Month: December 2010

Abilene, Texas: Refugee translator arrested on sexual assault charges

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In my previous post, I reported on the changing demographics of Texas and now, coincidentally, comes this story about an African refugee translator allegedly preying on those he was hired to help.

From ReporterNews.com:

Abilene police said they believe Aloys Nzeyimana used his role as a translator in the African refugee community in Abilene to hide sexual assault crimes against female refugees by intimidating his victims to stay quiet.

Nzeyimana was arrested Thursday afternoon as he left his job at the Abilene-Taylor County Public Health District where he worked as a translator helping area health officials serve refugees. He had worked as a health department translator since 2005.

Nzeyimana, who was an African refugee and is not an American citizen, was charged Thursday with two counts of sexually assaulting a family member in December 2004, the arrest warrant affidavit filed with the court stated. Police said the victim also was a refugee.

Police asking other victims to come forward

At a Friday news conference at police department offices, Sgt. Lynn Beard urged members of the refugee community, or anyone who knows of a refugee who may be a victim, to contact APD’s criminal investigation department with information about the crime.

Beard said some refugees have great distrust for the government and police because of their interaction with authorities in their home countries in Africa. There, where corruption is a part of everyday life, people have little faith in getting relief from police or any branch of government because they see all governmental agencies as being intertwined and corrupt, he said.

This distrust has hampered the investigation for the past two weeks into sexual assault crimes that police believe Nzeyimana committed over the past half-decade against women in the refugee community in Abilene.

“We believe there are more victims in the African refugee community,” Beard said. “We know there is a lot of fear.”

Beard said some refugees view Nzeyimana as a governmental official and identify him as being an authority figure in the area. Potential victims of any crimes Nzeyimana may have committed may well be reluctant to come forward because of fear the police might retaliate against them, Beard said.

There appears to be no mention in the story about which African nation Nzeyimana came from as a refugee to the US.  However, surely, the International Rescue Committee knows Nzeyimana because associated with this report is a link to the International Rescue Committee’s involvement in Abilene.  Diversity is beautiful, right IRC?

Amarillo, Texas: Census figures show change in demographics

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is probably just one of many stories we will see in the weeks and months ahead reporting on the US Census figures obtained by the U.S. Census Bureau during this past year.

From Amarillo Globe News:

The U.S. Census Bureau has begun revealing the first glimpses of its 2010 count, which is expected to further unveil the changing face of Amarillo.

The nation’s population, which continues to shift to the South and West, hit almost 309 million, the bureau announced Tuesday. Texas’ growth – almost 21 percent to more than 25 million – will net it four more representatives in the U.S. House.

In Amarillo, the population increased from 173,627 in 2000 to 185,743 on April 1, 2010, according to estimates from the census’ American Community Survey released last week.  [Reminder:  we just learned how wrong the American Community Survey was as it relates to Somalis, here.]

I saw another article yesterday ( if I find the link again, I’ll post it) but it suggested that since the growth in population was occurring in traditionally politically conservative areas of the country, that the new House of Representative seats would mostly accrue to conservative states and some would be lost in ‘liberal-leaning’ states.

Immigrants account for a huge portion of population growth

If you are someone concerned about the future quality of life in your communities, open space, uncrowded parks, less houses and schools being built, fewer cars on the road, consider this:

Across the country, about 60 percent of growth in the last decade came from births and 40 percent from immigration, said Robert Groves, director of the Census Bureau.

Go here for a link to Roy Beck’s latest educational video on how immigration impacts US population.

More refugees coming to Amarillo with the help of Catholic Charities

Refugees also add to the city’s changing demographics.

“They’re fleeing persecution,” said Lori Bigham, director of refugee services for Catholic Family Service, an agency that has been helping refugees adapt to life in Amarillo for 30 years. “It’s really a humanitarian effort. Immigrants have a choice.”

The refugees pay for expenses such as medical exams, and they repay loans for travel expenses. [The State Department won’t release the figures on how much of the air fare loans are repaid, a large chunk is never repaid.  Catholic Charities gets to keep a portion of any that is collected, so it doesn’t all return to the US Treasury—ed]

Bigham said she expects about 400 people to arrive in 2011 through the program that operates under the U.S. Department of State.

“Amarillo is also known for secondary migration when someone moves here from somewhere else in the U.S. when their family tells them they can make good money without speaking English at places like Tyson or Swift,” she said.  [meatpackers again!]

“That’s another pipeline, an economic drive. They’re anxious to go to work to provide for their families which they couldn’t do in a refugee camp.”

Refugees currently are coming to Amarillo mostly from places such as Myanmar and Iraq, but also from Iran and various African countries.

See my ‘diversity is beautiful’ in Texas post, here, today too!

Ft. Wayne: Rat bites Burmese baby in apartment

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Where is their resettlement agency?

From the Journal Gazette:

A report that a toddler had been bitten by a mouse or rat would cause most Americans fear and outrage.

When Dr. Charles Coats – who treated 19-month-old Sage Dar for the bite – learned what had caused it, he was incensed.

“You just don’t hear about rats or mice in the United States attacking babies,” Coats said. “You should never have to worry about your baby being bitten in your own home.”

But the rodent – residents were unsure whether it was a rat or a really big mouse – seemed to be only another irritant in a life that, while much better than the government oppression of their home in Myanmar or the squalid refugee camps afterward, is fraught with difficulties.

Read it all.

Ft. Wayne is believed to have the largest Burmese population in the US.   This case reminded me of the stories of apartment squalor in Bowling Green, Kentucky last year.  Remember the story here.

American Community Survey gets numbers wrong on US Somali population

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story from the Mail (UK) last week about how segregation is declining between blacks and whites in America (true).  But, the article is written like this one about Rednecks the Mail published a few days ago that clearly ‘looks down its nose’ at Americans.

It begins:

Racial integration between black and white people in the U.S. is at its highest level for a century, new figures reveal.

Segregation among blacks and whites fell in roughly three-quarters of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas as the two racial groups spread more evenly between inner cities and suburbs.

Still, ethnic segregation in many parts of the U.S. persisted, particularly for Hispanics.

The research found that a new generation of upwardly mobile black families is moving to America’s fastest-growing cities, with a decline over the past decade in black-white segregation.

[….]

The data is among the Census Bureau’s most detailed yet for neighbourhoods and comes ahead of results from the official 2010 census which is released next spring.

The American Community Survey is sent to about one in 10 households each year. It includes questions on ancestry, national origin and many other traits that are no longer asked about in the census done every 10 years.

Only 85,700 Somalis in America is completely wrong

The Mail has published a sidebar about Somalis in America which demonstrates how profoundly wrong the methodology of the American Community Survey is.  Either they are deliberately not releasing the true numbers, they didn’t get their surveys distributed in Somali communities or people lied on the surveys.  Here is a portion of the sidebar:

Nearly one in three people with Somali ancestry in the U.S. now live in Minnesota, which has the largest concentration in the country, the study revealed.

[….]

The data released this week found about 25,000 of the 85,700 Somalis in the U.S. live in Minnesota. Ohio, Washington and California also had large populations of Somalis, but the survey data found no more than 10,500 of them in any state except Minnesota where the Somali population is growing.

[….]

In many communities the population has grown and prospered, with Somali-owned shops and mosques proliferating. Somali translators work in the schools, the children of refugees go on to college and community leaders become public figures.

But there have been worrying signs about the second generation, with reports out of Minnesota of Somali gangs running interstate prostitution rings and investigations of young men going to fight with al-Shabab, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia.

Ahmed Sahid, president of Somali Family Services of San Diego, said the local population there was swelling with a ‘second migration’ driven by Somalis leaving cold parts of the U.S.

The government estimates there are 5,000 Somalis in the San Diego area, but Sahid said estimates are often wrong, and he thought there were 15,000 to 20,000.

Sahid is correct and the American Community Survey is wrong.

In 2008, I laboriously poured over records at the Office of Refugee Resettlement and recorded these numbers of Somalis admitted to the US since 1983 (I subsequently updated this post for 2009 and 2010).  We admitted, through the refugee program alone, 93,687 in those 27 years—that is only through the refugee program not other legal immigration programs such as the diversity visa lottery, or non-refugee family reunification.  It doesn’t include those who got here illegally and are seeking asylum and it doesn’t include those coming across both our southern and northern borders and disappearing into Somali communities which, by the way, are seeking to segregate themselves.

Does the American Community Survey expect us to believe that since over 93,000 Somalis were admitted in nearly three decades that many left and that none had families, leaving us with 85,700 today?

St. Cloud, MN update: refugees now arriving there directly from camps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have written a lot about the problems with refugees, mostly Somalis, in St. Cloud, MN over the last year or so (use our search function for St. Cloud).  Now it appears that St. Cloud is no longer a city of secondary migration (refugees resettle elsewhere but then move to where jobs and welfare are better or where family members are located), but is now a direct resettlement site.

This is information provided to the St. Cloud Times by SASSO (St. Cloud Area Somali Salvation Organization).  SASSO is an ECBO (Ethnic Community Based Organization).  They are like little ACORNS except that they are based around ethnic groups.  ECBOs help ‘their ethnic group’ tap into welfare programs and other public services and then also serve as the political activism arm for ‘their community.’  See our ECBO category here.

I told you all about SASSO and community agitation, here, back in April of this year.

From today’s St. Cloud Times:

We [SASSO] were able to resettle about 40 primary refugees to the area. In the housing area, we provide that service for them.

It took from August to September. We provided housing and financial startup.

They were the first group that came directly from refugee camps to St. Cloud. They came from camps in Yemen, from camps in Ethiopia, from camps in Egypt. They were mostly Somalis, and they came from Iraq.

We were working together with the Lutheran Social Service of St. Cloud. They were the anchor agency that brought them here ….

Note that in my previous post this morning it was a Lutheran Social Services subcontractor that got the boot in North Carolina.

Get ready St. Cloud—more refugees on the way from camps!

There will be more refugees coming to this area. We have an estimation of 100 cases.

Readers, read the rest of the group profile at the St. Cloud Times and note who is funding SASSO, a list that includes banks.  What is up with that?    For more on SASSO be sure to read that post I wrote back in April.  I wonder does Rep. Michelle Bachmann fully understand what is going on in her district?   Visit her website, here, and note she has just been assigned a seat on the House Intelligence Committee.  Great!  She can get to work on intelligence in her St. Cloud-centered district!