Day: May 26, 2011

Story about Indians coming across southern border adds more evidence to my theory about asylum seeker fraud

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Before I tell you about the story which I should have posted a couple of days ago (hat tip Gary), briefly this is what I think is happening:

*Open borders advocates are using our asylum system to get more immigrants into the country.

*Businesses looking for cheap labor may be teamed up with non-profit “humanitarian” groups to facilitate the scam, and possibly even linked to the traffickers.  There likely are some terrorist networks using the system as well.

*Most asylum seekers are economic migrants, not really persecuted people (thus my use of the word “scam”).

*Refugee advocates know that the number of refugees is going to go down as our economic situation continues to be unable to handle the numbers on welfare and more and more people are questioning the program, thus their focus is shifting to asylees.

*Immigration lawyers have set up extensive businesses in border states and are somehow tipped off to the arrival of the newest asylum seekers.

Admittedly I don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, but my first inkling of this new focus of the Open Borders crowd came when I saw this story about illiterate and obviously not well-off Somalis paying as much as $10,000 each, then getting across the world to our southern border and knowing to ask for asylum—it all sounded fishy to me.

So, now to this news article at KRGV News that is written in such a confusing way that I’ve had to search through it, excerpt sections and rearrange a few of them in the hopes that it will be understandable for readers.

Not sure here whether the writer is implying the Indians might be terrorists or that if the Indians get in so easily, terrorists will too.

HARLINGEN – A terrorist could be crossing the border right now.

Intelligence agents are focusing on that line between the U.S. and Mexico.

They are watching the people who come from India through the Valley.

The Indians say they’re trying to escape persecution in their home country.

How many are coming?

CHANNEL 5 NEWS asked for the numbers of Indian illegals detained in the last year from the U.S. Border Patrol.

During October and April of 2010, 730 Indians were caught. During the same time this year, more than 1100 have been captured. Nearly a 50 percent increase.

The Indians are briefly detained then released?

After being caught in the U.S. and taken to the detention center they are released many are taken to the Harlingen Bus Station.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS staked out the bus station to see, one night we saw a group of five Indian nationals, another night we saw a group of three, then a group of four.  [Maybe an investigative journalist should get on the bus and see where they are going!–ed]

Immigration lawyer helps them get released?

Border Patrol agents caught Rakesh Kumar coming into the country with a group of illegals from Central America.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS talked to him at the Hidalgo County Jail.

He’s facing pornography charges for bringing porn on a memory card. He’s a Sikh from Punjab.

Prosecutors dropped all the charges against him.

Burhan Nomani represents illegals. He’s an immigration lawyer in Houston.

[….]

Nomani meets the Indians after they end up in a federal detention center. He’s represented more than 100 so far.

A business man, a taxi driver, lawyers and “hotel people” tell them how to get here?

A CBP spokesman wouldn’t tell us how the Indians are getting here. But the Indians would.

“The hotel people told us who to talk to to bring me here,” says Sandeep.

Rakesh tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS a Guatemalan Taxi driver told him how to find a smuggler.

They got Visas at New Delhi Airport in India to get int Guatemala, smugglers drove and walked them into Mexico and then the United States.

Once in the U.S. they sometimes have friends come to pick them up. Others have to get outside help.

One businessman CHANNEL 5 NEWS spoke with says he picks up Indians from the bus depot almost every night after their lawyers or family call him.

He says he sees about 20 people a week, he helps them book trips out of the Valley and their immigration cases go with them.

Maybe there are terrorists among them, maybe not?

Burhan Nomani says the government believes terrorists could easily walk among the legitimate asylum seekers. They won’t be caught until they create chaos.

But, you can rest assured that some poor schlub from the slums of Calcutta is checked out very very carefully as immigration agents go over their backgrounds very very carefully before dropping them at the bus station and sending them on to your town!

Despite that, the vast majority of Indians coming into the Valley are not terrorists. In fact, Immigration agents check backgrounds and connections of every detained person before they are released.

Give me a break!  A border agent just puts in a call to the chief of police of Calcutta and receives a background report?  We don’t even know their real names or where on earth they have been living, but just run them on over to the bus station and move-em out!  They are someone else’s problem now!

By the way, according to the most recent annual report from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 22,852 asylum cases were approved in 2008.

Update:  Thanks to Gary for sending some film clips about the situation on the border,here is Greta Van Susteren interviewing a ranch owner, Dr. Michael Vickers and here is a fascinating story (video account) from KRGV-TV about how the Texas Border Volunteers work to protect private ranches from illegal aliens crossing their land.

Milwaukee: Lutheran federal contractor places refugees in slum apartments—again

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The ‘again’ doesn’t just mean the Lutherans, but many of the federal refugee contractors* have over the years been caught doing the same thing.  I don’t know if it’s because they are cheap or lazy or have some backroom deal with certain landlords, but it’s an on-going problem and mystery to me.  It usually takes a good investigative reporter or even a private citizen hounding the contractors to bring about any relief for the confused and unhappy refugees.

We haven’t posted recently on the refugee abuse stories, so for new readers this is nothing new.  A couple of cases that come immediately to mind are the Waterbury, CT case where the contractor was actually shut down for abusing Burmese refugees.  In that case it was the dogged work of an investigative reporter that brought attention to the refugees’ plight.  Another case was the Bowling Green, Kentucky case—again Burmese living in squalor under the thumb of unscrupulous landlords and sneaky resettlement workers.  Oh, and I almost forgot, but just saw it again, a Lutheran agency was given the heave-ho in Greensboro, NC for neglecting refugees.

Calling all Lutherans, please get after your fellow churchmen who are behind these human rights abuses!  They lobby for more refugees (as they did at the State Department hearing on May 12th) , but then don’t give a rats rear-end about where they place them.

Now, back to Milwaukee.  I wouldn’t have seen this lengthy investigation of the refugee/landlord slum problem if I hadn’t been looking for more information on Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter Mark Johnson.  I was told that Mr. Johnson was on a US State Department press conference call on Tuesday and asked some very hard questions of the Refugee head honchos.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Dozens of Burmese refugees who fled persecution in their homeland have landed in recent years in cockroach-infested Milwaukee apartments, some thick with the smell of leaking sewage and almost all unprotected by working smoke or carbon monoxide detectors.

Many of the refugees were placed in the squalid conditions by Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, which acknowledges it never conducted a background check on the complex’s owner, Daniel Bruckner, a Fox Point lawyer.

State and city records reviewed by the Journal Sentinel show Bruckner faces hundreds of city building code violations and four city lawsuits, owes nearly a half-million dollars in delinquent property taxes and has seven felony convictions for importing child pornography.

Lutheran Social Services was unaware of Bruckner’s code violations and legal troubles, said Natascha Malkemes, a spokeswoman for the agency.

“We should know these things,” she conceded, adding,”We have our clients’ best interests at heart for sure.”

On Friday, the agency – which is paid federal dollars to settle refugees – released a statement saying, “The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has recently made our organization aware of litigation against and a criminal record of a landlord we have worked with in the past. Because of this development, Lutheran Social Services will immediately begin looking into ways to put procedures in place to apply background check standards on all of the landlords we work with.”

In addition, the agency pledged to contact the refugees who rent from Bruckner and assist any who wish to move.

Landlord puts the blame on primitive refugees:

Bruckner placed the blame for most of his 443 building-code infractions at Wilson Park Garden Apartments on his tenants, especially the Burmese refugees.

“These are very primitive people,” said Bruckner, 64, who charges them about $700 a month in rent. “When they come here, a lot of them don’t even know how to flush a toilet. One of the first things they do is they go in the Dumpster and eat, OK? That’s the type of people you have there.”

Lutheran agency employee: they are used to bugs!

When asked about the cockroach infestation at the apartments, Malkemes said by email: “New arrivals come from refugee camps where they had no electricity or running water, and sometimes are not accustomed to general upkeep or how to properly store food. In these camps, refugees are often exposed to insects and this is their everyday (life).”

I’ve just selected a few snippets from a very thorough investigative report and I encourage all of you to read it.  One part that particularly intrigued me was the section about how the landlord worked through a currency exchange business to collect the rent.  I have long thought there is some funny money business going on in some cities that involve immigrants, money going overseas and lawyers, but not being literate on financial matters I can’t figure it out.

*For new readers, federal refugee contractors are called volags.  That stands for voluntary agencies which is a really funny name because they are largely funded by taxpayers dollars and the voluntary part is minimal.  Originally there was supposed to be a public-private partnership that anticipated the non-profit groups, many of which are church-affiliated, would find private money to supplement the federal payments.  That is not happening to any great degree with the agencies increasingly reliant on the federal dole.   Here are the major federal contractors  (six are affiliated with religious groups) and each has subcontractors making it even harder to monitor them or follow the money.

Obama sends money for Libyan refugees, invites rebels to set up DC office

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Obama Administration announced, according to this report from a Chinese news agency (Xinhuanet), that it is sending $50 million in aid to “partners” in the North African region to help with “refugees” and the “humanitarian crisis” created by the joyful Arab Spring democracy revolutions.   It was also announced that Obama has invited the rebels to set up an office in Washington. What is that all about?  Do they need to be close to the money pot or are they going to have rebel lobbyists crawling over Capitol Hill, or both?

From Xinhuanet:

BEIJING, May 25 (Xinhuanet) — A senior U.S. diplomat says President Barack Obama has invited the Libyan rebels’ National Transitional Council to open an office in Washington DC.

Speaking in the de-facto rebel capital of Benghazi, “U.S. Assistant Secretary-of-State for Near Eastern Affairs”, Jeffrey Feltman, says the invitation marked an “important milestone” in the relationship with the NTC, and that he was pleased they had accepted the offer. Several countries, including France and Italy, have recognized the NTC, while the U.S., the European Union and others have established a diplomatic presence in Benghazi. In addition, Feltman announced that the US has given more than 50-million U.S. dollars to aid the Libyan people.

He said, “We’ve given today 53.5 (m) million (U.S.) dollars to address the humanitarian crisis that stems from Gadhafi’s attack on his people. This is to international partners who are working in part inside Libya and in part with the refugees who are in Tunisia and Egypt. So, it’s addressing refugee needs outside Libya’s borders, it’s addressing the needs of the people of Misrata and others, it’s through international partners.”

I see that Obama already dipped into the ERMA funds* he has at his discretion back in March for $15 million to Libya, so there must be some new redistribution of taxpayer dollars to “partners” in North Africa in recent days.   Also, Libyan rebels traveled to Washington and London earlier this month looking for money, here, guess they hit the US taxpayer-supported lottery!

We should be happy in one regard, we aren’t airlifting the “refugees” to the US (yet!).

*Readers the Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance fund is at about $100 million each year, but I cannot find anything at the moment to tell us how much Obama has already spent.