Month: January 2012

Somalis protest at Minnesota state capitol over money transfer issue; millions of questionable dollars sent back to Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an update on a story I wrote about just ten days ago, and didn’t think it was worth posting at first (you know, ho hum, same old story), but there was a bit of information that I found stunning.

So here is the story from the Twin Cities Daily Planet which began with the standard journalistic practice of telling a sob story (or do only Leftwing/mainstream media writers start with such stories?) about a woman who can’t send a few bucks to her starving relatives in the Horn of Africa because of new banking regulations.

By the way, it doesn’t start with the story of the Minnesota Somali women convicted recently (see how Minnesota political leftists are rallying around them)  for sending money to the terror group—Al Shabaab.

Twin Cities Daily Planet (via Hiiraan):

Hassan was one of about 200 mostly Somali and Oromo protesters outside the State Capitol last Friday, January 6, demanding that the state and federal government come up with a solution to allow Africans in the diaspora to send remittances to loved ones in the Horn of Africa.

[…..]

Sunrise Community Banks, the last Minnesota bank to work with Somali-owned money services businesses (MSBs), stopped transferring remittances abroad on December 30. The Somali community has scrambled to figure out alternatives ever since.

It is not just in Minnesota:

….there have been growing fears that Somali-owned MSBs may help facilitate terrorist activity abroad. Concerns heightened after two Somali women from Rochester, Minnesota, were convicted last October of sending money to the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia.

As a result, banks in Minnesota, Ohio and Washington State — all centers of Somali refugee population — have stopped working with Somali-owned MSBs.

The closures aren’t new. Most corporate American banks cut off ties with hawalas in 2005, after Congress passed stricter banking regulations in a post-9/11 era. The regulations designated MSBs as “high risk.”

Then here is the part I found astounding!

From Minnesota alone, $100-120 million in remittances is sent every month through MSBs, part of a global two-billion-dollar industry, Hassan said. He added that the term “hawala” is actually a misnomer, since hawalas are informal businesses. Technically, hawalas don’t even exist in Minnesota, he said.

Up to $120 million a month?  From Minnesota alone!  Readers keep in mind that many Somalis are on welfare and receiving food stamps.  Also note that earlier in the article we learned this:

Somali families typically send between $50 and $200 on a monthly basis to support the livelihoods of relatives in the Horn, she explained.

So, if I’ve done the math correctly that would mean there are 60,000 families sending $200 a month from Minnesota if they are each sending the highest amount we are given.   If they are giving the smallest amount ($50) then there are 240,000 Somali families in Minnesota—no way!

We learned just this past October that the US Census Bureau estimates the Somali population in Minnesota has risen to 32,000!    (I think the number is low, but that is what our government is saying):

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Minnesota’s Somali population is still the largest in the United States after a new Census Bureau estimate early Thursday raised the number of people of Somali ancestry in the state to more than 32,000.

That would mean that every man, woman, and child of Somali origin was sending $3750 a MONTH to Somalia. (LOL! Someone check my math!).  No way, but if the $100 -$120 million number is accurate someone is sending a whole heck of a lot of US dollars to Somalia.  Incidentally that census article says the average black family in Minnesota makes $27,500 a year.

Bottomline, there is a lot of money involved and so it is no surprise that Rep.Keith Ellison (first Muslim Congressman) and the Local SEIU leader were ringleaders at last weeks rally to demand that the banks reinstate the transfer of your money to prop up Somalia.  In addition there must be lots and lots of money involved in the transfer “business” right there in Minnesota.

Changing the subject only slightly, it is the huge amounts of money involved (remittance money) that drives decisions on such things as TPS, here.  Your social welfare money is propping up El Salvador too (while some, like certain people in Montgomery County, Maryland) are making money in the transfer business.

Obama extends TPS for 200,000+ Salvadorans in the US illegally

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I should have posted this news here at RRW when I wrote about it two days ago at my other blog.  If you aren’t familiar with Temporary Protected Status, go here and follow links to learn more.  Essentially TPS is a backdoor amnesty for many ethnic groups including Hondurans, Haitians and Somalis (among others).

I remain puzzled why advocates for refugees seem not to mind that all these illegal aliens are in direct competition for jobs with refugees since those on TPS do get work authorization.

Australian MP: Immigrants need to be taught to wear deodorant

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

An Australian member of parliament is in the doghouse with the politically correct Australian speech police for suggesting that immigrants to Australia be taught about hygiene and other cultural norms when they arrive in the country.

Here is the story from The Telegraph.   Oh, and by the way, I remember hearing similar complaints from refugee hotbeds such as Shelbyville, TN and Emporia, KS.  So it must be a worldwide problem  (that few are willing to talk about!).

An Australian politician has defended controversial calls for new migrants to be taught to wear deodorant, saying her remarks about cultural awareness of hygiene had been blown out of proportion.

Teresa Gambaro, a conservative MP who speaks about citizenship issues for the opposition, sparked a public backlash for suggesting that immigrants coming to Australia on work visas should be taught about social norms.

Wearing deodorant and standing patiently in queues without pushing in were some of the issues she nominated as important.

“Without trying to be offensive we are talking about hygiene and what is an acceptable norm in this country when you are working closely with other co-workers,” Ms Gambaro told The Australian newspaper.

“Sometimes these things are not talked about because people find them offensive but if people are having difficulty getting a job, for instance, it may relate to their appearance and these things need to be taken into account.”

The remarks were dismissed as “bizarre and silly” by Immigration Minister Chris Bowen who said they “could have been expected in 1952 not in 2012”, and Attorney General Nicola Roxon accused Gambaro of being “patronising”.

“Bizarre and silly”?  This woman would not have made up the allegation that some immigrants smell; people surely have brought this problem to her attention, and as their representative, it is her responsibility to address those concerns.

And, I have to laugh about this comment that this “could have been expected in 1952”—YES, OF COURSE, BECAUSE IN 1952 THE POLITICALLY CORRECT SPEECH COPS HAD NOT YET COME INTO EXISTENCE and immigrants were expected to adapt to their new country (and wash)!

Al Gore is responsible for the Kosovar refugees in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….he was importing Democrat voters!  I’m jesting, it is actually much more disgusting then that.

I guess by now you’ve seen the news about the Kosovo-born Muslim immigrant who planned to ‘off’ a few infidels in Tampa, FL.  He wanted to bring terror to his “victim’s hearts.”    If you haven’t heard the news from yesterday then check out Gates of Vienna, here.  Limits to Growth, here and Creeping Sharia, here.

I’m guessing that the arrested terror-plotter is one of the thousands of refugees admitted to the US in the wake of Bill Clinton’s Bosnian war, or is a relative of one of those who came in 12 years ago.   Our perp would have been a child if he had been part of the infamous airlift (but so was one of the Fort Dix jihad plotters, remember them) when he arrived with the largest group of Kosovars we admitted.

Here is the simple version.  In 1999, we brought 15,000 Kosovars to the US and later that year we flew about 10,000 back.   You see they didn’t really want to be here in the first place. I reported on this incredible situation here in 2009.

But, it wasn’t until March 2010 that I learned what really happened when I found this declassified report from the National War College.  The paper written by David Robinson (still involved with the State Department refugee program I believe) basically said that the federal refugee contractors were crying that they didn’t have enough bodies to resettle in the US (and therefore not enough money in their coffers since they are paid by the head to resettle refugees) and the administration wanted a humanitarian excuse for the whole damn war!  So in April 1999 Al Gore sprung a surprise on the professionals in the State Department with the announcement that the photo op of “refugees” arriving in NJ was coming their way whether they liked it or not.

This is what I said in that 2010 post:

I just came across this report from the National War College about how the volags (supposedly voluntary agencies but really federal contractors*) were basically in need of warm bodies to resettle (for $$$) in the US in 1999 so they pushed Gore and the National Security Council to go against professionals in the State Department and even against the wishes of the UN and airlifted tens of thousands of Kosovar “refugees” to the US during Bill Clinton’s phony baloney Bosnian War.

The Clinton administration got its photo op.  The NGOs got their contract money (emergency money too from Congress) and then later that year (surely at taxpayer expense), about ten thousand unhappy “refugees” were returned to Kosovo.    A few thousand stayed in the US.  Again, I don’t know if the Tampa terrorist was in this group, but if he is a naturalized US citizen he got into the US through some legal program.

This is how Robinson begins the 2000 report:

Why did the United States offer permanent resettlement to Kosovar refugees during
Operation Allied Force? Neither the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) nor the Government of Macedonia (GOM) requested U.S. resettlement
assistance. Even the three federal agencies with principal responsibility for refugee
admissions–State, Justice, and Health and Human Services–balked at the idea. Most
importantly, the refugees themselves strongly resisted being moved from the close
proximity to home of the camps in Macedonia to safer, more pleasant quarters elsewhere.

Nevertheless, during a speech at Ellis Island on April 21, 1999, Vice President Gore
announced that the United States would immediately begin processing for American
residency up to 20,000 ethnic Albanians who had fled Serb persecution in Kosovo. His
decision caught the bureaucracy off-guard. The U.S. Coordinator for Refugees, Assistant
Secretary of State Julia Taft, learned of it only an hour before the speech was carried live
on national news.

The next day, an interagency team, led by the State Department’s Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration and including representatives from the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the International Organization for Migration,
and the International Rescue Committee, flew to Skopje. Its mission was twofold: first,
to convince the UNHCR, the GOM, and the refugees that U.S. resettlement was a
preferred option; and second, to build an in-country processing program from scratch.
The team succeeded, but the question remains. Why did the White House insist on this
particular course of action?

LOL!  Maybe Bill just needed more cheap laborers for his friends at Tyson Foods (IBP)—remember it was Clinton who brought Bosnians to Iowa for meat packing jobs.  Lavinia Limon who heads one of the federal contractors now was Clinton’s head honcho in the Office of Refugee Resettlement, so she would know!

But, here is one reason Robinson gives us (and it should make you all weep):

But public support for committing American airmen to combat rested on the refugee issue. The White House could not simply turn its back on the Kosovars while in their name it rained high explosives on Serbia. It desperately needed another gesture, even if only symbolic, to keep the humanitarian rationale for military action credible.

Readers, if any of you see news on how the Tampa Islamic terror plotter got into the US in the first place, send it my way.

Oh, and then send your thanks to Al Gore and good ol’ Bill.

Add a new Islamic terror group to your lexicon

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is BOKO HARAM.  It is the Islamic group that recently took credit for the Christmas day bombings in Nigeria.  The group is looking to establish a shariah government in that country, but they could get in here—into the US.

Recently I picked up the December issue of Government Security News on my kitchen table and noticed this story (below).  Turns out that there were hearings in the US House of Representatives on Boko Haram with an emphasis on the possibility that they could be in the US.

Everybody knows Al Qaeda by now, and readers of RRW surely know the name Al Shabaab (or Shabab), so here is a new African Islamic supremacist group:

The Nigerian Islamist sect that bombed the United Nations headquarters in the Nigerian capital on Aug. 26, killing more than 20, could bring its terror tactics to the US, warned a report from members of the House Homeland Security Committee and its counterterrorism subcommittee.

The report, issued by Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, said Boko Haram could be the next face of terror in the U.S. Their report, issued following a House hearing on the group, said it has quickly evolved and “poses an emerging threat” to the US homeland and interests. They requested the State Department to investigate classifying it as a terror group, saying it could be working with Al Qaeda affiliates in Algeria and Al Shabaab in Nigeria to develop and coordinate on operational plans.

Boko Haram Islamists want to create a Sharia-only nation in northern Nigeria and ignore Nigeria’s constitution and the country’s President Goodluck Jonathan.  They also believe western education and any product of it are blasphemous. Experts on the group say the name “Boko Haram” is a rough combination of Arabic and Nigerian words that mean “western education is a sin.”

And, then I note in this report on the hearings, that the report urges the intelligence community to begin work in the  Nigerian diaspora in the US.  I guess they now realize they were asleep at the switch as Al Shabaab recruited in the US Somali “community” about 5 years ago.

Conduct outreach with Nigerian Diaspora communities in the United States: The US government should develop relationships with Nigerian Diaspora communities in the United States to learn more about Boko Haram and the factors driving its evolution, intent, capability, and targeting. Through familial and personal relationships, Diaspora communities in the United States provide a unique and invaluable perspective on their home country.

So far we aren’t taking Nigerian refugees (that we have been told!), but plenty get into the US through the Diversity Visa  Lottery Program, here (6000 in 2011).

I’m sure you will be hearing much more about BOKO HARAM!