Month: January 2011

Sweden: Iraqi refugee dilemma exposed through Wikileaks

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Wikileaks documents are bringing  information to the fore on the worldwide refugee situation (I bet there is so much we would love to see) and one such communique gives us some background on the present situation in Sweden where Sweden is deporting Iraqis in the midst of public protests.

This is from Monsters and Critics:  (emphasis mine):

Stockholm – Two Swedish cabinet members raised concerns over the flow of refugees from Iraq in 2007 during talks with US officials, a Swedish daily said Friday, citing leaked US diplomatic cables.

While Sweden was prepared to receive asylum seekers there was need for ‘a return agreement’ with Iraq for refugees whose applications were rejected the ministers said, according to US diplomatic cables leaked by whistle-blower site WikiLeaks and quoted by the daily Svenska Dagbladet.

During a September 2007 visit to Iraq, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Tobias Billstrom, minister for migration and asylum policy, met with Iraqi officials and US embassy officials in Baghdad.

According to the US cable, Bildt and Billstrom mentioned concerns that many arrivals after 2003 were ‘more difficult to assimilate.’

Contributing factors were that the asylum seekers were destitute, and often had poor education or lacked language or professional skills.  [Since when did anyone consider those factors in refugee resettlement or in granting asylum!—ed]

Iraq and Sweden in early 2008 agreed on a repatriation agreement stipulating that Iraqis whose applications were rejected should voluntarily be sent back to Iraq. Baghdad would guarantee their security.

Sweden in 2007 expected some 20,000 asylum seekers from Iraq and about three in four applications were likely to be approved, Bildt said according to the US cable.

In 2007 there were some 100,000 Iraqis in Sweden, a country of 9 million.

So Swedish immigration officials thought they had an understanding that the new Iraqi government would protect anyone Sweden rejected.  But, so much for agreements, when pro-migration political activists in Sweden demonstrate against every departing planeload.

From AFP:

STOCKHOLM – Swedish authorities detained about 70 people while breaking up a protest against the deportation of Iraqis near the southwestern city of Gothenburg, police said Tuesday.

The demonstrators had started protesting at the weekend, notably by blocking the entrance to the Swedish Migration Board offices in the Gothenburg suburb Kaallered with parked cars.

“Some 70 people were arrested overnight (Monday) for disturbing the peace and three cars that were obstructing traffic were moved,” the Gothenburg police said in a statement, adding that all those arrested were released at 9:40 am (0840 GMT) after questioning.

A public hearing on the deportation of Iraqis was to be held at the building on Tuesday as many non-governmental organisations called for a halt to expulsions.

Amnesty International has called on Swedish Immigration Minister Tobias Billstroem to “stop all forced expulsions back to Iraq.”

I would really like to see the facts on who is being deported and would protest myself if they are sending Christians back to face the Muslim lions.

Readers, if you are interested in more information on Iraqi refugees, we have posted 484 posts on the subject since 2007.  Here is a link to our archive on the subject.  We have also written a lot about “welcoming” welfare-state Sweden.  Use our search function for Sweden for more.  See especially ‘Sweden joins the club’ about a terrorist attack in Sweden perpetrated by a former refugee.

Maine border agents arrest asylee sex offender

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One more arrest of an African for a crime in Maine wouldn’t be worth posting, but this story had a  little bit of information that interested me.

Here is the Bangor Daily News story from Houlton, Maine:

HOULTON, Maine — A citizen of the south central African nation of Angola was arrested in Houlton on Thursday for a probation violation stemming from a sex crime.

Officials with the U.S. Border Patrol said Friday that agents assigned to the Houlton sector were conducting a transportation check on a commercial bus in Houlton when they came across a man who said he was a U.S. refugee. The man told agents that he was born in Angola but had been granted asylum in the United States.

The suspicious agents conducted immigration and criminal checks, which revealed an active warrant out of Saint Charles County, Missouri. The warrant was for a probation violation stemming from a guilty plea that the man entered on a charge of first-degree sexual intercourse with a person less than 14 years old. [Why was he even free—ed]

Now this is what I found interesting.  Houlton is a border town with Canada, but the arrest was made at the local bus station (guess the guy was hoping to get to Canada) not at the border crossing.

Williams said that while most Border Patrol work is conducted in the immediate border area, agents conduct enforcement actions at transportation hubs away from the immediate border as part of a strategy of disrupting human smuggling activities.

Makes me wonder too which NGOs and immigration lawyers are helping these asylum seekers get across our borders—either coming or going!

Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis?

~ Ann Corcoran

Update February 22, 2015:  I see many readers visiting this old post this morning, be sure to see our news today that we are admitting over 800 Somalis A MONTH to the US right now.  The largest percentage of those will either be resettled directly to Minnesota or will eventually end up there as they become what the US State Dept. calls “secondary migrants” (refugees resettled elsewhere who then move to MN).

That is the question asked by CBS Minnesota in Minneapolis this week. Hat tip: Lynn.  The story, here, pretty much has it correct.  First, there are a bunch of volags (silly name, voluntary agencies) paid by the federal government to resettle refugees. If you have a bunch of those in your town (or one aggressive one), you will have a larger number of refugees.   And, the second reason is that the welfare benefits in Minnesota are  so good.

Digressing slightly, I meant to post on the welfare magnet that is Maine awhile back where the new governor plans to limit services after 5 years to those on welfare.  Maine has been a magnet to Somalis as well, most notably the city of Lewiston.

[Governor Paul] LePage supports 5-year lifetime limits on welfare programs and a tiered system to transition welfare recipients into the work force.

Back to Minneapolis and the WCCO report which begins:

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – It is perhaps the least likely place to find tens of thousands of African refugees: the cold, snowy, middle of America. So why are there so many Somalis in Minnesota?

Reason number 1: Church “volags” brought them to welcoming Minnesota.

The Somalis are here as legal refugees, largely. The Somalis Minnesota story tracks to 1991, when civil war broke out in Somalia. Millions fled to refugee camps, many in Kenya.

Two years later, the first wave of Somali refugees were sent to Minnesota.

“In the beginning the U.S. federal government assigns people,” said Samatar [Dr. Ahmed Samatar, dean of the Institute for Global Citizenship at Macalester College].

To qualify as a refugee, there is a process. The U.S. State Department ultimately decides where refugees will live, but it has to do with the voluntary agencies, called VOLAGS, that contract with the State Department. [The volags play the largest role in deciding where refugees go, there is no careful analysis of your city, resettlement locations are just determined with pressure from the volags.  If there is a problem and people in the community make waves, the State Dept. may step in and stop the resettlement to that city.—ed]

Minnesota has very active ones like Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities, and World Relief Minnesota.

Those agencies agree [and are paid by the US taxpayer—ed] to help the refugees get settled, to learn English, find housing, get health care, and begin a new life.

Reason number 2, and why refugees stay and more come, is that Minnesota, like Maine, provides handsome welfare programs.

But the Somalis have largely stayed, somewhere around 30,000 of them, partially because of the strength of the non-governmental VOLAGS, and partially because of the strength of governmental programs to help refugees begin a new life, according to Samatar.  [Note how delicately this is worded, LOL!, “strength of governmental programs.”—ed]

After the first wave is assigned here, the second wave of relatives and friends soon followed.

“As Somalis settle down, find a life, the good news spreads: ‘Hey this is a good place, you can find a life here,’” said Samatar.

Over the past 25 years, the United States has admitted about 84,000 Somali refugees [they’ve got that figure about right, but they don’t include all those who got in through other immigration programs or who came in illegally and have disappeared—ed]. Close to 40 percent live in Minnesota.

“The institutions of this state, private or public, have an important place in the mind of Somalis,” he noted.

This is long but do not stop reading! The best part of this story from CBS is the comment section.  I am posting one entire comment from a reader named Random Reader because I doubt it will be available for too long.

Random Reader:

I live in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis, which is immediately adjacent to the Cedar Riverside neighborhood where the majority of the Somali population lives. We also have high-rise public housing that is predominantly Somali, along with many Somali businesses and the main public elementary school serving the Somali population. I regularly take my child to play in parks where we are the only non-Somali people, shop in the halal markets, and try to keep up with issues of importance to the Somali community by following the local and national websites catering to the Somali Diaspora (i.e. Bartamaha, Hiiraan, Camel Milk Threads…). All in all I would say that as an outsider I have about as much exposure to the Somali population as possible without being a social worker.

And I must say that I am very worried by what I see.

While many Somalis are hard working, law abiding, good citizens, there appears to be a significant percentage who maintain their clan ties and animosities, make no attempt at integrating themselves into the general population, and are prone to violence. Some of the violence is Somali vs. Somali- for example the triple murder at the Seward Market in 2010 and the daytime shooting a few weeks ago on Franklin Ave. But a lot of it is more akin to the piracy which takes place off the Somali coast: gangs of Somalis have been mugging area bicyclists for years and the trail that follows the light rail. Residents of Minneapolis will also likely remember the youtube video posted by young Somali gangsters a year or two back showing them assaulting random pedestrians and bicyclists with no apparent motive other than laughs.

In addition to the violence, there seems to be other major “quality of life” issue with the Somali population. For example, rampant littering, uninsured driving, treatment of Somali women as chattel and sex slaves by the men, welfare fraud. Even little actions show great disrespect: II can say honestly that every person I have seen but into a line in the last few years has been a young Somali.

While it would be worrying enough that there is a group in the state with this apparent love of violence and disrespect of social conventions, what makes me even more scared is the growth of the community. Although I have never been able to find any firm numbers, it appears that the local Somali community is maintaining the fertility rate of their homeland- somewhere around 5 or 6 kids per family. And likewise- although official numbers are not available a huge percentage of the Somali population relies on public money and social services for almost every facet of their lives (i.e. subsidized housing, food stamps, use of our public county hospital…). Honestly, I do not see how Minnesota (and Minneapolis/Hennepin County in particular) will be able to support this population in the future. And if public support ever goes away, the muggings seem sure to get even more frequent.

I welcome the fact that CBS opened a comment section on this story. Our local papers, the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press will almost never allow comments on articles related to the Somali community, and when they do the comments are heavily censured. Likewise the local community email list, e-democracy.org, will kill any thread which talks about crime related to the Somali community. While I understand not wanting to provide a space for ignorant racial ranting it also means that there is not a single open forum in Minneapolis where issues surrounding this issue can be discussed.

As a lifelong resident of Minnesota I have seen waves of immigrants come to our state, due to the work of Lutheran Social Services. And I welcome (for example) the Liberians, Hmong, Laotians, Cambodians and Ethiopians who arrived ready to work hard and make a better live. But being close to the heart of the Somali community, I think I am starting to understand why Somalia has not been able to maintain a government since 1991.

Note: this is an edited version of a comment submitted and published on the NYT website in regards to another article on the Somali Minnesota Population.

Canada: Immigrant rips off Canadian taxpayers, hundreds around the world benefit

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

No, this isn’t the standard rip-off, it was a clever one on a large scale that went on for a decade.   It’s an old story now (from last week), but still worth reporting. (Hat tip: Janet)

From the National Post:

TORONTO — The RCMP has arrested a Quebec immigration consultant accused of providing Canadian citizenship documents to hundreds of people in the Middle East so they could collect benefits and tax refunds from Ottawa.
Ahmad El-Akhal, 62, was arrested Thursday morning following a 2-1/2-year investigation by the RCMP’s Immigration and Passport and Commercial Crimes sections. His wife was also arrested as well as a suspected accomplice in Mississauga.

The alleged fraud ring is accused of securing immigrant status and citizenship for more than 300 residents of Lebanon and other Middle East countries and then helping them bilk the Canadian government of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Once they received documents this guy would fill out the tax returns and documents to get benefits back in the names of these people,” said RCMP Sgt. Marc LaPorte. “They were getting tax refunds, Goods and Services Tax rebates, child credit tax benefits, so the whole gamut.”

It took Canadian officials nearly a decade to figure out that something was wrong when hundreds of immigrants gave 29 addresses on documents.

The alleged crimes go back as far as 1999. The investigation began in 2008 after Citizenship and Immigration Canada noticed that 320 permanent residence applicants had given the same 29 home addresses in Canada.

Wealth redistribution anyone?

I swear there are some really smart Muslims who know every trick in the book (heck, they write the book!) on how to rip-off the infidel.

Pro-migration forces admit black males hurt most by high immigration numbers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Center for Immigration Studies, David North, reported on a meeting of “pro-migration forces” (that is a much better definition than the usual “open borders” gang I’ve been using), last week where they were trying to figure out where they go now that Amnesty is dead for the next two years.

Check out this shocking admission reported by North (emphasis mine):

On display Thursday was a gently stated, appropriately nuanced discussion of how to deal with immigration policy. The principal speaker was Harry J. Holzer, a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, and now a Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

[….]

Holzer is frankly pro-immigration, but is honest enough to admit that it can be hard on less-skilled resident workers, and particularly black males. He speaks of, among other things, increasing the costs for illegal immigrants, and increasing the benefits for those in legal status, as part of a scheme to restore some order in the labor market. He is an enthusiastic supporter of high-skilled immigration and mentioned no adverse impacts on high-skilled resident workers, which I think is a mistake.

Not only do employers benefit, but so do white-collar, well-educated, rich people, who get nannies and restaurant workers!  Ahhhhh! And we have been led to believe this is all about humanitarianism!

He is also honest enough to acknowledge that it is not only employers who benefit from low-wage workers, it is also consumers generally, including, he said, to a white-collar, well-educated audience, “people like you.” He spoke of how international migration increased the supply of nannies and people who work in “the restaurants that you like.”

North also clearly described the three branches of the pro-migration forces:

It is useful to note that the pro-migration advocates, though allied with each other, come in three different groupings. There are the employers, who want lower wages; there are the ethnic organizations who say, in effect, “Let My People In”; and then there are the intellectuals [ed: read Leftists!], represented Thursday at a session of the foundation-supported Migration Policy Institute.

Read it all!