Month: October 2010

Comment worth noting: Reader from Malta says betrayal must be exposed

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This morning in response to my post on Malta a few hours ago a reader from Malta has sent us further information that I think is so important it shouldn’t be lost in the comments section of that post.

From Charles Sammut:

Please allow me to make a few observations about this article.

Libya is not the terrorist hellhole it is made out to be for the sake of political expediency. It might have been in the past, but is now busily tapping the tourism market and is a perfectly safe place to visit, probably more so that certain areas of the USA.

Some of these illegal immigrants have been in Libya for many years, even 10 years, working and earning a decent wage to save money to get their whole family to Zuwarah (a port in north western Libya) and pay for the boat trip to Malta or Italy. This has now stopped thanks to Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi and his interior minister, Maroni. Boats are turned back to Libya, no ifs and no buts. Libyan coast guard vessels also carry Italian military personnel on board.

The traitorous US ambassador, Kmiec is back in Malta. He was responsible for the death of both his passengers.The nun died on the spot and the 94 year old Monsignor died after 3 weeks (here).

Like his predecessor,Molly Bordinaro, this character, Kmiec, has a soft spot for African illegal immigrants. Molly even sent that Congolese criminal rapper Akon in the ambassador’s official Mercedes limousine to entertain the illegal immigrants (here). Good to know how your tax money is being spent.

Kmiec is busy relocating Somalis to the USA. I mean, with people like this, who needs Al Qaeda?

The Jesuit Refugee Service in Malta receives hundreds of thousands of tax free Euros from the EU for the service it supposedly provides to illegal immigrants (here).

On the JRS Malta website you can find detailed instructions on how an illegal immigrant should apply for asylum so as to avoid rejection. Since this is considered ‘philantropic work’, the JRS is exempted from paying income tax. It is simply a convenient way of diverting profits from other lucrative Jesuit businesses to avoid tax.

It is good to know that the immigration policy regarding illegal immigrants is mostly dictated by a Catholic Monsigneur, Philip Calleja. I have personally seen illegal immigrants at the immigration office telling immigration officers that Mons.Calleja told you to do this or that. He is known to help illegal immigrants to leave the island illegally and supports this policy (here).

I could go on for ages. This is big business, up there with drugs and weapons running. The biggest profiteers from this are the Catholic Church and the leftist unions. Note that the General Workers’ Union (GWU) also receives EU funds to ironically help illegals undercut its own union members’ wages. The betrayal is total. We must expose it.

Mr. Sammut, you can go on for ages here!  Please feel free to send us whatever you have to further expose what is happening in Malta. 

Readers, this isn’t just about Malta and Europe, this is about setting a terrible precedent regarding immigration law—ultimately driven by Far Left activists (hiding under a humanitarian cover) who are working to create a borderless world using your money to accomplish their Socialist/Marxist political aims!

Endnote:  You know what puzzles me the most?  Are Bordonaro and Kmiec just naive dupes trying ever so hard to be loved (and appear not racist), or are they true believers—Leftists hiding in Republican garb?  Guesses anyone?

 

LA Times reports on Malta but misses the important point

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  A reader from Malta comments, here.

Longtime readers know that we have followed the so-called refugee situation in Malta for several years.  The tiny island nation in the Mediterranean is, unfortunately for them, a landing place for illegal aliens (are they truly asylum seekers or economic migrants?) coming in boats from North Africa often from that terrorism hellhole known as Libya.

On Saturday I see the Los Angeles Times has a report on the situation that begins with your usual sympathetic character—a Somali chemistry teacher (or so he says, LOL! wonder what sort of chemistry he was teaching) who is now stuck in limbo in Malta.

The LA Times:

As a member of the European Union, Malta is obligated to grant asylum to individuals who qualify, but the country maintains one of the strictest detention policies in Europe. Migrants who enter illegally can be held up to 18 months while their cases are processed; the Somali teacher’s story is not uncommon.

Most asylum seekers who end up in Malta on boats from Libya are trying to go farther north to Italy, where they believe there are job opportunities and where some hope to be granted asylum. Many are hoping to avoid detention and slip over the border toward northern Europe.

“Nobody was planning on coming to Malta,” the teacher said. “We all bought new clothes for when we landed in Italy so we could just go and disappear.”  [just disappear!—telling comment]

An increase in illegal immigration [note even the Times knows they are illegal aliens—ed] has led countries such as Malta and Italy to boost coordination with Libya in search and rescue operations as well as with the signing of several agreements to crack down on smuggling networks.

What is the Los Angeles Times missing?

The Times is not reporting a critical element of the story—maybe reporter Meris Lutz doesn’t know about it.   A couple of years ago a Bush Administration Ambassador to Malta set a new precedent.   In 2008 some illegal aliens arriving in Malta were transformed into refugees and sent to resettle in a town near you.  Legitimate asylum seekers are to seek asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive.  Ambassador Molly Bordonaro helped to subtly change that long standing policy (apparently with much internal angst in the State Department).  See this early post on the issue in which Molly (and the US State Department) sent Somalis off to Colorado with a  tea party (a real tea party, not the new kind of Tea Party) send-off.   The tea party-feted Somali was quoted as saying he was happy to be going to Colorado because lots of “black people” lived there.

Many feared, and rightly so, that the new policy would attract African illegal aliens to Malta not as a stop-over to Europe, but as a possible opportunity to win the lottery, so to speak, and get to the US.  See my post which confirms that here.

The Obama Administration Ambassador to Malta has continued the same policy.  Douglas Kmiec, one of those despised ‘Republicans for Obama’ in the last presidential election has continued that policy, here.   Incidentally, Kmiec was the driver of a car in California that went off the road resulting in the death of a nun and the serious injury of a priest who were riding in Kmiec’s car.  I don’t know if Kmiec is back in Malta yet after that August accident. 

Note the LA Times does mention the Jesuit Refugee Service office in Malta which I believe has played a key role in helping create the new policy of transforming illegal aliens into refugees bound for the US.

For everything you want to know about Malta and refugees, use our search function for ‘Malta.’

New York Times says Arizona is a haven for refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The article could be called “When victim groups clash, the New York Times has a tough choice.” It begins:

PHOENIX — Here in Arizona, illegal immigrants get the boot. But refugees get the welcome mat.

Even as officials rage at what they have called the “invasion” of illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans, Arizona has welcomed thousands of legal immigrants from such grief-torn lands as Somalia, Myanmar and Iraq, and is known for treating them unusually well.

Indeed, the scorched expanse of the Phoenix valley can seem like a giant resettlement lab. Bosnians trim the watered lawns of the Arizona Biltmore, and Karenni speakers have their own prenatal class at St. Joseph’s hospital. A Sudanese goat farmer is thriving in a desert slaughterhouse built with a micro-enterprise loan. (He is glad to demonstrate his skill in turning goats to goat meat.)

Oh. So Arizona doesn’t really hate immigrants. An amazing admission from the New York Times. It goes on:

Only three states accepted more refugees on a per capita basis over the past six years. Arizona took nearly twice as many refugees per capita as its liberal neighbor, California, and more than twice as many per capita as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

“In the degree of welcome and receptivity we see, I would certainly put Arizona at the top,” said Robert Carey, a vice president at the International Rescue Committee, which resettles refugees in a dozen states.

The work contrasts with the state’s renown as the scourge of illegal immigrants, whom critics blame for driving up crime, stealing jobs and burdening hospitals and schools.

“We’re not anti-immigrant — never have been,” said State Senator Russell Pearce, a Republican who is a leading critic of illegal immigration. “But we expect people to follow the law.”

Of course the story has a little section bashing Sheriff Arpaio, who

conducts frequent raids on immigrant neighborhoods, stopping people for minor infractions and reviewing their immigration status. He says these raids have netted hundreds of illegal immigrants. Critics say they spread fear and harass legal residents.

But in the end, amazingly, the refugees trump the illegal aliens.

Refugees seem slow to sympathize. The two groups often compete for jobs or housing, and some refugees say Latino gangs have preyed on them.

The United States “stands for law and order,” said Wissam Salman, 35, a hotel housekeeper from Iraq. “If they don’t look for these people it will be a disaster.”

Ibrahim Swara-Dahab, the Sudanese goat farmer, agrees.

“I have some problems with the Mexican people; they stole my goats,” he said. “If they don’t have documents, they should go back to their country.”

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

Refugee gardening projects, nice idea but require taxpayer subsidy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars

I’ve been meaning to write for some time about these refugee gardening projects popping up everywhere these days.  I suspect they have some connection to an Obama Administration promotion involving “Lady” Michelle Obama’s White House gardening project.  

It’s a nice idea, I have a little garden myself.  These small plots can add to a family’s fresh food for a brief period during the growing season in North America and that is a good thing, however, any notion that this is the way to feed millions of people or to take American agriculture back to a simpler time is living in la-la land.  I’ve lived on a farm for 30 years (I had a dreamworld idea too!) and I can tell you the average American farm family cannot make it on farming alone—even with hundreds of acres! This is no place to get into the problems with American agriculture, suffice it to say, it is a lovely image but far removed from reality.

Here is the story from Idaho earlier in the week that got me thinking about this again and reminded me that I had forgotten to tell you about a California refugee gardening project that “Lady” Michelle visited last spring.

Global Gardens is a program of the Idaho Office for Refugees. We sponsor refugee agriculture projects at 8 locations in Boise, Eagle, and Star and provide garden or farm space for around 100 refugee families as well as training in horticultural production and marketing.

We have 5 sites that are community gardens, where families can get a small space and grow vegetables for their families. We don’t offer any community garden spaces for non-refugees at this time, but please check out the “Community Gardens” page for more information on community gardening.

Doesn’t this make you feel all warm and good.  Picture colorful refugees out working their bits of land and producing healthful, and colorful, fruits and vegetables to sell at colorful farm markets where their industriousness is turned into some income for their colorful growing family.  But, who really pays for all this image-making—you do as the Idaho’s Global Gardens goes on to tell us!

We receive funding from the federal Office for Refugee Resettlement. We also receive many local donations in cash and in kind. The Somali Bantu Farm in Eagle received a grant in 2008 from Heifer International’s New Immigrant Farming Initiative and recently received a grant from the USDA’s Farmer’s Market Promotion Program.

A model for the nation and the world!

Same story in California where “Lady” Michelle Obama visited in April.  And, no kidding, the AP article refers to First Lady Michelle Obama as “Lady.”

Returning from Mexico, Michelle Obama made a brief stop Thursday in San Diego to visit a community garden farmed by international refugees that she called a model for building healthy communities across the nation and around the world.

Obama toured the New Roots Community Farm to promote her “Let’s Move!” campaign against childhood obesity. The event kicked off a $1 billion project by The California Endowment to fund healthy living initiatives in 14 communities across the state, including the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, where the community farm is located.

You fund the International Rescue Committee and probably some of the California Endowment as well!

Some 80 farmers from a dozen countries work at the 2.3-acre farm, a project of the International Rescue Committee that started in June 2009 on city-owned land. Many grow vegetables, like kale, that they grew in the native countries they left because of civil wars and other violence.

“It’s a model for the nation, for the world,” Obama said after touring the 89 plots, where she hugged the farmers, including a Somalian woman who had Obama’s picture and a map of Africa printed on her traditional bright blue dress [colorful!].

The garden provides fresh produce to the refugees and their families. Some of the fruits and vegetables also are sold at a farmers market and to local restaurants, giving the refugees some income. About 90 percent of the farmers have been unable to find a job because they do not have the skills or do not speak English.  [90 percent!]

I bet you are saying I’m such a cynic.  But, really, all I want is for us to be honest about what is happening. Refugees have no jobs so let’s make them look like they are taking care of themselves by growing their own food in a time-honored and colorful American way—with a little help from the taxpayers of course.

Oh, and it sure doesn’t look like its reducing the number of Food Stamp recipients as we learned yesterday.

Appeals Court to rule soon in Somali vote fraud case

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Previously we told you about this case here and here.   The Appeals Court has heard arguments and a decision is expected before October 15th according to Watchdog.org:

KANSAS CITY — A Missouri appellate panel will rule by Oct. 15 on allegations of voter fraud in a state house district primary. The court heard oral arguments on Wednesday.

Will Royster lost by one vote to John J. Rizzo in House District 40 in August after several recounts.

In September Judge W. Stephen Nixon ruled there was not sufficient evidence about voter fraud, and the election should stand.

[….]

According to Day [Royster’s attorney] several Somali voters had been given “unlawful assistance” after not showing even a “rudimentary ability to speak English.” The Somali interpreter would not speak in English with the election judge but assisted a number of voters.

There is nothing new here!  We told you about allegations of Somali voter fraud in Minnesota during the hotly contested Franken/Coleman Senate race in 2008, here. However, the difference in Minneapolis is that one group of Somalis supporting Coleman (because Coleman promised to get family reunification opened again from Africa) was charging the Franken Somalis of voting irregularities.