Here we are 8 months into the story of the Somali missing former refugee “youths,” and the leftwing media is finally catching up. CNN does the puff-piece today and I’m too tired to tell you about it. Here it is, thanks to Mars.
Day: July 24, 2009
Another immigrant scam—Romanians this time!
I’m telling you, I really should do a blog just on immigrant scams—-there are so many and they are so varied in their creativity, the topic would make for a great blog. This one comes from our neighboring county, Frederick Co. Maryland, although the scammers were nabbed in Oklahoma. I know, off topic, but too good to resist posting.
Two men of Romanian descent [gypsies? here in America?] have been charged with stealing money by tampering with an ATM operated by PNC Bank on Thomas Johnson Drive, according to Frederick police.
The men, Mihai Ittu, 40, and Stefan Iancu, 31, are believed to be part of a theft ring in several states across the country that stole more than $40,000, said Lt. Shawn Martyak, commander of the department’s Criminal Investigation Division. The other states involved are California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Oklahoma.
[….]
Ittu and Iancu were arrested somewhere around Oklahoma City late last week, Martyak said. Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities contacted Detective William Forder in Frederick.
Here is how they stole peoples’ account information:
He said thieves stole money with a skimming device and camera. The skimmer caught the magnetic strip on the card itself. A small video camera placed around the ATM linked the PIN number to a magnetic strip.
Their immigration status is unknown, but check this out, they will beg to be deported back to Romania where the stolen money will be waiting!
ICE will determine Ittu’s and Iancu’s immigration status.
Although Martyak did not know whether the suspects are in the U.S. illegally, some Romanians are entering the country illegally and wiring stolen money back home, he said.
“If they get caught, they beg to be deported so they go back to Romania and have all their money there,” Martyak said. “It’s not terrorist in the sense of al-Qaida, but it certainly catches your eye when people get hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars. What are they doing with this money?”
Note to the race baiters at America’s Voice and their media lackeys at Immigration Daily, these are white Europeans local police are detaining and ICE is questioning—not “brown-skinned” illegals.
See our “crimes” category, here, for more immigrant scams.
Immigration Daily shows its true colors
Although I disagree with most of what they write in opinion pieces, I had the impression that Immigration Daily (ILW) was a publication for professional pro-open borders lawyers and such for straight news and information about their issues. But, whew, when I saw this editorial just now I realize they are just one more leftist rag inflaming racial tensions, and it seems inflaming racial tensions is the only arrow in their quiver. Look at this plea for signatures on a petition for America’s Voice.
Joe Arpaio, the anti-immigrant Sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, says that he believes in the Rule of the Law, and that that is his reason for hounding the undocumented, whose presence in the US offends the law, in his view. He believes that the 287(g) agreement that his law enforcement agency currently has with ICE permits him to use any excuse to stop anyone and demand that they prove that their presence here is authorized under our laws.
Of course, all this is pure poppycock. Mr. Arpaio’s real problem is no doubt the fact that those whom his deputies stop have brown skin. We do not believe that Mr. Arpaio’s people believe in harassing the undocumented from Europe. As many pro-immigrant bodies have long claimed, Mr. Arpaio does not believe in the Rule of the Law, rather he believes in the Rule of the Law only when it is convenient to him.
Besides the fact that very few European illegal immigrants would enter the US from Mexico, how the hell do you know if Arpaio’s deputies wouldn’t stop them as well? What! You truly believe that Arpaio’s guys ask someone who is breaking the law if they are perhaps illegal Albanians, and then say,”Oh go on your way, you are a white guy! ” You people are nuts! Where are your facts?
Here is what Dan Stein, writing at the Federation for American Immigration Reform website, had to say about America’s Voice last month.
America’s Voice Struggles to Find a Voice
By Dan Stein, President of FAIR
America’s Voice, one of Washington’s newest “instant” organizations created by a handful of big foundations virtually overnight, is helmed by the legendary Frank Sharry – widely regarded as one of the most unsuccessful legislative prognosticators in the nation’s Capitol. Judging from its website traffic report, America’s Voice must be pretty soft. No one is listening.
Sharry created America’s Voice after he again miscalculated in a failed strategy to pass the mass amnesty bill in 2007. Now, Sharry and his allies have decided it is time to jettison their corporate allies who’d proven impossible to work with because of on-going disagreements over guest worker programs.
Under Sharry’s leadership, America’s Voice is basically a well-funded far-left smear blog designed to look like a clever “hit machine.” Working closely with the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, Sharry’s group has been trying to smear America’s true immigration reformers on a daily basis.
Problem is, no one seems to be listening. Internet traffic surveys suggest America’s Voice isn’t generating much interest from the general public. It struggles to attract less than 10,000 unique users a month, and most of those are probably professional people on the same big foundation dole that Sharry rides. Just proves that all the money in the world won’t help if your ideas are bankrupt.
I guess that petition Immigration Daily is promoting is an attempt to drum up some traffic for a sluggish America’s Voice!
Angelina Jolie visits internally-displaced refugees in Iraq
Angeline Jolie is in the refugee news again. We’ve posted on her trips to visit refugees before; see here for a list. She is a UN Goodwill Ambassador, whatever that is, and I’ve remarked before on how sensible she is. At a time when seemingly everyone involved with Iraqi refugees, including the UN, was saying that the solution to the problem was resettling them in the west — especially in the U.S. — she pointed out the obvious: that they needed to be taken care of where they were and returned to Iraq when it was possible.
We see how right she was in the continuous reports of the troubles Iraqi refugees are facing in this country. Ann has kept on top of this; see our Iraqi refugees category for details. Since Iraq has become pacified, there is more emphasis on resettling the refugees back in Iraq.
Jolie visited some internally-displaced (IDP) refugee families in Baghdad under the auspices of the UN, the San Francisco Chronicle and many other news sources report. That’s a category we don’t hear much about, since American refugee agencies don’t get involved in Iraq’s internal affairs. The Chronicle says:
Jolie observed some changes in conditions since her last visit, but admitted a lot still needed to be done before the refugees could return to normality.
She noted, “There are some changes. There are returns of displaced people, not a big number, but there is progress. This is a moment where things seem to be improving on the ground, but Iraqis need a lot of support and help to rebuild their lives.”
Jolie has vowed to return to do all she can to help refugees rebuild their lives, telling the families, “I want to come back and find you in a better place and in a different situation. We hope that UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and the government will support you in getting a piece of land. You need help not because you are poor, but because you are the future of Iraq.”
As far as the overall picture of internally-displaced persons in Iraq goes, Reuters reports:
An estimated 1.6 million Iraqis remain uprooted within the country, while another 300,000 have returned to their homes amid a general improvement in security in the past year, UNHCR said. Syria and Jordan say that they have registered some 2 million Iraqis who have fled their country, but UNHCR says these are not all refugees or necessarily residing in those countries.
Phoenix: Four Liberian refugee boys ages 9-14 rape 8-year-old.
Update March 27th, 2010: Oldest of the boys charged will go to juvenile justice system for therapy, here.
Update November 24th: Girl’s parents arrested, here.
Update August 14th: Language problems confuse investigation, here.
Update August 3rd: Oldest of 4 boys indicted, here.
Update August 1st: More here from Phyllis Chesler—Obama agreed to let them stay for another year.
Update July 27th: Their violent country made them do it, here.
Here is the whole story from CNN that reader Susan sent yesterday:
(CNN) — Four boys ages 9 to 14 have been charged with sexually assaulting an 8-year old girl, police in Phoenix, Arizona, said Wednesday.
The girl was lured into a vacant storage shed by the suspects, who offered her chewing gum, police said at a news conference.
The girl was restrained while the boys — ages 9, 10, 13 and 14 — sexually assaulted her, police said of the July 16 incident.
All the suspects except for the 14-year-old live in the same apartment complex, according to Phoenix police Sgt. Andy Hill. The 14-year-old has been charged as an adult, Hill said.
Detectives said the girl was placed in the custody of Phoenix child protective services after the attack because of her parents’ attitude toward her.
The girl and the boys charged are all from families that have come to the United States from the West African nation of Liberia, police said.
Now before readers bombard me with comments about how American boys could just as well take an 8-year-old to a vacant shed and rape her, there is more. The girl’s family, saying she shamed them, does not want her back! She is now in the custody of child protective services. From KPHO-TV Phoenix:
The outrage over the allegations has intensified when police said the girl’s parents criticized her after the attack and blamed her for bringing shame on the family.
“The father told the case worker and an officer in her presence that he didn’t want her back. He said ‘Take her, I don’t want her,'” Hill said.
Hill cited the family’s background as the reason the family shunned the girl. All five children are refugees from the West African nation of Liberia.
In some parts of Africa, women often are blamed for being raped for enticing men or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Girls who are raped often are shunned by their families.
“It’s a shame-based culture, so the crime is not as important as protecting the family name and the name of the community,” said Tony Weedor, a Liberian refugee in Littleton, Colo., and co-founder of the CenterPoint International Foundation, which helps Liberians resettle in the United States.
“I just feel so sorry for this little girl,” he said. “Some of these people will not care about the trauma she’s going through — they’re more concerned about the shame she brought on the family.”
More details are coming out this morning, here.
This is a heinous practice we are well aware of with followers of Islam—-blaming the rape victim. But these Liberians are likely not Muslims, so I was interested to learn that this cultural problem was coming into the US with other refugee cultures as well.
Why so many Liberians in the US when that country is pretty stable now?
Apparently we have a category for temporary asylum (for humanitarian purposes!) and we brought thousands of Liberians here years ago. In February, I reported that many where supposed to be deported to Liberia by March 31st, but a public relations campaign, spearheaded by Senator Jack Reed of one of America’s highest unemployment states, Rhode Island, was waged to keep them here. Guess he won. We lost.