Day: August 25, 2009

Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOs): Rules and Regs

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is today’s installment on ECBOs we first told you about here and here the other day.

Now, here is the link at the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee Resettlement where you can find the rules for seeking grants as an ECBO.  I maintain that the proliferation of ethnic “community organizing” groups such as these foster a continued division in American society.  It is only natural that instead of protecting rights of all Americans they will seek to work for their “own people” while all the rest of us pay the bills. 

We will be writing a lot about ECBOs in the future, but two little aspects of the rules and regulations that interested me today are as follows.   First, I wondered if an ECBO must be a federally approved 501(c)3 organization—a designation that requires a significant amount of documentation and is a very time consuming and detailed review of the group and its goals.  If 501(c)3 status was a requirement to receive hundreds of thousands in federal grants, it could help protect the US taxpayer to some degree.   But apparently that is not required.   One need only supply the following document issued in the group’s home state:

A certified copy of the organization’s certificate of incorporation or similar document that clearly establishes non-profit status.

So that means, for example, that the East Africa Community of Colorado where four Somali men paid $50 and created an organization with a simple form may now turn around and apply for a grant under this program.   I will bet you a buck that is their plan.   See other Somali community organizing groups that presently have such grants in this list.

But check this out!  Got a problem with one in your community getting involved in politics, politics of their country of origin, or maybe pushing their culture or religion? They could be breaking the law if they are using grant money for these purposes.

Funds will not be awarded to applicants for the purpose of engaging in activities of a distinctly political nature, activities designed exclusively to promote the preservation of a specific cultural heritage, or activities with an international objective (i.e., activities related to events in the refugees’ country of origin).

See anything like that going on, start keeping a record!  I’ve heard this is happening with ECBOs—getting involved in politics here and abroad—let’s see if we can start documenting any rule breaking!

People doubt non-profit group ethics; no kidding!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just this a.m. I was reading an article about how Catholic Charities was letting down Hispanics in Chicago here.   Ho hum, so what else is new.  But that isn’t what got my attention, it was a comment by someone responding to the story who was directing readers to this May 2009 report from Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.

Entitled “Ethics and Non-profits,” it talks about the erosion of confidence in for-profit businesses and the virtually equal erosion of public confidence in the non-profit sector.  Here are a couple of paragraphs.

Employee surveys similarly suggest that many American workplaces fail to foster a culture of integrity. Results vary but generally indicate that between about one-quarter and three-quarters of employees observe misconduct, only about half of which is reported. In the 2007 National Nonprofit Ethics Survey, slightly more than half of employees had observed at least one act of misconduct in the previous year, roughly the same percentages as in the for-profit and government sectors. Nearly 40 percent of nonprofit employees who observed misconduct failed to report it, largely because they believed that reporting would not lead to corrective action or they feared retaliation from management or peers.

Public confidence in nonprofit performance is similarly at risk. A 2008 Brookings Institution survey found that about one third of Americans reported having “not too much” or no confidence in charitable organizations, and 70 percent felt that charitable organizations waste “a great deal” or a “fair amount” of money. Only 10 percent thought charitable organizations did a “very good job” spending money wisely; only 17 percent thought that charities did a “very good job” of being fair in decisions; and only one quarter thought charities did a “very good job” of helping people. Similarly, a 2006 Harris Poll found that only one in 10 Americans strongly believed that charities are honest and ethical in their use of donated funds. Nearly one in three believed that nonprofits have “pretty seriously gotten off in the wrong direction.” These public perceptions are particularly troubling for nonprofit organizations that depend on continuing financial contributions.

My suggestion to all readers who wish to help refugees and immigrants, do it privately.  Find a local family and help them directly.  Most of the agencies (not all, but most) of the agencies ostensibly helping new immigrants have become primarily political organizations with substantial taxpayer funding to boot–avoid them! 

Here is a list to help you get started figuring out which to avoid.

Center for Immigration Studies has important information about how immigration impacts the health care debate.

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From a recent CIS press release:

WASHINGTON (August 21) – While there has been some discussion of whether illegal immigrants should be covered by proposed government insurance plans, the enormous impact of immigration, both legal and illegal, on the health care system has generally not been acknowledged in the current debate.

Go here and learn more.

Watch Glenn Beck tonight and every night!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The same Leftist agitators (following the Alinsky/Cloward-Piven strategies*) we discuss on these pages are going after cable news anchor Glenn Beck because he is showing how the Obama White House is grabbing power, driving the country to the Left and further into a command and control government run from Washington— directly from an elitist White House.  

They have organized a boycott of advertisers on Beck’s show, see this article at the Los Angeles Times today.  Note how the White House is directly behind trying to silence Beck’s free speech.

One of those companies pledging to not advertise on Beck is Wal-Mart.  We just told you that Wal-Mart has gone over to the Open Borders side on the illegal alien issue as well.

Spread the word that Wal-Mart is not a friend of average patriotic freedom-loving American citizens.

To better grasp this concept of big business now in bed with top-down government and the advocates of socialism (communism?) see this enlightening post Judy wrote back in June about “corporate fascism.”   For many of us it takes some reorienting of our thinking to grasp that the radical Left and big business are in bed together.  Make that a threesome with the unions.

* All of our posts on Alinsky/Cloward-Piven are located in our appropriately named category—community destablilization.

Iraqis coming across the Mexican border illegally

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This will make you sick!  We are paying the airfare and initial living expenses for tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees entering the US while others are coming across our borders illegally.  Meanwhile, some of those Iraqi refugees in the US legally are complaining that they aren’t getting the stuff they were promised and incredibly want to go home to the Middle East.

This article in the Minnesota Post begins with a sob-story account of why these three Muslim Kurds left wives and small children to fend for themselves in Iraq while they spent their family’s money for an illegal trip that ended in swimming across the Rio Grande.  You can go read their likely fabricated stories, I’m not posting them.

So go the stories of three Iraqi Kurds who fled their homeland and, after a long journey through Mexico and a quick swim across the Rio Grande, are now languishing inside a federal lockup in this small South Texas town.

The journeys of Wshyar Mohammed-Salih, Majeed Aziz-Beirut and Awat Mahmood-Qadir exemplify the rarely examined phenomenon of the illegal movement of Iraqis over the U.S.-Mexico border since the 2003 American invasion.

They were smuggled into the US with the help of Mexico and asylum lawyers must be waiting on the US side to help them apply for asylum.  If granted asylum they get the benefits legal refugees receive.

The men say they paid a Turkish smuggler $20,000 apiece to secure Mexican visas and airfare that would get them within striking distance of the Rio Grande. Court records say they floated across on March 12 north of McAllen. Five months later, they are waiting for a chance to ask a judge for political asylum.

The number of Iraqis showing up legally and forming small communities in American cities has been well-noted, but much less attention is paid to Iraqis who steal over the border.

“I know America has brought a lot of Iraqis here to live,” Majeed said. “I want to be one of them.”

The exact number is not known, though statistics indicate the stream is small but steady. U.S. Border Patrol apprehension numbers obtained by GlobalPost show that about 200 Iraqis have been caught crossing between 2003 and 2008. That doesn’t account for those who got through and were either never caught or got caught later. The Department of Homeland Security reports having located 964 deportable Iraqis in the U.S. between 2003 and 2008. Some 2,278 Iraqis petitioned for asylum during that time.  [these 2,278 must have gotten past the border patrol].

Then they plan to bring the family!

In choosing the U.S. over other destinations, Wshyar said conventional street wisdom held that America offered amazing promises. He hoped America would welcome him with open arms and then he would bring his family over.

The Turkey-Mexico connection:

Wshyar, Majeed and Awat said Murat charged them $20,000 up front with no guarantee they’d ever even see him again. In return, they were promised Mexican entry visas on their passports, airfare to Mexico City, lodging and delivery into America.

To get started they handed Murat their passports. The next day, they were instructed to meet Murat at the Mexican Embassy in Ankara. There, Murat handed them their passports with Mexican visas inside.

From Ankara, the Iraqis flew with Murat to Dubai, then France and finally arrived in Mexico City on Feb. 3. After several fits and starts over the next month, Murat and a Mexican smuggler led the three men at 2 p.m. on March 12 to a small boat on the banks of the Rio Grande. A Mexican man waiting in a truck on the other side was to take them to a hotel and drop them off.

They got caught and now have asylum lawyers probably provided free of charge by some Leftwing Open Borders group.

Who do we blame for this?

Go here to see the list of businesses, unions, churches and other non-profit lobbying groups that support this — illegal entry into the US—and are working with the Obama Administration to open our borders.   They met at the White House last week to get their marching orders.  Here are some of the businesses selling out America on that list:  McDonald’s, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Hewlett Packard, Citigroup, and Oracle.