A new volag? A Kurdish federal government contractor?

Update March 5th:  Two comments on this post were posted elsewhere at RRW, so I’ve highlighted them as ‘comments worth mentioning’ here.

I’m posting this in our ‘rumors’ category!   There is a story going around that instead of doing away with the volags (supposedly voluntary government refugee contractors) something I advocate, we are now adding a new one! 

The word is that it is Kurdish Human Rights Watch, see their website here.  By the looks of the activities at their website, they are already getting federal funding.  Yup!  Sure enough, a check of their most recent Form 990 (2008) tells us they are primarily funded with your tax dollars already!  Of their funds reported that year, $2,115,881 is from you–the taxpayer– and only $15,555 is from individual donations. 

But, they still were in the ‘red.’  The two principle employees Pary Karadaghi and Jacque Wilson actually pitched in their own money in the form of a loan to “pay bills.”

So, if this outfit becomes a Volag —number 10, they will be given refugees to resettle (presumably any religion and any ethnicity), paid by the head (which has now been doubled by the Obama Administration) and I expect they will have their DC-area headquarters office paid for (by you!) like so many of the other Top Ten (now nine) maybe-ten-again-soon federal contractors. 

If any readers can shed light on this rumor, it would be greatly appreciated!  If this is to be volag number 10, then readers might wish to check out the cities listed at their site where they are already located and presumably now will be resettling more refugees (to compete with existing contractors).

Addendum:    Who are these people?  I was just searching around a little and every time I typed in Kurdish Human Rights Watch at the Virginia Secretary of States Office I came up with no documentation on KHRW, but instead it took me to something called Global Community Partners incorporated in 1991 by Jacque Wilson. 

A little legal problem popped up for Mr. Al-Karadaghi in 1999 when he had a judgement against Kurdish Human Rights Watch for not having workman’s compensation.  But, I notice his name in court documents is Mustafa Al-Karadaghi.  So where does the Dr. Pary Karadaghi name come in–is Pary a son or daughter of Mustafa or are they one and the same?  If so, why change names?

Also note that Dr. Pary Karadaghi is advocating for more Iraqi refugees (what else) to come to the US, here when we know they are not finding employment and some wish to go home to Iraq.   And, they, at KHRW, would surely be happy to resettle them—for a price!

To the NSC: this is why you need to audit the volags

Readers there are nine volags (supposedly volunteer agencies) contracted by the federal government to resettle refugees. Presently the National Security Council (NSC) is “reforming” the State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program.*  In my recommendations for reform, here, I said there needs to be put in place requirements for financial audits of the nine volags and their 300 plus subcontractors. 

Here is an update on a blogger who has been documenting some apparently funny-money business in the Episcopal Church USA.  I first wrote about the story here in January. He suggests that the church is staying afloat with money from the federal government—the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services for the refugee program.

I’m not an accountant so I can’t make a judgement (and I get lost in the numbers), but neither can the general public concerned about the proper use of their tax dollars, so we need periodic financial audits of federal refugee contractors.

This is from the blog, DCNY, here:

For those who are new to these ECUSA numbers, I shall repeat what I said in my earlier post with regard to ECUSA’s taking money from the United States Government (actually, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement):

ECUSA? Getting federal money? Yes — the Government is the second largest source of ECUSA revenues, after diocesan contributions, and is now even greater than ECUSA’s income from investments. They are called “EMM Revenues,” for “Episcopal Migration Ministries.” Essentially, the Government pays ECUSA to assist in finding homes for refugee families. ECUSA is one of ten official [actually, now nine] “resettlement agencies” recognized by the federal Government, and accounts for settling between 2500 to 3500 individuals per year via a network of thirty offices in twenty-six of the 96 domestic dioceses.

Is this any way to run a church, let alone a railroad? I shall repeat what I said as I concluded my earlier post, edited slightly to take the year-end actual figures into account:

Overall . . . ECUSA’s public finances are a disgrace. It is surviving only by slashing to the bone its entire raison d’être at the national level (remember, it created the “Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society” to be able to accept charitable gifts for its mission as a national religious organization). It is as dependent on revenues from the government each year as it is on income from investing all of the gifts made to it over the past one hundred and sixty years. . . .

Incidentally, ECUSA’s federal dole is chump-change compared to the federal funds (your taxes!) received by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops!  Is the federal government keeping afloat the lobbying arm of the Catholic Church too?

* Actually I don’t think the White House has the authority to reform the program, that responsibility rests with Congress.  This is just a creeping Executive Branch power grab and if it were George Bush (or any Republican President) reforming the program there would be an outcry from the pro-immigration media!

Is one of the alleged Somali murderers a juvenile?

I have a bunch of posts backed up that I haven’t gotten to and this is one of those. It is from February 23rd.  Remember that triple murder in Minneapolis I told you about here.  Well, it turns out that defense lawyers for one of the alleged murderers is questioning the age of his client. 

It’s an issue we have rarely (if ever!) mentioned here, but when refugees have no documented birth date, they are given January 1 of whatever year the authorities guess they were born in.  I didn’t realize the number of those January first birthdays was so large.  This is from Fox 9 News in the Twin Cities:

MINNEAPOLIS – Birthdays are one of the dates that define us. But, research shows that New Year’s babies are not that unique

Abdi Bihi is a social worker, who works closely with the 75,000 Somalis who now call Minnesota home. And many, if not the majority, share one thing in common: They all have the same January 1 birth date.

In Somalia, birthdays are not traditionally celebrated. It is the same way in Sudan, Ethiopia and even the Hmong from Laos. The January 1 birthday is assigned in the refugee camps, based on the family’s best guess of the year the child was born.

Of the 80,000 refugees, who resettled in the U.S. last year, nearly 11,000 have January 1 birthdays.

The January 1 birthday has become an issue in the triple murder at a Somali market. One of the teenage suspects, Mahdi Ali, has the birth date of January 1, 1993, making him barely 17. He is old enough to automatically stand trial as an adult.

Defense Attorney Fred Goetz says his client may be 16, or even younger, meaning his case should be handled as a juvenile matter.

Ali was raised by his grandmother and his parentage is uncertain. And in a country ravaged by 20 years of civil war, finding birth records will be next to impossible.

Whenever I see one of these ‘raised by granny’ Somalis mentioned, I can’t help but think about those fraudulent P-3 applications that caused the State Department to suspend the family reunification program for Africa.  Is Mahdi Ali one of the 36,000 Somalis the State Department believes is in the US illegally?

For new readers:

We learned recently that 270 Somali illegal aliens who entered the US recently through Mexico are being sought by ICE.  The fear is that they are connected to the terrorist group, Al-Shabaab here.

For information on Somali missing youths, American citizens who have gone to Somalia to learn the Jihad trade, some leaving through Mexico, use those search words.  We have written dozens of stories on the case.  For more on Al-shabaab (sometimes spelled Al-shabab) also use our search function.

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US (this linked post continues to be one of the most widely read posts we have ever written) in the last 25 years and then in 2008 had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon

Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled by the State Department as I write this. We recently learned that we will be taking 6000 Somalis this year from one camp in Uganda and as many as 11,000-13,000 total from around the world.