Month: April 2009

Salt Lake City: Refugee gang violence continues

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I say “continues” because according to this report in the Salt Lake Tribune, law enforcement in Utah has been dealing with gangs that include refugees since the ’70’s.    First it was Asians such as Vietnamese and Cambodians, later Bosnians (remember the 2007  mall killings by a Bosnian refugee) and now it’s Iraqis and Somalis.  I didn’t know that this was a big issue in Salt Lake City, although we have  previously chronicled gang violence involving Somalis in Minneapolis (here) and Seattle (here).

We follow the news fairly closely and so I was especially shocked to see that this report opens with a description of the shooting death of an Iraqi refugee who had opened fire in a public place just this past January.    Did this make the national news?

After 19-year-old Hussein Al-Rekabi opened fire into a crowd at a downtown nightclub in January, a mob of his angry relatives screamed death threats at officers who responded.

A Salt Lake City police officer shot and killed Al-Rekabi, who had ignored a command to stop and injured two bystanders near Club Bliss at 404 S. West Temple around 1:15 a.m. on Jan. 24.

Al-Rekabi’s family includes documented members of an Iraqi gang, Detective Nate Clark of the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office Metro Gang Unit said Thursday.

At the shooting, “It was ‘You guys are dead.’ But also, ‘Get out of our country and leave our oil alone,'” Clark said Thursday at the Utah Gang Conference, during a session about gangs that formed after refugee groups arrived in Utah.

Refugees are joining existing gangs or forming their own.

Metro Gang Unit investigators say they’re now seeing newer refugees, such as young men from Somali and Sudan, latching onto American gang culture. From listening to hip hop to mimicking gang dress, some are forming their own gangs and others are assimilating into existing gangs, Clark said.

The Center for Immigration Studies released a report last fall on the extent of immigrant gang violence in the US, here.

The Salt Lake Tribune has written extensively on refugee issues in Utah, use our search function for ‘Salt Lake City’ to learn more about the problems the city faces.

Some refugees in Fargo pitch in

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago I posted a link to photos of volunteers helping out in the Fargo floods and wondered if immigrants there would join their neighbors in helping out. According to this AP article, the answer is yes, at least for some of the refugees. It begins:

For some transplants to this quiet Plains city, last week’s feverish rush to hold back a historic flood threat carried reminders of the chaos that forced them from their old lives.

The National Guard troops and the constant humming of military vehicles along the Red River made Amar Hussein a little nervous. He came to Fargo from Iraq after a bomb blew up his vehicle and left his arms and leg deeply scarred.

“We see the military trucks, I see people making sandbags to protect the town, I think something happened,” he said.

Although much of the story is about the refugees’ anxiety about the flood threat, we also learn this:

Immigrants also volunteered in the flood-fighting effort and formed their own support groups, sharing food and information and finding that pitching in to save the city is a sure way to put down roots.

And this:

The refugee resettlement agency gives all newcomers an introduction to the area — how to work with police, how to deal with inclement weather, the basics. They put on similar sessions during the flood.

What, an agency doing its job? Hallalujah! And this:

But to many newcomers, facing these hard times has also forged a connection to the place, and to the people with whom they shared work and worry.

A family of six who left the fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia, formed an assembly line at the Fargodome, filling sandbags and passing them, hand to hand, to a growing pile.

“This is my home now,” said Maliyun Santur, who arrived in Fargo two and a half years ago. “I’m here to save our city.”

I’m usually cynical about heartwarming refugee stories, knowing that there is much underneath that isn’t so great.  But I must admit that I am cheered by the idea that at least some of these refugees have formed this kind of connection to their new home.

Somali terrorist recruitment film turns up in Minnesota

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The FBI is looking for more information about a 30-minute terror recruitment film aimed at English-speaking Somali refugees.  The report from WCCO-TV in Minneapolis (hat tip: a friend from Tennessee) doesn’t say where the FBI got the film.

The FBI is taking a close look at a video that uses slick production and anti-American messages to get young men interested in terrorism.

The Feds are trying to figure out how legitimate and significant this video is. At one point in the video, the narrator praises the men who’ve left the west to fulfill an obligation in the holy war.

The 30 minute tape shows Somali and Ethiopian troops fighting in July 2008.

Terrorist groups like Al Shebab, are using gunfights like this to lure young American men to join their cause.

Read more here, where local Somalis call the film B.S., and watch a short clip of the video.

See our archive on the missing Somali youths saga here.

Iraqi refugee issue is part of the social unrest in Europe

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Social unrest!”  Sheesh, I’m sounding like a mealy-mouthed mainstream reporter.  I should say that the refugee issue is part of the creeping communist movement spreading across Europe.

Worker’s Liberty (I’ll tell you about them shortly) has posted information on how you can get involved in a protest in Geneva later this month on the Iraqi refugee issue with a group calling itself the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees.  I can’t find a website for this group and links to a supposed website linked at Worker’s Liberty have been disabled.    Here is what they say:

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees has called a protest on 16-17 April in Geneva about the plight of Iraqi refugees.

It says: The situation of the Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and Europe is a tragedy. Many thousands of Iraqi refugees have resorted to begging, prostitution, selling their internal organs to avoid destitution.

European countries such as the UK, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany are treating Iraqi refugees without compassion. Many have been detained and locked up in detention centers across Europe. The Iraqi Kurdish refugees who have been lucky enough to remain free are being treated terribly. Iraqi refugees whilst waiting for permission to remain in Europe are being refused permission to work and are not given any money to support themselves leading many to become destitute.

Both the UK and Swedish Goverments have made agreement with the Iraqi Government to return failed asylum seekers. The Iraqi Government is trading Iraqi asylum seekers lives for financial gain for the KRG and Iraqi Government.

Read on, but you get the drift.

As for Worker’s Liberty, here is what they say on their “about” page:

The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity through struggle so that the working class can overthrow capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy much fuller than the present, with elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges.

We fight for the labour movement to break with “social partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly against the bosses.

Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, helping organise rank-and-file groups.

Now is a good time for readers to review our posts on Saul Alinsky and his “Rules for Radicals” in our category entitled Community Destabilization.   What we see above, a uniting of the disgruntled (forming all sorts of ad hoc groups with noble sounding names) to bring about ‘social change’ through ‘social unrest’ that will ultimately lead (they hope) to what they call a “global social organization.”

But, what if those of us who believe in capitalism, individualism and nationalism didn’t take this laying down and created competing groups and counter-demonstrated.   These upcoming Tax Day Tea Parties might just be the beginning of such a movement.   As I have joked before, we could have ‘Regular Americans for America,’  or ‘Rednecks United’ (I love Rednecks), or how about ‘NASCAR fans for the preservation of Norman Rockwell towns.’

On a serious note to you commies, joining forces with Shariah-loving Muslims will be your undoing.   Their goal for the world is not the same as yours, they are just using you to disrupt the social order and in the end, if you succeed in overthrowing capitalist democracies, they will turn on you and eat you alive.

Somali chicken-plant workers are awarded $1.35 million for discrimination

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We thought this was all settled last November, but the Minneapolis Star Tribune is just now reporting:

A federal judge gave approval for Gold’n Plump Inc. and an employment agency to pay $1.35 million to settle lawsuits alleging religious discrimination against Muslims at a chicken processing plant in Cold Spring, Minn.

The money will go to 128 Somali Muslims who claim that St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump violated their religious rights by refusing to allow them prayer breaks during work hours, and to another 28 workers who said a St. Paul employment agency, the Work Connection Inc., required them to sign forms acknowledging they would be required to handle pork.

The amount awarded was previously said to be $365,000; now it’s $1.35 million. Is this a different lawsuit? Maybe Ann can straighten me out. In addition, there are these requirements:

In a settlement approved Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeanne Graham, Gold’n Plump will add a paid break during the second half of each shift to accommodate Muslim employees who wish to pray. The break is in addition to one early in the shift and lunch breaks required by law.

The Work Connection has agreed to provide offers of employment to the 28 job seekers who were turned away for not signing the “pork form.”

Thus progresses the stealth jihad.