Month: December 2011

San Diego: Another Somali woman says she is guilty of sending money to terrorists

~ Ann Corcoran

And, the last Minnesota bank stops sending money to Somalia after finding a “vulnerability” with its pipeline for money transfers to Somalia.

We told you here (‘go to hell infidels’) that two (grateful to be Americans—NOT!) women in Minneapolis were found guilty of sending money to Al-shabaab, a terrorist group in the Horn of Africa a few weeks ago.   Now, an immigrant woman in San Diego is found to be connected to the same scheme.

From the LA Times:

A 25-year-old Somali immigrant pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court Thursday to sending money to help a terrorist group in her native land.

Nima Yusuf, who lived in San Diego, admitted that she sent $1,450 to three men who had left the United States to fight for al-Shabaab and that she lied about her activities to agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

Yusuf faces a possible 15 years in prison and $250,000 fine when she is sentenced Feb. 10. In her plea, Yusuf admitted working with four Somalis now under indictment in Minnesota for aiding al-Shabaab.

Meanwhile, the last bank in Minnesota willing to send money from immigrants to Somalia is stopping the practice.

From Minnesota Public Radio:

St. Paul, Minn. — The last U.S. bank to allow wire transfers to Somalia has given notice it no longer will, sending members of the Minnesota Somali community scrambling to find new ways to send money that country.

For people who want to send money to family in Somalia, there’s just one way, and that is through a hawala. It’s the only wire transfer service that can get money to Somalia. Each year, millions of dollars are sent by Minnesota Somalis through hawalas. For many years they’ve supplied the country’s largest source of income.

Hawalas need accounts with banks to transfer money out of the U.S. An increasing number of U.S. banks have refused to work with hawalas. Now there remains only one — Franklin Bank.

Minneapolis-based American Refugee Committee* president Daniel Wordsworth said his organization has spent the last two years trying to set up their own channels to send money securely to Somalia.

“And at all levels it was made very clear to us that Franklin Bank was really our only option. I’ve just confirmed it with folks in Washington that Franklin — really that is the bank.”

That is why many in the Somali community panicked this week when Franklin’s parent-company, St Paul-based Sunrise Community Banks, announced it would close all accounts with Somali hawalas by Dec. 14.

The bank uncovered a “vulnerability” during the case against the two women in Minnesota.

Sunrise Bank’s CEO, David Reiling, said that fact [that this will slow the money flow to Somalia] weighs heavily on his shoulders. But his bank recently uncovered a vulnerability in its financial dealings with hawalas, he said.

“And that specific risk was really identified out of the recent case involving the two Somali women in Rochester, Minnesota.”

*American Refugee Committee is here.   When I get a few minutes I need to check into them further.

Bishops continue to grovel for more millions, Pelosi calls them lobbyists

~ Ann Corcoran

Readers, I’m a Tea Partier, I don’t like Nancy Pelosi so I can’t believe I’m actually saying she is right for once!   She calls the US Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbyists with whom she agrees sometimes, and sometimes she doesn’t (here).  Readers need only search the USCCB here at RRW to see my many posts on their Washington lobbying efforts on such things as global warming and open borders, but most importantly their lobbying for your tax dollars to flow into their coffers.  It is really shameful.

A case in point is the media blitz they are putting on right now to try to wrangle a few more millions out the government because they were denied a grant this year for ONE of their many government-funded programs.

Here is what they are saying to Congress—Obama hates Catholics—but the funny thing is the USCCB is pretty far Leftists on most issues and have carried the water for Obama.

From Catholic News Service:

WASHINGTON (CNS) — A U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops program aiding victims of human trafficking was denied funding after its administrators declined to propose alternatives to a government requirement that female victims receive “the full range of legally permissible gynecological and obstetric care,” a Department of Health and Human Services official told a congressional committee

Facing at times grueling questioning from Republican members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Dec. 1, George Sheldon, acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, said he made the final decision to award grants worth $4.7 million to three other agencies that agreed to provide access to services such as abortion, contraception and sterilization under the National Human Trafficking Victim Assistance Program.

The committee hearing was called as House members investigated why the bishop’s Migration and Refugee Services department was denied funding for its program despite receiving high scores during a review of its application for $2.5 million for another year of work and its positive track record of assisting nearly 2,800 trafficking victims and family members since 2006.

Johnny Young, executive director of the bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, which contracted with government to assist trafficking victims, told Catholic News Service that his agency told Sheldon they could work with alternatives “but we didn’t offer any alternatives.”

“We just said we wouldn’t do anything that would violate church teaching,” Young said

Several Republican committee members charged during the three-hour hearing that the final decision to deny funding to MRS demonstrated an anti-Catholic bias within the administration of President Barack Obama.

The “Republican committee members” know very little about how this all works—the do-gooder lobby siphoning off tax payers dollars to largely fund these NGO’s infrastructure, offices, staff, travel, lobbying expenses, etc.

The Bishops are crying over the loss of $2.5 million of your tax dollars when they got more than $650 million from YOU (via the feds) in the last three years!

The acting assistant secretary also explained in introductory comments that HHS had awarded $650 million to Catholic organizations during the past three years, including a $19 million grant to aid foreign refugees days after the MRS grant was denied.

Of course, HHS didn’t help its case by giving USCRI money!  The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants is the same federal contractor which is screwing up in New Hampshire right now and its present president (Lavinia Limon) is the former head of HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and the head of ORR now is a former VP at USCRI—a prime case of the revolving door going on between government contractors and government.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., committee chairman, quoted unreleased HHS documents that indicated that the proposal from USCRI was not recommended for funding during the review process.

New readers:  There are 11 major federal refugee contractors competing for your money for myriad programs that purport to help immigrants and refugees.  The USCCB is one and USCRI is another.