Month: October 2008

Rep Keith Ellison asks Somali immigrants to vote for Al Franken

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of two Members of Congress who are Muslim,  Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) is rallying the Somali refugee and immigrant community to back Al Franken in his run for the Senate seat from Minnesota.

Mr. Ellison noted that his “1st two years in the congress was just to set the foundations” but that he is now experienced and can move things forward. “I need more friends in the senate and congress … honestly, we are in a good shape this time but I need you to help me get Al Franken elected to the senate” he said.

On the other hand, Rep. Keith Ellison told the crowd that “Sen. Norm Coleman voted with President Bush almost always and that he hasn’t done anything to advance peace in the Middle East or Somalia.”

The article emphasizes that Ellison and presumably Franken if elected will get the US government to do something for Somalia, but frankly I can’t imagine what the US could do to stop the mayhem in that lawless country.  Remember Black Hawk Down!

Funny, it was just a month ago that the Somali community was organizing to support Norm Coleman against Franken.  Fickle are they?

IRC’s Rupp says they are headed to South Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I knew it!   The Refugee Resettlement Industry is going to soon agitate to bring refugees from South Africa to the US.   It is one thing if the International Rescue Committee works in a country, but it usually follows that they press for refugees to be resettled in the US. 

In that same interview in which Rupp says they are working with the Presidential campaigns to get more money in the next Administration, Rupp says they are headed to South Africa.  This is in response to a question about how do they decide what countries to focus on:

We have emergency response teams, so [in] any conflict-generated emergency we will almost certainly be present because that’s what we do. We don’t ordinarily do natural disasters. By and large our specialty is conflict-generated emergencies. We always have a handful of countries. We’re probably going to go into South Africa to work with Zimbabwean refugees. There are huge numbers of Zimbabweans; the country is in free fall.

It is not clear from this if he is saying Zimbabwee is in free fall or South Africa, but from what we’ve seen in our reporting on South Africa, I would say South Africa qualifies for the “free fall” category too!

As the Rainbow Nation implodes, Somalis in South Africa are pushing for resettlement in the West.   See our category on Africa.

IRC’s Rupp says they want more taxpayers’ money, working with campaigns

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

George Rupp, President of the International Rescue Committee traveled recently to Boise, Idaho to visit their newest satellite office.  In an interview with the Boise Weekly he told the reporter how he came to leave his job as President of Columbia University because he needed to satisfy his activist streak.

I had been president of Columbia [University]. I was 58, and it was a good time for a transition. And so, to the shock of the trustees, I announced I was going to leave my position. I loved higher education and scholarly work and writing books and all those things, but I had always been kind of restless and an activist, and I was looking for something that was a little closer to the ground.

I’m guessing though that he didn’t take much of a pay cut to be an activist.  We reported previously that he is paid in the mid $300,000 range.  That was in 2005, it’s probably higher now.

I’ll bet there is some tension in Boise with all the refugees resettled there in recent years, or otherwise there wouldn’t have been this pow-wow that Rupp attended.  Meetings like this one don’t usually happen if everything is going along swimmingly.  It is amazing how the choice of words makes it all sound like a lovefest.

We had a lunch with representatives from the governor’s office, the mayor’s office, the school system, police, a couple of health clinics. These people were all really engaged in trying to figure out how to make sure that it worked having refugees resettled in Boise.

We have been noticing an uptick in stories about how strapped the volags (supposedly voluntary organizations) are, and how they can’t make ends meet, so this is revealing.   These government contractors are already working with both Presidential campaigns to get more money out of you, the taxpayer—you know, to spread the wealth!

We’ve already been working very hard with both campaigns to restructure the whole resettlement program. The resettlement program that the State Department runs is grotesquely underfunded. There’s been no increase in the last 10 years, and the populations we’re resettling have greater needs.

I have loads of ideas on how to “restructure the whole resettlement program” and it involves more private charity as the top agenda item.   And, it needs to be more discriminating about who is invited to resettle in the US.  And, it needs to take into account the economic and social conditions of the community in which they are to drop-off refugees.   And, as for dropping off refugees, they need individual sponsors to take care of them for years if necessary.  And….

Maybe I can talk to the campaigns too!

We’ve written a lot about problems in Boise, so just type “Boise” in our search function for more information.

Naples! Nepal! Somalis wanted the former and got the latter!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Somali illegal immigrants in Nepal are protesting and say they were tricked by human traffickers.  They thought they were being taken to Naples (Italy!) and instead were dropped off in Nepal.   Nepal, which has recently managed to get a US promise to take 60,000 Bhutanese off their hands, is trying to figure out what to do with the Somalis.  From the BBC:

Somali refugees living in Nepal have been demonstrating in the capital Kathmandu to gain official recognition by the government. [Must be recognition of refugee status.]

They say their lives are miserable because they are not allowed to work and are threatened with heavy fines if they try to leave the country.

Many of the Somalis say they were tricked into coming to Nepal by people traffickers in Mogadishu.

Some say they were told they were being flown to the Italian city of Naples.

The government says it is aware of the refugees and is discussing what to do about them.

Of course, these Somalis would have been illegal immigrants to Italy too, and that country is having its problems with African lawbreakers.

I bet you anything the government of Nepal asks the US to take them.  What the heck, 60 or 70 Somalis is nothing slipped in with the 60,000 Bhutanese.    

If you think that sounds crazy, just a reminder we have taken Somali illegal aliens from Malta.  It is not so farfetched an idea.

Refugee flow expected to slow in Ohio this year

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

So, as I just said in my previous post, North Dakota is looking for more refugees this fiscal year, while Ohio isn’t.  Seems a downturn in the economy, and a reduction in state spending for welfare is making Ohio less attractive as a refugee magnet.  (But, don’t ask me what North Dakota has to offer in the way of jobs!).

Educated Iraqis are among those going to Ohio, but as we have pointed out on many previous occasions they are not finding jobs that are commensurate with their training.  See our Iraqi category for the many posts on unhappy Iraqis.  From the Columbus Dispatch:

The flow of refugees being resettled in central Ohio seems to be slowing, and the newest arrivals will include some who are well-educated and speak fluent English.

The class of 2009 includes Iraqis who became political targets in their homelands after helping U.S. forces, perhaps as translators.

One thing remains unchanged: In Ohio, “Franklin County is, by far, the largest county for handling refugees,” said Douglas E. Lumpkin, the county’s human-services director.

But, he noted, “We are seeing a slowdown.”

The U.S. State Department has told Franklin County Job and Family Services to expect 515 refugees between now and September 2009.

That’s less than half of the 1,215 refugees the county was told to expect this year, or the 1,110 anticipated in 2007. Not all those refugees actually showed up, shaping a more-realistic federal estimate for 2009 resettlements.

Ohio didn’t get all the anticipated Africans last year because of the rampant fraud found in the Refugee Resettlement program in Africa.

Paul Fraunholtz, deputy director of the Ohio Job and Family Services family-stability office, keeps an eye on trends in the urban counties that absorb refugees.

Last year at this time, Franklin County was told to expect 1,095 African refugees. With a quarter of the year yet to go, he found that 182 actually showed up.

“What played out was that U.S. government officials started scrutinizing Africans who were being resettled claiming family reunification,” he said. “They’re actually doing DNA testing now” to determine whether they’re really part of the same family.

The new policy slowed the flow that, since 1999, has brought more than 5,200 Somali refugees from Africa to Ohio. Other Somalis have moved here to join friends or relatives after arriving in other parts of the United States.

Yup, and I bet all those Somalis who slipped in before the DNA testing got underway are now registered to vote for Obama!