EU trying to improve its image on refugee resettlement

08/31/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Seems the European Union is trying to come up with some refugee scheme that won’t serve as a pull-factor that would only encourage more illegal aliens to try to reach Europe. Good luck with that!

From the Ottawa Citizen:

BRUSSELS – The EU this week unveils plans to boost and coordinate Europe’s response to the waves of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East, seeking to polish its own international image at the same time.

On Wednesday, the European Commission will get the ball rolling with a recommendation for a “joint EU resettlement programme” under which nations would take in more refugees from poor and war-hit third countries.

This scheme, though voluntary, is aimed at cutting the numbers seeking to reach Europe’s shores aboard rickety boats or via unscrupulous people traffickers.

The EU’s executive arm is also trying to ease the pressure on countries such as Malta, Italy and Spain which are in the frontline of the influx and feel that other member states are not sharing enough of the burden.

Then in October, the commission will publish proposals for harmonizing asylum and family reunion criteria through Europe.

I’ll be watching for that “harmonizing” this fall, won’t you?

Also, according to the story the UNHCR is telling the EU what bad boys and girls they are for only taking 6.7% of the world’s refugees last year. Funny, I thought we were hearing that wonderful “welcoming” European countries like Sweden were taking the lions share.

The EU wants to improve its humanitarian image.

While the European Union is keen to do its best to help refugee-laden countries plus the immigrants themselves, there is also a feeling that at the moment the bloc has an image problem.

“The current relatively low level of involvement of the EU in the resettlement of refugees impacts negatively on the ambition of the EU to play a prominent role in global humanitarian affairs and hence on the influence of the EU in international fora,” the commission said in the resettlement proposals.

Be sure to use our search function for ‘Malta’ and learn how the US has been adding to the “pull factor” by taking some of Malta’s illegal aliens to the US.

State of Minnesota wants more refugees; agencies will have to work harder

08/31/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s what I take away from the article today at MinnPost. Apparently most of Minnesota’s refugee resettlement has been through family reunification but that program is still suspended due to the discovery of widespread fraud more than a year ago. If Minnesota wants a lot more refugees, and according to this story they do, they need to take so-called “free cases” where refugees come with no support system. No family connections means the federally contracted resettlement agencies have to work harder!

From the MinnPost today:

For many years, Minnesota’s refugee resettlement efforts have been synonymous with family reunification. Established Somali, east African and Hmong community members have sponsored family members to relocate here. Minnesota hasn’t been getting what are known as “free” cases, refugees who come to the United States on their own without a family member or relative to sponsor them.

That is changing. The State Department put a moratorium on most refugee-family-reunification requests more than a year ago, stemming from a fraud investigation in Africa. The moratorium has significantly slowed the number of refugee referrals to Minnesota. So, for the first time in years, Minnesota will start receiving free cases again. They will include more refugees from Burma and Bhutan, people who will have small support communities.

For readers in new resettlement cities, keep in mind that family reunification is how the refugee numbers will be built up in your locale. The original families just apply to bring more family members and the resettlement agency gets paid by the feds to process their paperwork. The first families serve as sponsors for new families and the agency still gets tax dollars and has less responsibility for their care.

Minnesota’s five refugee resettlement programs (see related material, at right) will have to gear up and start recruiting volunteers like they haven’t done in years. Rachele King, director of refuges services for the Minnesota Council of Churches,*said refugees arriving with no local family will need more direct support. They don’t have somebody who has been saving money for them for the past several years. They don’t have anybody who will help them register their kids in school or suggest the best place to buy groceries.

Generally Minnesota gets lots of refugees but this has been a slow year (due to that suspension of the fraudulent family reunification program).

From the 10 years between October 1998 and September 2008, Minnesota received 34,261 refugees, or on average more than 3,400 a year. The top three countries of origin are Somalia (14,363 or 42 percent of the total); Laos (5,228, or 15 percent); and Ethiopia (4,210 or 12 percent).

For the 10 months of the current federal fiscal year, Minnesota has received 719 refugees — on pace for fewer than 900 annually, well below the state average.

Although there is no sign the recession will end any time soon, that’s just fine for Minnesota officials who say—-we will take 2000 this next year!

Chuck Johnson, an assistant commissioner with the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), said Minnesota has proposed accepting 2,000 refugees in the coming fiscal year. Half of those would be free individuals.

* See the Minnesota Council of Churches policy statement on immigration here.

Minnesota inquiry into possible taxpayer funds going to a mosque

08/31/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

Here is the latest on the ongoing funny money business alleged with a Muslim charter school in Minneapolis. Now there appears to be a mosque connection. From the Star Tribune thanks to a friend from Tennessee.

State officials are examining whether public money has been improperly used to pay for Islamic mosques on charter school campuses in Blaine and Inver Grove Heights.

Chas Anderson, deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education, said officials will study Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy’s (TiZA) use of state “lease aid” grants, which were created more than a decade ago to help charter schools rent adequate facilities.

“If it is subsidizing a mosque, in our view, that would be a violation of state and federal law,” Anderson said.

The probe is the latest in a series of church-vs.-state conflicts involving TiZA and several Islamic nonprofit organizations with ties to the charter school.

Anderson said the inquiry was sparked by a lawsuit filed against the school this year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota, which claims taxpayer dollars paid to TiZA are unconstitutionally promoting religion.

There is more.

Readers, all of this investigation began with sleuthing from columnist Katherine Kersten. One woman! Here is another post I wrote on the subject last month.

In my previous post I said you all should become bloggers. I assure you there is no end to the fraud and abuse you can uncover with non-profit groups ripping off taxpayers.

Everyone must write a blog! Like this one in Nashville!

08/31/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Someone just now brought this great blog to my attention—it’s called ACT West Nashville. ACT is the American Congress for Truth and Nashville is fortunate to have a very active ACT chapter!

It reminds me that I haven’t done my harangue recently to tell you all you must write your own blog. They are simple to set up and you only need to write when you feel like it. But, they are so important in gathering the FACTS especially since there are very few investigative reporters left these days. You become the reporter!

Did you see Glenn Beck last Friday? He told all of us to gather facts, dig through documents, look for connections and expose them without fear! The mainstream media isn’t going to do it, so we have to!

Great job ACT West Nashville!

Grand Island, NE: CAIR (with handmaiden EEOC) wins another one

08/31/2009 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

AND! Surprise (not)! Another Somali Ethnic Community Based Organization is born!

We reported extensively last year about the demands of Somali Muslim workers for religious accommodations at the JBS Swift & Co plant in Grand Island. You can visit our category that includes the controversy at the Swift plant in Greeley as well, here.

The gist of what happened is this, from the Washington Examiner a couple of weeks ago.

Hundreds of Muslim workers walked off the job and picketed in protest last September, saying they wanted time to pray at sunset and break a daylong fast. Plant management responded the next day by adjusting the work schedule to accommodate them. That fueled a counterprotest in which other workers walked off the job, arguing Muslim workers were given preferential treatment. Management then ended the accommodations, which sent Muslim workers back to the picket lines.

The company fired 86 workers for walking off the job. It eventually hired back about a dozen.

“I think a lot of people went in last year sort of flying a little blind,” said JBS spokesman Chandler Keys. “Everyone got their eyes opened.”

They had their eyes further opened this past week when it was learned that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) gloatingly reported that the federal EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) had ruled that the Muslims were “unlawfully harassed” last year. Jerry Gordon writing at New English Review has more on the story.

Nevermind that the Somalis in Grande Island harassed and intimidated the mayor of that city last year here. Everyone knows harassment only goes one way right! Somalis don’t harass white women, of course not! See also Mohamed Rage, the community organizer from Omaha, and his ECBO and its involvement with CAIR here.

Enter a new ECBO

Looks like the Somalis of Grand Island don’t need Rage’s agitation services anymore! They have their own brand new Ethnic Community Based Organization as of June 2nd of this year. It is called the Nebraska Somali Community Association and they are already weighing in on the CAIR/EEOC/Swift issue here where the reporter quoted as the authority Yasin Ali .

Ali is the 17-year-old co-founder of the Nebraska Somali Community Association. See staff and Board of Directors here (see below also*). No sign of who is paying for this ECBO but when you look over the site you will see they are using all the right verbage to make a case for grants at the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement to help refugees find “resources” (aka taxpayer supported programs).

More from the Grand Island Independent in June.

Yasin Ali, a 17-year-old senior at Grand Island Senior High School, filed the incorporation paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office Wednesday in Lincoln. He’s also working on a non-profit filing for the association.

Teenager Ali is helped by another Somali who is looking for work in Grand Island.

Ali will be staffing the office over the summer, but once school starts again in August, he will rely more on assistance from his co-incorporator, Samatar Ali, who is not related to Yasin Ali. Samatar Ali was a doctor in Somali and is currently looking for work in Grand Island.

Now, I thought this was kind of curious, when you go to their papers on file with the Secretary of State of Nebraska someone named Abdullahi Abdulle is listed as agent at 210 N. Piper St. #10, Grand Island, NE 68803 and coincidentally so are Yasin Ali and Samatar Ali at that same address. We learned previously that Samatar Ali is not related to Yasin. It must be a busy household at 210 N. Piper St!

Interesting, don’t you think, that Somali ECBOs are popping up wherever there are meatpacking plant controversies. As I said, who is paying for this one? We know in Greeley their new Somali “community organizing” outfit is mostly supported by taxpayers, Lutherans and a union.

Learn all about ECBOs at our new category, here.

*I decided to post the staff and board of directors names here too in case we need them in the future.

Staff

Yasin Ali- Founder and President
Guled Ismail- Vice President
Liiban- Community Liasion

Board of Directors

Paul Warshauer (Grande Venues)- Board Chairman
Alisa Grim (GIPS Teacher)- Secretary
Ali Samatar (Former Doctor)- Treasurer
Yasin Ali ( Student)
Guled Ismail ( JBS Swift)
Karen Natchigal (BBBS)
Amanda Levos (GIPS Teacher)

Note to new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing