Senator Ted Kennedy, the chief sponsor of the Refugee Act of 1980 that set in motion the present-day Refugee Resettlement program, had an important anniversary today. See Atlas Shrugs account of the night, 40 years ago today, that Kennedy killed Mary Jo Kopechne, here, by leaving the scene of an accident he caused.
Day: July 19, 2009
Congressman Keith Ellison: Retrieve Somalis and re-integrate them!
NOOOOOOO!
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), one of two Muslim Congressmen in the US House of Representatives has called for “retrieving” the missing Minnesota Somalis from Moghadisdu, continuing the theme that is obviously developing to paint these former refugees turned Jihadists as “victims” as one of our commenters reminded us recently*. From Minnesota Public Radio:
St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison said the U.S. government is trying to ensure the safe return of some of the young Somali-American men believed to be fighting with a terrorist group in their homeland.
Ellison said he has been included in classified briefings about efforts to bring the missing men back to the Twin Cities.
At least four Somali-American men from Minnesota who left to fight in the Horn of Africa have died there in recent months.
If the Obama Administration sends even one of our young military people to Somalia, risking their lives to rescue Ellison’s voters, it will create a firestorm of outrage across this country! Excepting the teenaged (and now dead) Burhan Hassan, the majority of these Somalis who rejected the good life to become jihadi fighters are grown men.
I have an idea! Send Ellison to talk with Al-Shabaab and RETRIEVE these supposedly gullible men!
Congressman Keith Ellison thinks the U.S. should try to retrieve the Minnesotan men who may have been misled into joining Al-Shabaab and want out.
“We can’t have a knee-jerk emotional reaction,” Ellison said. “We’ve got to have an intelligent reaction. If a young person says, ‘I have been lied to. I don’t like these people. I want to get away from them,’ we should help them do that, as long as we know that does not create a public safety issue for Minnesotans and Americans.”
Ellison wouldn’t offer more details of the plans, saying the discussions were classified. But he said the efforts involve private non-governmental organizations as well as government entities. A State Department official did not respond to requests for interviews.
These MEN pose a danger to the US if returned.
But bringing the remaining recruits back to the U.S. isn’t without risk. John Radsan, a former assistant general counsel for the CIA, said the U.S. government is taking such a heightened interest in the case of the Somali-American fighters because of broader concerns on global terror.
“These people are trained, perhaps over there. They become radicalized over there,” Radsan said. “They are engaged in combat, and if those people can be put on that cycle, it’s only another step before they might come back here to do bad things in the Twin Cities.”
But, nevermind, Ellison says let’s “re-integrate” them into American culture!
Congressman Ellison agrees that the U.S. government’s first responsibility is to protect its residents. But he also thinks if the recruits pose no threat to national security, they should be allowed to re-integrate into the American culture they left behind.
Mr. Ellison, are we going to take their word for it—that they pose no threat. And, by the way, they were obviously never integrated into American culture in the first place!
* This is what commenter Mars said when the indictments were unsealed against two of the “youths” who returned from Somalia:
It’s clear to me that there is an attempt being made, by defense attorneys, the Somali community and relatives, to portray these guys as victims. Let’s try to guess how many people these “kids” may have killed themselves. While they may be young, they were/are adults and responsible, just like the rest of us, for their own actions. It’s not some simple youthful folly like getting a body tattoo. Were they influenced by someone? Undoubtedly, but they also have free will. I really see the media attempting to portray them as beguiled innocents , when in fact they were out to willingly create their own victims in the name of Allah
Bhutanese to Canada: clever photo—from mud hut to metropolis
For regular readers of RRW, there isn’t a lot new in the article about large numbers of Bhutanese (ethnic Nepalese) going to Canada and the US (other western countries too), but I specifically wanted you to see the clever photograph at the top of the story published here in the Gorkhatimes (original story from the Globe and Mail). I don’t know if someone was thinking ahead and set this pair of photos up this way, or are they cleverly photo-shopped?
The family depicted here is going to British Columbia.
Seven Western countries agreed to accept the Bhutanese after years of talks between Bhutan and Nepal ended in stalemate. Most – about 60,000 – will go to the United States. Many of the Kattels’ friends and relatives have plane tickets to places like Dallas, Salt Lake City and Phoenix. Mr. Kattel wishes more of his friends were going to B.C.
In Canada, the Bhutanese are to be settled in nearly 30 communities from Newfoundland to B.C. Eventually, about 900 refugees – including the Kattels – will move to Coquitlam, just outside Vancouver.
It’s a daunting prospect for the suburban community, and for the country as a whole.
Nine hundred Bhutanese are scheduled to go to a suburb of Vancouver—Coquitlam. I found this paragraph interesting because apparently Canada does what I have recommended we do—hold community meetings well in advance of refugees arrival and line up host families.
In fact, city officials, community groups and residents in Coquitlam have laid out the welcome mat for the refugees from a little-known land. The local school board and the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. have set up a summer camp for the kids to polish their English and learn basic computer skills. Host families have come forward to help the refugees with basic tasks such as shopping and learning transit routes. Community meetings held in the spring to discuss the refugees’ arrival were overflowing.
Here is a webpage from the Canadian government’s Immigration department (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) spelling out very thoroughly what the plans are for Bhutanese going to Canada and a status report on how many have arrived, etc. I don’t think the US government has any website that is as clear as this one in Canada.
For all of our government readers, please let us know if there is a US government website comparable to this one! It is your chance to disprove my contention that refugee resettlement is done as secretly as possible here.
For more information on the Bhutanese, please use our search function.
Syracuse: two former refugee police officers assigned to help protect new refugees
This is an update of the story I told you about last week where Burmese and Bhutanese refugees in Syracuse, NY were being attacked by Blacks. The Police Department has assigned two officers to help the new refugees. From Metro Voices:
Dzenan and Varosh can related to Nar. They came here as refugees–Dzenan, from Bosnia and Varosh, from Armenia. They both worked as refugee caseworkers at the Catholic Charities refugee program on the North Side.
They’ve been assigned to help foster relations between the police department and the refugee community. In addition to their regular patrol duties, the officers will be doing bike patrols on the North Side.
We’re hoping to ease the the circumstances of integration,” Varosh said. “The refugees have been picked on for a number of reasons–they look different, they just arrived in this country, and so there’s some jealousy that they’re getting more help. Being refugees ourselves, we know how the system works.
Thomas More Law Center announces victory in free speech case
Internet jounalists won an important victory in a Texas Appeals Court decision handed down last week. Hat tip: Bill. In the case an internet journalist had been sued by seven Islamic organizations because of an article he had written about two organizations that themselves did not challenge his assertions that they were connected to radical Islamic groups. From the Thomas More Law Center:
ANN ARBOR, MI – On July 16, 2009, seven Texas-area Islamic organizations lost an appeal of the unanimous ruling of the Texas Second Court of Appeals at Forth Worth, which protected the free speech rights of internet journalists and at the same time dealt a blow to the legal jihad being waged by radical Muslim groups throughout the United States. The Islamic groups asked for a reconsideration of the appellate court’s recent decision through what is known as an en banc opinion (appeal to the whole court, not just a panel of the court). The Court ruling, in a per curiam (in the name of the whole court) two page opinion, upheld the dismissal of the libel lawsuit filed against internet reporter Joe Kaufman by the seven Islamic organizations.
The lawsuit against Kaufman was funded by the Muslim Legal Fund for America. The head of that organization, Khalil Meek, admitted on a Muslim talk radio show that lawsuits were being filed against Kaufman and others to set an example. Indeed, for the last several years, Muslim groups in the U.S. have engaged in the tactic of filing meritless lawsuits to silence any public discussion of Islamic terrorist threats. This tactic, referred to by some as Islamist Lawfare uses our laws and legal system to silence critics and promote Islamic rule in America.
It was a lost opportunity when the groups Kaufman supposedly maligned didn’t sue Kaufman, presumably making the judgement that they would have much to lose in the discovery process.
Kaufman, a full-time investigative reporter, has written extensively on Radical Islamic terrorism in America. He was sued because of his September 28, 2007 article titled “Fanatic Muslim Family Day” published by Front Page Magazine, a major online news website. Kaufman’s article exposed the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Islamic Association of Northern Texas (IANT) ties to the radical terrorist group Hamas.
Kaufman’s article called ICNA a radical Muslim organization that has ties to Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Kaufman, ICNA is an umbrella organization for South Asian-oriented mosques and Islamic centers in the United States created as an American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) of Pakistan.
Significantly, neither ICNA nor IANT, which were mentioned in Kaufman’s article, sued Kaufman. It is speculated that ICNA and IANT were afraid of being subjected to pretrial discovery.
We are media (at least in Texas).
In what should be welcome news to internet journalists, the Appellate Court specifically rejected the Plaintiffs’ contention that Kaufman is not a “media defendant.” The Court held that the Texas statute that gives procedural protections to traditional electronic and print media, including the right to a pretrial appeal, also covers internet journalists. Thus, the Texas Statue entitled Kaufman the right to appeal the lower court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the frivolous libel claim before a time-consuming and expensive trial. Most parties have to wait until after a trial before they can appeal an unfavorable lower court ruling.
Ah, free speech—-America’s bulwark against tyrants!