Day: April 25, 2010

Reform recommendation: Make big companies help support refugee labor force

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just now I was thinking about the mess in meatpacking city St. Cloud, MN and other meatpacking towns where issues with an overload of immigrants has been a problem—Garden City, KS, Greeley, CO, Shelbyville, TN, Grand Island, NE, Amarillo, TX, Ft. Morgan, CO come to mind right off the top of my head.

Why not have a federal law (or maybe states could do it) requiring large employers of legal refugee labor pay for some of the cost now borne by the public, afterall those industries benefit with reduced labor costs when hiring immigrants?

I envision any company hiring say more than 10 low-wage immigrants (from any legal program) must at minimum offer mandatory English language classes as part of the work day.  They should offer classes in assimilating to America in addition to helping the local community foot the bill for other public programs such as housing support, food stamps, school costs, emergency personel/police, and medical care. 

As it stands, the companies inundate cities with immigrant workers who are paid less now at meatpacking work (probably other industries too) then American workers were paid twenty years ago to do the same job.  The difference is that the taxpayer now picks up the cost of living for such low-wage employees through public assistance (welfare!).  And, just think, it might level the playing field for American workers.

11 Somali pirates brought to Virginia to stand trial for piracy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t often get into the Somali piracy issue, but this story is concerning.  For firing on Navy vessels, shouldn’t these guys be treated as military combatants.  Why are they in civilian courts in Virginia?  Think about it, we are going to pay for their trials, then their incarceration for life (if they get life in prison) and what if they don’t, say they are released in a few years, where do they go then—will they seek asylum here?  We don’t send asylum seekers back to ‘war-torn’ Somalia!

The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Eleven suspected pirates from Somalia have been brought to the United States to face piracy and other charges for attacks on two U.S. Navy ships off the coast of Africa, the Justice Department said on Friday.

It said the suspects were scheduled to appear on Friday in federal court in Norfolk, Virginia. The 11 men had been held on U.S. ships for weeks off Somalia’s coast as U.S. officials decided what to do with them. [You can bet Holder’s gang in the Justice Dept. was saying, s…, we can’t send them to Gitmo]

Five defendants were captured after the March 31 attack in which the Navy frigate, the USS Nicholas, exchanged fire with a suspected pirate vessel in the Indian Ocean west of the Seychelles, sinking a skiff and confiscating its mother ship.

Two of the accused pirates opened fire at night on what they believed to be a merchant ship, but it actually was the Navy vessel, according to U.S. court documents filed in the case.

In the other incident, six defendants were charged with the April 10 attack on another Navy vessel, the USS Ashland, in the Gulf of Aden. They allegedly opened fire on the vessel with small arms from their boat.

In addition to piracy, the criminal charges included attacks to plunder a vessel, assault with a dangerous weapon, and use of a firearm during a crime of violence.

If convicted of piracy, the suspects face a mandatory sentence of life in prison, a Justice Department spokesman said.

Thomas Jefferson knew what to do with Muslim pirates on the African coast and he didn’t bring them to Virginia to stand trial in a civilian court.

For more information, see this post from April of last year about how quasi-American Omar Jamal of Minneapolis (now of the UN!) dashed off to NYC to defend the only other pirate brought to the US.  Look for more of the same sort of publicity hounds as this story develops.

Update:  Andrew McCarthy weighs in on piracy here.

St. Cloud, MN again!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Trying to dash through a backlog of posts this morning here are two more stories from troubled and apparently immigrant-overloaded St. Cloud, MN.   For new readers wishing to learn more about St. Cloud’s problems, use our search function for ‘St. Cloud’ or if you just want to read one earlier post, read this one from two weeks ago.

The first article you should see today is posted here at Jihad Watch.  A young man faces civil charges for posting a sign considered anti-Islamic.  Read about it at Jihad Watch. No wonder people are riled up in St. Cloud!

Update:  Maybe the poster maker could be let off the hook to join “Everybody draw Mohammed day!” May 20th!  Update April 26th:  Cartoonist chickens out, but others pick up the baton and continue plans for that special day.

Sudanese refugee woman arrested for killing toddler son

Whew!  I repeat, no wonder some of the citizens of St. Cloud are upset with the influx of refugees.  From the St. Cloud Times.

The father of a 22-month-old boy who died in what has been ruled a homicide said he saw the child’s mother beat the boy in the past and has expressed concern about the mother’s mental health status.

Gatluak Kuan Jerweng, who lives and attends school in Iowa, told investigators Nyachuol Lungdicok Poch had beaten Duach Makuach on numerous occasions, according to a child-protection petition filed after the April 12 death of Makuach. Jerweng told investigators he was unable to stop Poch from beating Makuach and he “compared her to Andrea Yates,” the Texas woman who killed her five children by drowning them in a bathtub.

Poch is charged with one count of second-degree murder in the death of her son. Stearns County District Court Judge Thomas Knapp ordered Poch held in lieu of $1 million bail at her first court hearing Monday. Poch is next due in court April 26.

Get this, the father, Jerweng, lived in another state (what! so she and the kids would get welfare?), claims she frequently mistreated the kids (where was he every day, oh yeh, in another state), claims she threatened him, claims she killed the boy because he looked like him, Jerweng.  And on top of it all—she is 8 months pregnant.

In cities with high immigrant populations calling 911 becomes a problem

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have this massive backlog of stories I should have posted, so I’m going to try to dash through a bunch of articles in my queue this  morning.  Here is an article from Ft. Wayne, Indiana a city we reported on just two days ago here, about how challenging it is for local law enforcement and emergency people to understand what refugees, in this case the Burmese, are asking.

From the Journal Gazette:

Dawn McGahen doesn’t remember taking calls from Burmese-speaking people when she was hired as a Fort Wayne police dispatcher in 1995. Dispatchers now take dozens of these calls each year.

As the number of Burmese refugees in the city has grown, so has the need for Burmese-speaking police officers and dispatchers. But the department has no officers who speak Burmese, and all dispatchers speak only English.

Read on.

I’ve heard some incredible stories over the last few years of the things refugees call 911 for, and wonder if this isn’t a role for the resettlement agencies.  Shouldn’t they be teaching the basics, including dealing with an emergency, in the early months of a refugee’s resettlement?  This responsibility shouldn’t fall completely on the city.  Or, is this another of those unfunded mandates coming down from Washington?