Month: January 2012

They must be having problems in Boise with refugee numbers…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…or this news story wouldn’t be out there.

From State Impact (NPR):

Idaho residents know well the reversal of fortune the state has seen since the start of the recession.  The state, which not so long ago had the fastest growing economy in the nation, has been hit hard.  In a broadcast story tomorrow, we’ll look at how Idaho’s economic troubles have affected the state’s refugee population, focusing in on a particular family.

First, a little background.  How many refugees are resettled in Idaho each year?  Here are the numbers, according the the Idaho Office for Refugees, which has statewide responsibility for providing assistance and services for refugees.  [visit the article for the numbers]

Beware employment numbers put out by biased resettlement agencies—their future contracts depend on their ability to find work for the refugees they bring to your town.  The real unemployment numbers are  much worse then this article tells us.

Below are the available employment statistics.  In 2005, 95 percent of the Idaho Office for Refugees’ employable caseload found work, a rate IOR Director Jan Reeves calls “the high-end baseline” for the years preceding the recession.  By 2007, the employment rate had dipped. [but refugees kept coming—ed]

[….]

Looking at the top table, it’s easy to see that 2008, 2009 and 2010 stand out for the relatively large numbers of refugees coming to Idaho.  Reeves says those numbers were based on assessments of the state’s capacity [there is no formal assessment of capacity that I am aware of—ed] to resettle refugees.  Why did the numbers go up even as employment opportunities became scarcer?  “The projections come out in advance of the year,” he says, “so the numbers were determined, really, before the full extent of the recession was known.”

Resettlement contractors like the International Rescue Committee in Boise find any sort of job, part-time job, anything! just to say the refugee is employed.  There is no follow-up statistical study available to the public to show how many kept the job for any length of time.

A little known racket for some businesses (something I learned about here in Maryland) is that certain companies get federal subsidies (payroll tax breaks) to hire immigrants.  But those only last so long.  So businesses do what businesses do and let those workers go and get a fresh batch of immigrant workers (with federally subsidized pay) and the beat goes on!

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reveals in this piece as well that once you get the refugee flow going to a certain city, it is hard to stop because the first refugees bring their extended families. Not reported in this article is that the IRC helps with the paperwork for the family members and gets paid for that too—by you, the taxpayer.

Defending high unemployment among refugees, the IRC spokesman goes on to say that the refugees are here for protection, not necessarily to supply employment.  However, it was explicitly clear when the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 passed Congress that the refugees were not to come here to be on welfare—this was not about importing poverty—but that is exactly what is happening now.

Here this same IRC spokesman, Bob Carey, is wailing to Congress to give them more welfare money because refugees can’t find work.

Someone must be making waves in Idaho about refugee resettlement or we wouldn’t be seeing this twisted defense of the program by NPR.

Dutch called “intolerant” for new ban on Somali drug khat

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those diversity is strength reports from Europe.  Since we know Europe is ahead of us in its reverence for multiculturalism, take heed.

From AFP news:

UITHOORN, Netherlands — A small Dutch city less than 20 kilometres from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport has become the hub of Europe’s sales of khat, a plant chewed for its stimulant qualities, soon to be banned in the Netherlands.

In a discreet warehouse tucked away in the city of Uithoorn, around a hundred Somalis and Yemenis were haggling over the latest delivery: a tonne of khat.

“The arrival of the delivery varies daily, depending on the flight from Kenya,” said a khat importer of the plant which drug authorities say produces a natural amphetamine when chewed.

The men sit around and chew the stuff, talk politics, and get high in the welfare capitols of Europe (especially as this report points out, in Scandinavia).

Residents of this ‘khat market’ city have had it.

Three khat deliveries a day, weighing about a tonne each, are taken to Uithoorn by truck from Amsterdam-Schiphol airport, 15 kilometres (nine miles) to the northwest. From Uithoorn it is sold to wholesale dealers and then resold throughout Europe.

But 15 of the European Union’s 27 states and Norway have already listed khat as an illegal narcotic and the Netherlands too announced earlier this month it would ban khat.

Local businesses have also complained about the commotion at the “khat market,” one of the reasons for the Dutch decision.

“Some days there may be more than 200 cars in the street,” sighed Uithoorn mayor Dagmar Oudhoorn.

Residents are tired, she said, adding “there is a real fear of crime and traffic problems.”

[…..]

Two-thirds of the khat at Uithoorn were exported illegally from the Netherlands, mainly to Scandinavia, the Somali importer told AFP.

The Somali khat “importer” goes on to wonder why the Dutch are so intolerant, but brushes it off with a promise to find another way to get his khat and make his illicit drug money when the Dutch ban goes into effect.

We’ve written about khat in the US from time to time.  It is here too.  This is our khat archive (Minnesota, Kansas, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and more!).

Note to readers:  I’ve been meaning to mention that on the many days lately that I don’t get time to post here, I can always be sure my reader numbers stay up because hundreds of people search every day for posts here on Somalis—Somalis in Minnesota, Somalis in Maine, Somali numbers,  Somalis in Canada, why so many Somalis and so forth.  See what I mean, go to the right hand side bar and look at “Top Posts” to see what old posts everyone is reading.

Fargo, ND: “Canadian” gets 18 years for major credit card scam

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

When I saw that title (or a similar one) about this story, I knew before reading further that it wouldn’t be somebody named Smith or Jones (or whatever the Canadian version is of ‘everyman’).  The convicted thief is Adekunle Adetiloye, a Nigerian who became a  Canadian citizen (although maybe he faked a passport too!).

I don’t know if he is a refugee originally granted asylum in Canada or what, but I do know that I had to laugh when I saw that the word ‘Nigerian’ was eliminated the second time it was mentioned in one mainstream media version of the story.

Here is USA Today on the story (one of the largest bank heists in US history!):

FARGO, N.D. – He was unemployed and receiving welfare, but Adekunle Adetiloye was somehow living lavishly, complete with a Range Rover, extended trips to England and an expensive condominium.

That alone piqued authorities’ interest, but then there were two credit cards tucked away in his wallet that seemed to confirm suspicions that Adetiloye, a Nigerian-born Canadian citizen, was up to something nefarious. The cards each bore different names — Donald Douglas and Vincent Andriole — and helped authorities prosecute a case they describe as one of the largest high-tech bank robberies in U.S. history.  [the ‘N-word’ is here—ed].

“Characterizing this fraud scheme as massive, if anything, is an understatement,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Chase of North Dakota said in court documents.

Adetiloye, 30, was sentenced Monday to nearly 18 years in prison on fraud charges. He was convicted of mail fraud, but authorities believe he masterminded a scheme to open nearly 600 fraudulent bank accounts and bilk 22 major banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Federal prosecutor Nick Chase said during the sentencing hearing in North Dakota that Adetiloye had an “insatiable hunger for other people’s money.”

Gee, that seems to apply to a lot of people these days—insatiable hunger for other people’s money!

Here is the paragraph at USA Today that I want you to look at:

Defense attorney Richard Henderson had asked for a sentence of fewer than 16 years. Henderson said any prison time for his client is more difficult than it would be for American citizens because he has no family in the United States.

Now, here is the same paragraph as originally written by AP and posted at Canadian Immigration Report where the reporter apparently wanted readers to not miss the fact that he was a Nigerian (not a native Canadian) by mentioning that fact twice.

Defence lawyer Richard Henderson had asked for a sentence of fewer than 16 years. Henderson said any prison time for his client, a native of Nigeria, is more difficult than it would be for American citizens because he has no family in the United States.

The phrase—a native of Nigeria—has been removed from the USA Today story (although it is mentioned once in the story).

And, by the way, why should anyone worry about this crook getting a lesser sentence then an American citizen just because he has no family in the US.  He surely wasn’t thinking about that when he was ruining the financial lives of hundreds of Americans.

With all the unrest in Nigeria (Muslims killing Christians), look for us to open up refugee resettlement from that country next!

If any of our Canadian readers know more about this guy, please comment.  It’s highly likely he wasn’t even a Canadian citizen, and Canada shouldn’t be the bad guy to all the American readers who skim only headlines and never read further.

Endnote:  As I have said many times, someone should write a blog just about fraud schemes by immigrants.  The food stamp fraud is especially egregious and the mainstream media is too squishy to report on it in any thorough way.

Rise of Russian nationalism a challenge for Putin

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Prime Minister Putin says he would like ethnic diversity in the former Soviet Union, but would urge that immigrants also learn and respect the Russian language and Russian culture, frankly a challenge he will fail (in my opinion) to accomplish as Muslims flow into Russia in large numbers.

From Reuters:

(Reuters) – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, warning ethnic tensions could tear Russia apart, said on Monday he would toughen migration rules and keep a tight rein on Russia’s regions to prevent it following the Soviet Union into oblivion.

In a newspaper article and an address in southern Russia, Putin used the danger of ethnic discord to call for limits on electoral reforms.

[…..]

Putin, in power since 2000 and favored to win a six-year presidential term in March, described a Soviet-style vision of a country in which the rights of ethnic minorities would be respected but Russian language and culture would dominate.

“The Russian people, the Russian culture is the glue holding together the unique fabric of this civilization,” Putin wrote.

Putin is steering a fine line between Orthodox Christian ethnic Russians, some of whom fear labor migration and higher birth rates among Russia’s Muslims, and ethnic tensions which could challenge his vision of a centralized, united, Russia.

Thousands of nationalists have protested in Moscow over migration and state subsidies to the mostly Muslim North Caucasus, where an Islamist insurgency rooted in the Chechen wars persists.

We have heard it all before.

Canada says NO! to Hungarian criminals seeking refugee status

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We don’t often hear of Hungarian Roma people seeking refuge, but they do. And, below is a story out of Ontario, Canada about a couple who scammed the welfare system in Hamilton and will be deported.

From the Hamilton Spectator:

The public needs to be aware of flaws in Canada’s refugee and welfare systems that allowed a group of Hungarian Roma criminals to live in Hamilton and get paid for it, says the lead prosecutor of an ongoing human trafficking case.

“Disgusting, stunning, shocking, I just don’t have the words to describe,” assistant Crown attorney Toni Skarica said in court.

He made the statement during a court appearance for Viktoria Nemes, the 45-year-old wife and mother of accused human traffickers. She pleaded guilty Friday to welfare fraud.

She has been in custody since early December and will be deported this month.

Nemes came to Hamilton, from Hungary, in December 2008 and soon after misled authorities into believing she and her husband had separated and that she was a single mom, court heard.

In total, she and her husband are believed to have defrauded the City of Hamilton out of nearly $50,000.

“We lost $50,000 paying criminals,” Skarica said.

But Nemes’ case is about a much larger issue, he added.

The “bizarre” criminal justice system in Hungary allows a person who has been found guilty of a crime to return home, before returning to jail, he said, adding that this “is almost designed for criminals to flee somewhere else.”

That is just what Nemes did.

There is more, read it all.