Month: August 2008

“System breakdown” in Fort Wayne, IN: too many refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I can’t say I’m surprised.   The lid is finally blowing off the Ft. Wayne refugee resettlement program, so who didn’t see this coming?    We started reporting to you last September (Ft. Wayne freaking out) that Ft. Wayne was completely overloaded with refugees.  But, apparently some officials like the head of the Family and Social Services Administration now claim they are surprised.

“The people at Catholic Charities didn’t alert me to the fact there (were) going to be this many (refugees). I’m not a clairvoyant,” he said. “Very honestly, we used to get a couple of dozen (refugees) and now we’re getting hundreds.”

What the heck?  We live in Maryland and we knew you were getting swamped.  At an estimated 4000-5000, Ft. Wayne has the largest Burmese population of any city in the US.  More come each year as existing families sponsor more relatives.  Family reunification is the largest segment of legal immigration to the US.

Read the article today at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel where everyone is pointing fingers at everyone else as hundreds of Burmese arrive and are going hungry.

Who’s in charge here? That’s the question newly arrived Burmese refugees, their advocates and agencies are asking.

Refugees want to know where are their services:

They’re waiting months to receive state- and federally funded benefits that formerly took two weeks, on average, to get. Non-refugees applying for government assistance face the same problems, but people seeking political, social or religious asylum — like the estimated 800 from Burma coming to Fort Wayne this year — arrive with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Refugees are given up to eight months of Medicaid benefits, food stamps and cash assistance. Some have blamed the slowdown on the modernization of the state’s welfare system, though a top state official professed to be unaware Fort Wayne was getting a large influx of refugees.

“What are they to do if they have no cash, no Medicaid, no food stamps?” [Indeed!]

How about if Catholic Charites gets on the horn and starts to find private help and funding.  Afterall, private citizens in Waterbury, CT are taking care of their Burmese when the volag let them down.  Catholic Charities also has a contract with the State Department to supply basic needs for the refugees when they arrive—including furniture, clothes and transportation to medical care.   And, how about if the State Department begins to take charge of these out-of-control volags who are willy-nilly bringing refugees to cities that have clearly reached their capacity.

Here is what one commenter named Rex had to say about this news:

I am sick and tired the Burmese sad story! The idiots that brought all the refugees here should have thought it through before dumping 1000 uneducated, non english speaking, diesease ridden people, with no clue about this society onto the laps of Fort Wayne residents. What the hell did you think was going to happen? Then you have audacity to bitch and moan when FREE services just aren’t fast enough. Maybe it is taking a long time because they are not LEGAL U.S. resident’s. Foot the bill yourselves you flipping morons!

Earth to US State Department:  your program is in trouble here!

For more information, just type “Ft. Wayne” into our search function and you will get pages of posts we’ve done on that city (be sure to check out the Bosnians with AK-47’s and the TB stories too).

Illegal aliens in Malta get US State Department tea party send-off

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of our faithful readers keeps asking me if we are in Alice in Wonderland.   Yup, Jim we are—tea party included.

We have written before about the tiny island nation of Malta and how illegal aliens from Africa arrive there by the thousands in boats every year, and are magically transformed into refugees (with all the perks) by our State Department and whisked off to a city near you.   But a tea party send-off!  From The Times of Malta:

… the mood at the US Ambassador’s residence in Attard, where the interview took place, is one of hope and optimism. Together with other refugees, Mr Isman is surrounded by his four children and second wife.

The siblings are happily playing with other young Somalis and Eritreans as well as Ambassador Molly Bordanaro’s children at a tea party held in honour of the group of refugees who will be leaving shortly for the US.

Welcoming the immigrants to ‘America’, Ms Bordonaro said she was proud to be hosting the Somalis and Eritreans at her residence and that they could soon complete the process of becoming US citizens.

In this lengthy article the Somali illegal alien describes how he planned to get into the European Union and travelled across Africa with his goal to ultimately reach Malta.  He hit the jackpot when he was admitted to the US.

He is also well aware that tiny Malta continues to grapple with more immigrant arrivals. Statistics show that nearly 2,000 illegal immigrants landed on the island this year, an all-time record.  [Edit: tiny island is struggling because the word is out, get to Malta and a plane ticket to US].

As with all asylum seekers who arrive in an EU state, Mr Isman was left virtually in limbo because to the Dublin Convention, which only permits immigrants to apply for refugee status in the first country they land on.

Mr Isman had no choice but to make ends meet and harbour the frustration until one day he realised his dream was turning into reality – together with his family, he was one of those selected for the US’s refugee resettlement programme with Malta.

He is on his way to Colorado where he says there are lots of “black people.”

Starting his journey to Colorado this week, he is hopeful that he will find it easy to integrate as there are “many more black people”.

I guess Ambassador Bordonaro forgot to inform him that American blacks and Somali immigrants aren’t getting along too well these days—no tea parties here.   And, by the way, check out the photo of Isman at the Times article, he doesn’t even look Somali, what is up with that?  Looks more like an Arab to me, or as a reader just suggested an Egyptian.

Use our search function to learn more about Malta.

Somalis in Pittsburgh: kids will be kids

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I know, I just wrote a post this morning and said I wasn’t writing about Somalis today, but this article is a good companion article to this morning’s post and to the Lewistown post of just a few days ago so I couldn’t resist.

“When we first came in here, we didn’t get along with nobody,” said Fatuma Muya, 14, who was born in a Kenyan refugee camp and looks after the group’s younger children. “Now, we get along, at least, with somebody.”  [at least its somebody].

Somali kids seem to be the same all over!  Remember the Somali kids were having problems in Roanoke, VA too.  This article in the Tribune-Review says things are going along swimmingly now.

This statement is incorrect however.

The refugees came to Pittsburgh as part of a U.S. State Department program to relocate about 11,000 Somalis throughout the United States.

The number resettled is now over 80,000.  There were some years following 911 that the number was 11,000,or nearly that much, in a single year.   I really must pull all the numbers together, I’ve been saying that for weeks.

If you would like to check numbers yourselves, go here and follow links.

Pittsburgh area school district needs money for refugee program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

Just so readers don’t think all we do is write about the titillating issues involving refugees, or that this blog has become Somali Watch, here is a story from the “welcoming” Pittsburgh, PA area.   School administrators there were hoping for a federal grant to cope with the large number of refugee children in the Baldwin-Whitehall school district.

Assistant superintendent of secondary education John Wilkinson said there are about 130 refugee students in the district, with 40 students in the high school and 90 in the elementary schools.

“It’s our legal and moral responsibility to do what we can for our children,” Korchnak said. “Regardless of the type of student, we need to make sure their needs are met and reach as many of them as possible.”

The district may not be getting the federal grant (your tax dollars) it was counting on for a new program for refugee and immigrant children.

Baldwin-Whitehall administrators are adding a new facet to their refugee assistance program, though federal grant funding could be in jeopardy.

The Student Success Center at Baldwin High School is funded through the Refugee Children School Impact Assistance Grant, which gives the district about $60,000 a year to offer programs for refugees.

It’s typically distributed by August, but Baldwin-Whitehall officials have yet to see the funding this year.

When refugees come to your “welcoming” community, they often come with what legislators call “unfunded mandates”, in other words the local government is legally responsible even if they have had no say in what the federal government drops in their laps.

Here is what the National Governor’s Association said in a policy statement in 2007:

If the federal government is unwilling to sufficiently fund the necessary services, then it is incumbent upon the federal government to decrease the flow of refugee admissions. Under no circumstances should there be any further shift of costs to state and local governments.

You know what is even worse, the US State Department isn’t picking cities for resettlement its a gang of non-profit groups (volags) sitting around a conferance table and deciding which cities are “welcoming”.

News is jumbled (on purpose?) in the Denver Somali cyanide death

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update August 28th:   Guess you have noticed this story is being buried, but according to this report one radio talk show host in Denver hasn’t let it go.

‘Jumbled’ is the word used in a headline at the Denver Post on the updated story Friday in the Somali cyanide death.  Our first report is here.   But, who is doing the jumbling and why?   Sure looks like we have a Somali Jesse Jackson mucking around.  Before I tell you who that is, here is what we know.

* A Canadian Somali with no known connection to Denver is found dead in a hotel room with a jar of cyanide, enough to kill hundreds according to reports.

* The Denver police are falling all over themselves to say that the investigation is on-going but they have no reason to suspect terrorism.  This from a new story by Fox News (Hat tip:  Jerry Gordon).

“We don’t think it’s any act of terrorism,” Sonny Jackson [LOL! not the Jackson I had in mind!], a spokesman for the Denver Police Department, told FOXNews.com. “We have no reason to believe it was. Nobody knows what was in this gentleman’s mind.”

* But…..the Denver Police have no explanation for how or why the feds are involved:

Jackson declined to elaborate on why the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force got involved in the case.

* The Democratic National Convention opens on Tuesday in Denver.   (Here is a thought, how bad would America look in the eyes of the Muslim world if something should happen to BHO and his friends?]

* According to family members Saleman Abdirahman Dirie had psychological problems but was taking his medicine and seemed fine.

Now, here is what jumped out at me from this “jumbled” story.  Why the heck is the head of the Somali Justice Center of St. Paul, MN involved in all this?   Note in these two stories here and here, that Omar Jamal is manipulating the news.  He doesn’t know Diri, a Canadian, but is yakking it up with Diri’s family and being quoted authoritatively that Diri was not involved in terrorism, that he was just a schizo, and the lazy mainstream media reporters eat it up!

An advocacy group for Somali immigrants cautioned against linking Dirie to terrorism. [note: Fox News doesn’t name Jamal, but the other links I provided above do.]

The Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn., said Thursday that connecting Dirie’s death to terrorism “is a rush to judgment.”

So why am I calling Omar Jamal the Somali Jesse Jackson?    I’ve only been writing this blog for a year and his name has come up twice already.  First he defended the Somali hallway rapist in this story and more recently was involved in “helping” the police to sort out the Somali gangs in the Minneapolis area here.    He is a busy guy, busy getting in the news (and jumbling it?).

And, for all you lapdog reporters who are quoting him as an authority, did you ever do a little googling?  In 2003 he was arrested on charges he lied to get into the US and was facing prison or deportation. 

The federal government has charged Minnesota Somali activist Omar Jamal with violating immigration rules. The Homeland Security Agency has detained him in the Washington County jail. Jamal also faces criminal charges for the same allegations — that he lied to the government to get into the country. Jamal could face deportation or prison, depending on the outcome of the government’s case against him.

I wonder how he is walking free to be an authority on all things Somali and be the go-to guy for the mainstream media?   Does anyone know?

Update within minutes, thanks to Rebecca!  He was convicted here, but he is still a free man.

Update:  Another reader reports that Jamal is the uncle to a Canadian Somali indicted for giving material support to Al-Queda in 2003 here.

More on Jamal:  LOL!  Authors Brown and Coon writing at Frontpage Magazine in 2003 called him the “Al Sharpton of the Twin Cities’ Somali community” here.  Great minds think alike!

P.S. to our Tennessee readers, note that Omar (Jesse Jackson) Jamal was first in Memphis.