I’ve had several inquiries from readers about whether the alleged Oregon Christmas tree bomber came to the US through the US State Department’s refugee resettlement program. According to several reports it sure looked like it. Now, thanks to Brenda Walker who pointed to a few paragraphs in a New York Times story, we have confirmation that, yes, his family came to the US as refugees making Mr. Mohamud the first refugee accused terrorist in the US. (I’m leaving out all those Somali refugees who returned to Africa for jihad training, but have not yet returned to use their new skills, or were arrested before they attempted a terrorist attack).
From the New York Times:
Mr. Mohamud, his younger sister and their parents had long lived in the Portland area, including in Beaverton, a suburb that has a small Somali population.
Mr. Mohamud’s family fled Somalia in the early 1990s, and his father, Osman Barre, a well-educated engineer, worked to establish them in Oregon.
“Osman was very sophisticated,” said Chris Oace, a former refugee worker for Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon who helped the family resettle here in the early 1990s. “Some refugees are afraid of having Christian churches help them. But it wasn’t an issue with his family at all.”
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon is a refugee resettlement agency most likely affiliated (subcontractor) with Church World Service (one of eleven federal contractors)*. They (EMO and CWS) also do “social justice advocacy” which means lobbying for far left (socialist) causes. And be sure to check out EMO’s most recent annual report, here, and note that more than half of their funding comes from you—the taxpayer.
Read the whole NYT story to learn how troubled and “confused” the alleged bomb plotter (who didn’t mind killing kids) was. For our previous posts on this case go here.
* New readers probably thought that these “church groups” resettling refugees were doing it out of pure charitable impulses with private money from parishioners. Not so! The so-called volags (short for voluntary agencies) are federal contractors and could not survive without the bulk of their funding coming from the taxpayer. The top eleven contractors (grants and contracts) subcontract to three hundred or so “affiliates” making tracking your tax dollars virtually impossible. It is my view that this extensive funding of Far Leftwing “non-profits” is how more and more power has passed out of the hands of the taxpaying voting citizenry.
An afterthought: This sure put the Somali Sex trafficker story on the back burner!
And one more thing! The largest number of Somalis entering the US came in the Bush years (post 9/11!) of 2004, 2005 and 2006, see here.