Day: January 27, 2011

Somali “kids” shooting each other in Minneapolis (again)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve written before about the Somali-on-Somali violence at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis. It’s the local “community” center where Somali “kids” hang out (they always call young Somalis well up into their 20’s “kids”).   Here is the latest story this week about another shooting there.

From the Star Tribune:

A shooting at a Minneapolis community center that left two men wounded Monday evening renewed frustrations in the local Somali community about safety and crime at the center, a heavily used facility in one of the city’s more densely populated neighborhoods.

Some said the shooting was proof that nothing’s changed at the Brian Coyle Community Center since the fatal shooting of a Somali college student there in 2008. Some advocated even more security measures at the site, such as closing a street that runs past it.

Pillsbury United Communities runs the center and one local Somali woman tells us it is a dangerous place.

“This is a blow because we’ve done everything we know how to do,” said Tony Wagner, president of Pillsbury United Communities, which runs the center. “There’s lots of frustration.”

Wagner said the center installed additional lighting and video cameras after earlier incidents. Some of those cameras captured images of the shooter’s car in Monday’s incident — video that the police now have, he added.

[….]

That place is dangerous anyway,” she said of the Coyle Center. “He shouldn’t be there. That’s a place where families and kids hang out, but there are some bad kids over there.”

One Somali activist said one solution is for the Community Center to be turned over to Somalis to run.  Incidentally this center is located in close proximity to the Cedar/Riverside section of town “Random Reader” told us about here the other day.

[Abdirizak] Bihi [described as a local activist] said several people contacted him Tuesday asking that he help set up a Somali community meeting to discuss the future of the Coyle Center. Some said it’s time for someone from the Somali community to run the center, he said.

What is the Pillsbury United Communities?

Check out their history here. One gets the impression from their website that they are a Leftist non-profit do-gooder outfit, but there is also lots of government (taxpayer money) involved.

One way to get a feel for a “non-profit” is to visit their IRS Form 990 and see how independent they are from government.   Here is the most recent one available.

Note the following:   Their overall revenue for 2009 was $12,577,428.  Of that $7,923,270 is from grants and contributions.  It used to be very simple to see how much of the grant money came from taxpayers, but the IRS has changed the form so you have to go to page 9 for their GOVERNMENT grants (that’s the money they get from you).  In this case PUC got $3,406,012 from government (taxpayers).

They receive $4,632,186 from “program services” some of which may include contracts with local and state government.

They pay out almost $9 million in salaries and Mr. Wagner made $215,603 in salary and compensation in 2009.  There is lots of money involved.  So what do you think the chances are that the Brian Coyle Center will be turned over to Somalis anytime soon?

Dangerous year ahead? If winter is bad, summer will be worse.

Some also worried that the shooting heralded a dangerous year ahead, extrapolating that if kids were getting into gunfights in the dead of winter, that warmer months will be filled with gunfire.

Oh, great.

Fake university busted by ICE

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story isn’t about refugees but for two reasons I’m posting it.  First, I am fascinated by the large number and variety of scams and frauds perpetrated by people trying to get into the US (or who are ripping off welfare such as the food stamp program), and because it might help explain the mystery of a so-called Indian “university” that purchased a major piece of property in my county but split the scene almost immediately thereafter.

Here is the story from the Economic Times.* Hat tip: Ed.

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of Indian students , mostly from Andhra Pradesh , face the prospect of deportation from the US after authorities raided and shut down a university in the Silicon Valley on charges of a massive immigration fraud .

The Tri-Valley University in Pleasanton, a major suburb in San Francisco Bay Area, has been charged by federal investigating authorities with being part of an effort to defraud, misuse visa permits and indulge in money laundering and other crimes.

According to a federal complaint filed in a California court, the University, which was raided and shut down last week, helped foreign nationals illegally acquire immigration status.

The university is said to have 1,555 students. As many as 95 per cent of these students are Indian nationals, the complaint said.

Investigations by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) found that while students were admitted to various residential and online courses of the university and on paper lived in California, in reality they “illegally” worked in various parts of the country as far as Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

[…..]

ICE has called it as a “sham university.” The ICE investigations found that more than half of these students were reported to be residing in a single apartment located in Sunnyvale California.

So the “sham” university was used to bring “students” to the US on Student Visas only to let them roam throughout America taking jobs, what!, that Americans won’t do!

Now to Maryland. In 2008 an Indian “university” purchased the property (buildings and 40 plus acres) that had been the original local headquarters of Allegheny Energy in Washington County.   There was much fanfare in the local paper (where the worship of diversity is a driving force and anyone questioning anything about immigration is a racist bigot who kicks kittens) about how wonderful it was that this foreign university wanted to be in Hagerstown.

However, the mystery is that the Indians never did anything with the property and that it is now on the market again and I can’t find a single word about it in the Herald Mail archives (not even the original article with all its gushing excitement).    I know I wasn’t dreaming about their arrival in Washington County because I found this story about Vinayaka Missions University in which the Herald Mail story is mentioned.  Maybe it’s me, but see if you can find a word about the “university” in the local paper.

LOL!  I bet its this motto of Vinayaka that mesmerized the grand poobas at the Herald Mail:

Vinayaka Missions University’s motto is the school, “strives to spread the cerebral VISION to impart knowledge that is WISDOM which is achieved in the spirit of UNITY.”  [huh?]

Oh, I did find lots of fraud claims throughout the world about Vinayaka Missions University.

*Just like the previous story on Somalis swarming a UN office in South Africa, funny how we have to read these stories in foreign publications.

Somalis storm UN office in South Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s been awhile since I posted news from the Rainbow Nation, but here is a short one about an attack by Somali refugees on a United Nations office in Cape Town.   Funny how these type of stories never make the mainstream media.

From All Africa:

Belive — Hundreds of Somali people have stormed an office stationed by UN in South Africa’s Cape Town.

Moqtar Mohammed Mohamoud, a Somali refugee in Cape Town, told Shabelle that Somalis, who stormed the UN office, were trying to get ID cards to stay in that country peacefully. [you gotta wonder how stormed the office and peacefully go together!—ed]

Shortly after the incident, a large number of South African policemen have reached the office starting to use tear gas and big sticks to disperse the crowd of Somali refugees inside and around the office.