Day: February 25, 2008

Odds are that Muslim refugees will end up in radical mosques in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Each year we admit thousands of Muslim refugees into the United States.    The top three Muslim sending countries are Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq, but we have accepted Muslim refugees from at least 77 countries.  The total number of Muslim refugees as of 2003 (5 years ago!) was already over 200,000 and they can all bring extended families.

Even if (big if!) all those Muslim immigrants arrive as so-called “moderates” the odds are good they will become radicalized here.   Preliminary findings reported at World Net Daily over the weekend reveal that 3 out of 4 mosques in America are teaching the most virulent form of Islam.

An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND has learned.

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The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.

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“So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist,” an official familiar with the project said.

State Dept. Press release: big bucks to the UN and others

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In a press release from the US State Department today we learned that we have dramatically increased aid payments to the United Nations and other “humanitarian” groups to help Iraqi displaced persons.

The U.S. Government has increased humanitarian assistance for displaced Iraqis from $43 million in 2006 to almost $200 million in the first half of 2008.

But, way at the bottom of the press release, the State Department tells us the number of interpreters that have been admitted to the US so far and how many are in the pipeline.   As the situation on the ground improves in Iraq, I don’t get why this many interpreters are so fearful.  Wouldn’t you think they would want to stay and help rebuild Iraq?  I’ll wager that somewhere down the line we find out that some of those fluent in English have nefarious motives for wanting to be in the US, just as those Judy reported on in Denmark not that long ago.

In FY 2007, 988 special immigrant visas were issued through the special admissions program for Iraqi translators and interpreters who assisted the United States. This number includes 526 principal applicants and 462 family members.

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So far in FY 2008, through January 31, 2008, 507 special immigrant visas were issued through the special admissions program for Iraqi translators and interpreters who assisted the United States. This number includes 247 principal applicants and 260 family members.

The last lines in the press release refer to the Kennedy bill which recently became law.

New legislation will permit up to 5,000 Iraqi principal applicants working under Chief of Mission authority who are in immediate danger, to apply for special immigrant visas. Procedures for processing those applications are currently in interagency development.

More on Erie, PA and the International Institute

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is sort of an update, but really should have been the preview to the post I wrote last week about the firing (dismissal, resignation or whatever) of the International Institute of Erie director.    Last week I posted on a news report from Erie that the director had been fired for misusing funds and escorted from the non-profit’s offices by Peter Limon of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).  The International Institute is USCRI’s subcontractor.

However, this article from a week earlier says that the director, Mr. O’Brien, had already resigned and the article reveals that the Institute had been in financial trouble for some time.

He stepped in at a difficult time. The institute’s last executive director, Michael Murnock, had resigned in March, saying at the time he did so to save the institute his $55,000 annual salary. The International Institute then was in financial trouble; in 2006, it had a budget of $1.4 million, according to federal tax forms.

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The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a Washington, D.C.-based aid agency, took over management of the institute in February. However, a formal agreement to merge the two organizations has been delayed. The merger originally was expected to be in September.

Although they have been short on funds that isn’t stopping them from bringing hundreds more refugees to Erie.   They will keep bringing refugees as long as the city and its citizens are “welcoming” and don’t say a word.  But, it’s this business of bringing in hundreds of refugees on a shoestring budget that gets these organizations in trouble as its sister organization in Connecticut has recently demonstrated.

The number of refugees settling in Erie is up. The institute accepted 200 refugees in 2007, including families from Myanmar, Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa. In October, O’Brien said that number would rise to 300 in 2008.

Then it strikes me as extremely strange that the guy, Director O’Brien,  who was helping to find more taxpayer money for these non-profits and who has helped the Institute work together with other Erie non-profits despite being competitors for tax dollars in refugee procurement, is getting the boot by being unceremoniously led from the office by an USCRI bigwig from Washington.

His departure shocked the directors of other local refugee programs. O’Brien had met regularly with them to draft a state grant application that would expand refugee services in Erie County. The measure would add family counseling and a shuttle between the institute and the Hispanic American Council.

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The groups once had a contentious relationship. O’Brien improved it, said Joel Tuzynski, the executive director of the Hispanic American Council.

The bigwig, Peter Limon (any relation to Lavinia Limon the CEO?), is not listed as an employee of USCRI either on its website or its Form 990.  So, what’s up with that?   If any reader knowledgeable about the situation would fill me in on what is going on in Erie, e-mail me at Ann@vigilantfreedom.com, I would really appreciate it.   If you want to tell another side of this story, please speak up.

Expert responds to Nashville news about more refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you in two posts last week (here and here) that Nashville, TN would soon have more refugees in a city already experiencing severe problems with the ‘joys’ of multicultural immigration.

National expert on Refugee Resettlement, Don Barnett,  himself a resident of Tennessee, weighed in yesterday in the Tennessean on this latest inititative in an opinion piece entitled, “Refugee resettlement making someone rich.”  

After citing facts about refugee resettlement and the amount of welfare useage among refugees, he says what we have said here too, that non-profit church groups collecting taxpayer funds are driving refugee resettlement.

This program would end tomorrow if the refugee resettlement agencies such as Catholic Charities were required to use their own resources to keep it going. At one time refugee resettlement was the work of organizations practicing true sacrificial charity. Unfortunately, the resettlement agencies have morphed into profit-driven federal contractors.

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Naturally, they and their parent organizations have a huge incentive to advocate for resettlement to the U.S. as a solution to the world’s refugee problem.

Mr. Barnett has been researching and writing on this topic for nearly two decades.

Latest on Lionheart

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you have been following the case of the British blogger, Lionheart, who got in trouble for posting information on his blog about drug dealing immigrants in his home town of Luton, UK, you can get the latest update on his request for asylum in the US at Us or Them blog here.  Listen in on the phone conversation between Lionheart and the police.

We think this is a critical free speech case that should be followed closely by all who value the most important pillar of western society.   Creeping Sharia law in the UK promoted by the large Muslim immigrant population and what appears a wholesale cave-in by the native Britons is forcing people like Lionheart to seek refuge in America.

See our earlier posts on this issue here.