Day: December 6, 2010

From meatpacking to driving a cab, Denver suburb becomes the heart of the Somali cabbie business

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an overly long story about the use and abuse of African cab drivers in Denver.  I couldn’t get through the whole thing, so I recommend reading the comments first and it will give you a gist of the sob story (the title, ‘Mean Streets‘ tells you right away the tone of the story).

I’m posting it because of this little bit of information about a growing Somali Tuula in Aurora, just outside of Denver.  It also provides an update of the story we covered extensively two years ago about the Somali religious demands at the Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley.*  According to this report, many of the meatpacker workers have now turned to the cab driving business.

From Westward News:

He [Ahmed Odawaay, who teaches Somalis how to pass cab driver tests] isn’t the only one to get his start in this Aurora strip mall. Over the last few years, these storefronts have become a community center of sorts for the area’s growing Somali community. Down the way, past a store that sells international cell phones and Arabic prayer books, a former Chinese restaurant is now a Somali eatery and pool parlor. At the far end of the strip, another cafe serves up gingery chai and sambusas — the Somali version of samosas — and broadcasts international soccer games.

Odawaay has watched this ad hoc village take root as more and more Somalis have moved to metro Denver — or, as he likes to put it, gotten stuck here. Some came to Colorado from other parts of the country for decent-paying warehouse positions at places like MCI or delivery gigs with the Rocky Mountain News, but those jobs don’t exist anymore. Some came to work at the Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley, but as claims of discrimination against Muslims there triggered an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint, many of the immigrants headed south to try their luck in Denver.

According to Odawaay, they’ll find few options beyond driving taxis.

* We covered the Greeley/Swift controversy extensively in a special category, here.

For new readers: We have admitted well over 100,000 Somali refugees to the US.   To check out the numbers visit this post, one of our most widely read posts over the last few years.   In FY2010 which ended September 30th the US State Department resettled 4,884 Somalis (here) to towns near you.

Also, after being closed for nearly two years, the US State Department is on the verge of resuming the fraud-ridden family reunification program that admitted as many as 36,000 Somalis fraudulently to the US between 2003 and 2008.  See the latest on new regulations, here.  The State Department is on the verge of re-opening the program.

Somalia: Teenage girl killed for converting to Christianity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Sad story published at The Christian Post on Saturday, begins:

NAIROBI, Kenya (CDN) – A 17-year-old girl in Somalia who converted to Christianity from Islam was shot to death last week in an apparent “honor killing,” area sources said.

Nurta Mohamed Farah, who had fled her village of Bardher, Gedo Region to Galgadud Region to live with relatives after her parents tortured her for leaving Islam, died on Nov. 25. Area sources said they strongly suspected that the two unidentified men in Galgadud Region who shot her in the chest and head with a pistol were relatives or acting on their behest.

“Reports reached the relatives in Galgadud that Nurta Farah had converted to Christianity,” one source said. “The suspicion that the family is responsible is a solid one. The sister was killed in Abudwaq, a district in Galgadud Region, and the place where the incident took place is about 200 meters from where the sister was staying with relatives.”

Relatives buried Farah, sources said. Her parents had severely beaten her for leaving Islam and regularly shackled her to a tree at their home, Christian sources said. She had been confined to her home in Gedo region in southern Somalia since May 10, when her family found out that she had embraced Christianity, said a Christian leader who visited the area.

There is more, read on.

Note to commenters

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve had some lively comments lately, but I urge everyone to follow our rules about foul language (even the abbreviations for it!).  In fact your comments are actually more powerful when you can do it without those words.  And, I know its tempting but you don’t need to call someone an ‘idiot’ or worse to make your point.   Also, perhaps most importantly, please don’t wish violence on anyone.  So, if you don’t see your comment posted, or it’s edited, now you know why.

A reminder to those who read our blog around the world, we are not a refugee resettlement agency, we have no role with the government, so please please do not send us your appeals to get into the US.   We have this information prominently posted at the top of every page.

Geert Wilders tells the truth about Palestinian “refugees”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Cranmer, an interesting blog from England, posts the entirety of a speech the brave Dutch politician Geert Wilders gave in Tel Aviv. It’s a wide-ranging speech, and it covers the topic of the “refugees” very well. Here’s an excerpt:

Israel is often being treated unfairly. The world looks at the plight of the Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza, and other places, and many blame Israel. The UN claims that there are over 4.7 million Palestinian refugees, and many blame Israel. These voices say the Palestinians should be allowed to return to “Palestine.” But where is Palestine? Many say Israel must solve the problems of Palestine. But is Israel guilty of the plight of the Palestinian refugees?

My answer is “No.” The Arab leaders are to be blamed — and Islam is to be blamed. Let me first tell you why, and then I will tell you where Palestine can be found.

At the end of World War II, there were 50 million refugees. Today, all the refugee problems dating from before the 1950s have been solved. All, except one — the problem of the Palestinians.

Why did this problem not get solved? The reason is simple: Because the Arab countries did not allow it to get solved. And because Islam does not allow it to get solved.

“Archbishop Cranmer” (the blogger takes his name from Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII and Edward VI, who wrote the Book of Common Prayer) comments:

There are few politicians in the West who realise that the ‘Jihad’ against Israel is a war against all of us: our lives, our liberties and our pursuit of happiness. And if they do realise, they dare not say.

And, as Wilders makes clear, the refugee situation is simply part of the jihad.

Cranmer hat-tips  Gates of Vienna for the speech, so I pass that on.