by Portland’s Somali community. Somalis were on the forefront of a campaign to allow non-citizens to vote in city elections. Mohammed Dini, one of the leaders of that campaign, also ran for a state representative seat.

TB in Lewiston

Possibly related story in Lewiston, ME—a high school student has an active case of TB and now there will be a special meeting of parents and students who have had contact with him.  No word on the nationality of the student.

* Learn more about ECBOs which often get taxpayer funding and are community organizing outfits like ACORN but for immigrants—they teach their people how to get taxpayer-funded goodies and then get them engaged in Democrat Party politics in our category on ECBOs here.

Somalis bring their clan squabbles to Kansas for all to see

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Honestly, I don’t want to re-name this blog Somali Refugee Watch but every day, every few hours! I get another story about some Somali problem somewhere in the US.  This one, from a reader in Kansas, draws us to a little publicized issue involving Somalis—they are tribal, and they are now bringing their clan squabbles to your town.

How would you like to take the kids to the park on Saturday morning in middle America and find Somali clans squabbling in the park?  

Sure looks like that is happening in Garden City, KS.  If you ever wondered why Somalis can’t govern themselves in Africa, this story from the Garden City Telegram will give you a hint!

Holding signs of protest and discussing leadership in Garden City, a group of Somalis on Saturday called for the closing of the center of Somalis of Southwest Kansas, saying the leaders cater only to certain groups and tribes of Somali people.

About 40 Somalis rallied Saturday in Stevens Park in downtown Garden City.

Organizers of the protest, Said Yousuf and Faysal Ahmed, said they felt some Somalis are welcome at the center, some are not. They said the problem is dividing the people. Ahmed said the reason for the divide is that the center isn’t welcoming those in certain tribes. The men don’t want to have to deal with that treatment because it’s what they escaped from in conflict-torn Somalia.

One group of protesters wants the present “community” center closed and a new one created.  

In order for all Somalis to be welcome at a community center, Ahmed and Yousuf called for the closing of the center organized by the Somalis of Southwest Kansas. They said it would be impossible to have an inclusive center without closing the current one.

I’ve written about these Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOs)* on many previous occasions, I even wrote about this one in Garden City previously, here.  The federal government—the Office or Refugee Resettlement—is encouraging, with grant money, the growth of these litte ACORN-like ethnic groups.  It is part of the Far Left’s community organizing model.

In my view ECBOs create ethnic tension in cities when they selectively help THEIR PEOPLE get government goodies.  In this case the Somalis have taken the tension one step further by suggesting this likely taxpayer-funded group helps one clan over another.

Look at what the wimps at the “cultural relations board” have to say—we will help dialog, but we can’t judge who is right and wrong. Of course not—we can’t judge other cultures, and we all know that diversity is beautiful afterall.

“The city and its cultural relations board are aware of the disagreement in the Somali community. We have talked with those who are disgruntled with Somali community leaders. Their issues are interpersonal and not related to local governmental functions. Nonetheless, we are interested in helping the two groups resolve their problems. We have expressed to both sides our willingness to convene a meeting to improve the dialog. It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to identify who’s wrong or who’s right in this private matter. And even if it was, we don’t know enough about it to render that kind of opinion.”

Here is an idea—take away ALL PUBLIC FUNDING for groups like these.   Tell them this is America and they can form all the private groups their hearts desire, and they can work out their conflicts within the confines of the law and the US Constitution and they needn’t draw in the wusses at the “cultural relations board” to mediate.

* See our whole category on ECBOs, here.

St. Cloud, MN update: refugees now arriving there directly from camps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have written a lot about the problems with refugees, mostly Somalis, in St. Cloud, MN over the last year or so (use our search function for St. Cloud).  Now it appears that St. Cloud is no longer a city of secondary migration (refugees resettle elsewhere but then move to where jobs and welfare are better or where family members are located), but is now a direct resettlement site.

This is information provided to the St. Cloud Times by SASSO (St. Cloud Area Somali Salvation Organization).  SASSO is an ECBO (Ethnic Community Based Organization).  They are like little ACORNS except that they are based around ethnic groups.  ECBOs help ‘their ethnic group’ tap into welfare programs and other public services and then also serve as the political activism arm for ‘their community.’  See our ECBO category here.

I told you all about SASSO and community agitation, here, back in April of this year.

From today’s St. Cloud Times:

We [SASSO] were able to resettle about 40 primary refugees to the area. In the housing area, we provide that service for them.

It took from August to September. We provided housing and financial startup.

They were the first group that came directly from refugee camps to St. Cloud. They came from camps in Yemen, from camps in Ethiopia, from camps in Egypt. They were mostly Somalis, and they came from Iraq.

We were working together with the Lutheran Social Service of St. Cloud. They were the anchor agency that brought them here ….

Note that in my previous post this morning it was a Lutheran Social Services subcontractor that got the boot in North Carolina.

Get ready St. Cloud—more refugees on the way from camps!

There will be more refugees coming to this area. We have an estimation of 100 cases.

Readers, read the rest of the group profile at the St. Cloud Times and note who is funding SASSO, a list that includes banks.  What is up with that?    For more on SASSO be sure to read that post I wrote back in April.  I wonder does Rep. Michelle Bachmann fully understand what is going on in her district?   Visit her website, here, and note she has just been assigned a seat on the House Intelligence Committee.  Great!  She can get to work on intelligence in her St. Cloud-centered district!