Month: August 2009

125,000 immigrants given permission to work in the US each month

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s what NumbersUSA reported this past week here—this while unemployment continues to rise with some states now well over the 10% unemployment rate. 

What is driving this insanity?  It’s the Leftwing intelligentsia pushing the “Have-not” agenda we have discussed ad nauseam most recently here.  And, it’s those big businesses, like the one’s invited to the White House just a few days ago working with power hungry unions and  SUPPOSEDLY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE*  in the Open Borders movement, who know that a large labor supply means wages will continue to be low and their bottomline will continue to be high.  I guess the labor unions want power more than they want their workers to have well-paying jobs.  And, who knows why the hell these supposed humanitarians are into this scheme.  If  there was ever an unholy alliance this is it!

* Check out those religious groups who were at the White House getting marching orders and if you belong to one of them, why not ask what they are up to!

Burmese scholar questions claims of Rohingya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I found this fascinating blog post just now from a Burmese scholar who says there is really no ethnic group called ‘Rohingya’ with a longtime claim on the Arakan region of Burma.    Here is the conclusion of Khin Maung Saw’s post:

If one carefully scrutinizes all available authentic historical and etymological facts it comes out clearly that there was no ethnic group called “Rohingya” in Arakan as well as in Burma, and it is only an invented name in the 1950’s. All claims of the “Rohingyas” are baseless and found out to be incorrect.

Boat People came direct from Bangladesh and not from Arakan. They were caned by the human traffickers. Just to get asylum in an ASEAN country they have to fabricate some tragic stories and had to claim to be ‘Rohingyas’.

In any case, I have to be very careful to present this article in a very neutral way so that the paper does not read either as an attack on “Rohingyas” or as a polemical piece aimed at “Rohingyas”, nor be seen as a racial writing. The biggest worry for me is: This article might be misinterpreted as an indirect support for the position of the very brutal Burmese Military Junta.

Here, I sincerely suggest to the “Rohingyas” to change their tactics. Instead of attacking all people who do not support their dishonest claims they should attack the Burmese Military Junta only. In the mean time they should learn to speak, read and write Burmese, especially the Rakhaing Dialect, and make friends with other ethnic groups of Burma, particularly with the Rakhaings who are the natives and majority of that state. Instead of demanding for the rights of an indigenous ethnic minority of Arakan by inventing fabricated and fanciful histories and trying to turn the traditional Buddhist land of Arakan into a Muslim state, they should be honest and just request to be granted the right to permanent residential status and then the right to be naturalized citizens of Burma step by step to which the Arakanese people (Rakhaings) will have no objection. [Edit: Emphasis mine]

Why do we have an entire category on the Rohingya?  It is because they are using their claims of persecution to get resettlement in the West and they are succeeding.

More of Malta’s illegal aliens on the way to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This arrangement a former US Ambassador made with the island nation of Malta to take  aliens who arrive in this EU country illegally and send them off as refugees to the US sets a dangerous precedent.   Legitimate refugees (not economic migrants) are to ask for asylum in the first country they reach. 

What makes Malta any different then say Greece, or Italy, or France for that matter?  Will we soon be helping out other European countries suffering under the same burden?   And, as I have asked before, will these countries reciprocate and take some of our illegal Mexicans or El Savadorans—it is the same thing! 

Here is the whole short article today from the Times of Malta.  More Africans who managed to get across the Mediterranean are on their way here.

Since the US Embassy began its ongoing refugee resettlement programme in May, 303 refugees have been resettled in the US. These latest refugees are from Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Chargé d’Affaires Jason Davis noted that the refugee resettlement programme reflected America’s continuing commitment to help ease the burden that migration placed on Malta, as well as its recognition of the enormous challenges and dangers that many of the migrants faced.

“The programme’s success is a tribute to continued hard work on the part of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organisation for Migration, and the United States government, as well as many others here in Malta who have dedicated themselves to improving the lives of refugees in need of humanitarian assistance,” Mr Davis said.

He said all refugees were assigned a sponsor agency in the US that provided initial services such as housing, food, and clothing, as well as referral to medical care, employment services, and other support services during the transition period to self-sufficiency. These services are provided in order to facilitate refugees with the process of integration and cultural assimilation.

Just a little reminder, we are in a recession and most refugees arriving here are not becoming self-sufficient any time soon.

Be sure to go to the Times of Malta link and look at the comments! 

Type ‘Malta’ into our search function and note how many times we have reported on this likely illegal manuever by the US State Department.

FBI keeping an eye on Somalis in Boston

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Meanwhile Minneapolis Somalis claim that the recruiting of young Somalis to go to Somalia to join the Jihad is over.

Here is the story from Boston, not the first we have seen from that city.  Hat tip: Susan

BOSTON (AP) — The FBI is reaching out to Somali communities in New England after young men in Minnesota were recruited to travel to Somalia to fight with Islamic militants.

Warren Bamford, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the FBI is staying in close touch with Somali leaders in Boston and Lewiston, Maine, where there are large Somali populations.

Bamford said Tuesday there is no evidence of recruitment going on in the Northeast.

But he said the FBI is concerned about young men in Minneapolis being sought out to travel to Somalia.

“We are concerned about them receiving training, and then of course coming back over here and then utilizing that training in some terrorist attack here,” Bamford said.

Somalis say, don’t you dare profile!  Guess they learned that lesson well from a certain Harvard professor just recently.

Somali leaders in Boston say they are cooperating but stress there is no reason to believe local men are participating. They also say they are concerned about racial profiling.

Jumping over to Minneapolis, here is a story I meant to post about ten days ago about how Somali leaders say the recruiting pipeline has dried up in that city.  So, maybe its not so farfetched to keep an eye on other Somali centers in the US.

A prominent Minneapolis Somali community leader said Tuesday that he believes the recruitment of young Somali-Americans from the Twin Cities to fight jihad in their homeland has slowed or stopped.

Speaking at a workshop to address the issue, Saeed Fahia, executive director of the Confederation of Somali Communities of Minnesota, said the radicalization of Somali youth here is “over.” The combination of worldwide media and law enforcement scrutiny, coupled with greater vigilance by parents, has caused the recruiting pipeline here to dry up, he said.

JBS Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley, CO hopes it is ready for Ramadan tomorrow

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I guess hope springs eternal, but management at JBS Swift & Co in Greeley thinks that after making a number of concessions they can accommodate their hundreds of Muslim workers demands during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.  Of course it remains to be seen whether other ethnic workers in the plant will protest the religious accommodation as they did last year.  From the Greeley Tribune today, hat tip Jerry Gordon.

Just a day before the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of fast and prayer for Muslims, talks between meatplant workers, union representatives and company officials continued in earnest.

The objective: Avoid a repeat of the showdown at sundown that flared at JBS USA meatpacking plants in Greeley and Grand Island, Neb., last September.

During Ramadan, Muslims don’t eat or drink during daylight hours. They break their daily fast after sunset prayers.

Miscommunication about how to handle the religious practices resulted in more than 100 Muslim workers — mostly Somalis, but also other East African refugees who’ve moved to Greeley in recent years — being fired last September for walking off production lines.

Graen Isse, a Somali who helps operate the East Africa Community Center in Greeley, said he thinks conflicts will be avoided this year.

They got their special bidet toilets, but will they get their shift changes?

Unlike last year at this time, JBS has created two prayer rooms for Muslim workers inside the plant — one for men and one for women. Also, the company has installed stations in restrooms that allow workers to thoroughly wash, which is custom before prayers.

Still, some Muslims on the B shift, which runs from late afternoon to late evening and runs into prayers at sundown, have requested a monthlong switch to the daytime A shift to avoid conflicts, Isse said.

“I don’t think they’re going to move 400 workers to A shift,” Isse said of JBS. “It’s hard for them to do.”

Yes, indeed, be sure to accommodate those Somalis!

Chandler Keys, JBS spokesman, declined to comment on specific proposals being discussed.

“We think we have the right solutions to make sure the plant operates functionally and efficiently, but also trying to accommodate the needs of all the workers going into Ramadan, particularly the Somali workers,” Keys said.

There’s no telling for sure how it will work out until Ramadan begins this weekend, he noted.

I guess we will wait and see! 

Now I want to turn your attention to Graen Isse (Mohamud Ahmed Isse).  I’ve followed his ‘career’ in Greeley since it began shortly before Ramadan last year.  Well-educated and bilingual, Isse arrived in Greeley in advance of Ramadan and lo and behold got a job at the plant one week(!) before he was fired along with other workers.   Coincidence?

I don’t think so, I think Isse is a ‘community organizer’ sent to Greeley to agitate.  I guess the big question remains, who sent him? 

Just a reminder that it was also Isse who inflamed the conflict between Somalis and Hispanics by going to the Arab press and blaming the trouble on the longtime Hispanic workers, here.   Remember Alinsky says you need to create chaos to bring about change.

This is what we learned about Isse last fall here. 

Remaining [after many Somalis moved to Ft. Morgan, CO] are the “community organizers” who had intrigued me while the controversy was on-going. Graen Isse was the guy who had showed up in town just before all this started and then busied himself by talking to the likes of Arabic news outfits, blaming the problem on the Hispanics. He told the Arab publication he had worked in America since he was 16, but from this puff-piece it would appear he had a typical American high school experience. And, with an education like his, what was he doing looking for meatpacking work (even as a translator)?

Graen Isse, a local Somali leader, understands these conflicting impulses well. In his fourteen years in America, he’s bounced between three states. Now he’s trying to figure out how to help Greeley’s Somali community survive, even if he’s not sure how long he’ll stick around himself.

Slim and amiable, the 27-year-old Isse is constantly in motion — knee tapping, cell phone wire hanging from his ear, eyes scanning the room. [who is he talking to and what is he looking for?]

[Supposedly separated from his parents as a child by the everpresent violence in Africa, miraculously one day his parents were found.]

One day, Isse’s older brother appeared and announced that their parents had escaped to neighboring Kenya. As his family was reunited, another of Isse’s brothers, who had been injured in the war, made it to California as a refugee. He told the government about his family back home, clearing the way for Isse and several members of his family to apply for refugee status and move to San Diego. *see note below 

So Isse grew up as an American teenager, running track and playing high school football. After he graduated from high school in Minneapolis, where his mother had moved, his globetrotting continued. He took college classes in California, then completed his degree in Kenya before ending up back in San Diego. There he worked for a transportation tracking company, drove a taxi, even took some law school classes.

Isse moved to Greeley last summer because a friend from California, Aziz Dhies, was working as a nurse there and suggested that Isse might like the town as well. Isse was hired as a translator at Swift and had only been on the job for about a week when the Ramadan controversy began. He was thrust into the midst of the problem as he negotiated on behalf of hundreds of people whom he had only just met. He, too, was fired because he went home to eat and rest on the day the dispute was resolved instead of returning immediately to work. But he quickly found a new job, working part-time as a translator at the Weld County courts. And he and Dhies dedicated themselves to community organizing, forming the East Africa Community, which aims to be “the middleman between the leaders and our community,” Isse says.

I believe that Isse is a professional community organizer brought in to agitate the Swift workers, but I guess the big question is, who sent him? 

* For 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.

The immigration fraud involved mostly Somalis filing application to bring family members to the US who turned out not to be related.  The program is still under suspension.

See our entire category (over 70 posts) on the controversy on-going with Swift and Co. and its Somali workers, here.