Month: March 2012

Somali guilty in Maine: Home healthcare fraud AND immigration fraud

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I am convinced that somewhere in Africa they teach fraud school!  And, this guy was awarded a Masters Degree!

We first told you about the arrest of Mohdi Ali aka Mahdi Alio in 2009, here.  I had a laugh at the time that the entire article never mentioned the words Somali or Somalia as some in Lewiston were unhappy (and still are) that Somali “refugees” and illegal aliens have targeted their town.  So, the article left readers guessing about where Ali came from.

Nearly three years later, Ali is found guilty.   From the Sun Journal (where this time the word Somalia is in the first line):

A Somalia native who lied about living in refugee camps to enter the U.S. and made false claims to obtain MaineCare benefits faces up to 15 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines.

Mohdi M. Ali, 56, of Lewiston, also known as Canadian resident Mahdi Alio, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Portland to fraudulently obtaining an alien registration card, making false statements in connection with a health care benefit program and using a Social Security number obtained on the basis of false information.

Oh looky here, Canada will get him back after he gets out of prison!  Lucky Canada!

Ali faces up to 10 years in prison on the immigration charge and five years for false statements and Social Security charges. As part of his plea agreement, Ali agreed to be removed to Canada after completing any prison term imposed.

Think about this!  No one in our immigration system figured any of this out before granting him asylum in the US!

According to information released by U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II, Ali came to the United States from Somalia in 1990 to attend college [At age 34?—ed].  He later moved to Canada, where he became a Canadian citizen in 1995. He returned to the United States three years later, where he applied for and was granted asylum. He was later granted permanent resident alien status after falsely claiming to have lived in refugee camps in Kenya from 1992 to 1998.

He ripped-off MaineCare to the tune of a million bucks in one year (but his fine could be $500,000)!  Wonder where the money went?  I bet he had one of those money transfer operations to Africa in the back room!

In 2009, federal agents raided Ali’s downtown Lewiston business, Decent Home Care Inc. Ali was owner and president of the company, which provided nonmedical, health care-related services to disabled people. At the time, Ali told the Sun Journal the business served between 35 and 40 clients.

A Sun Journal investigation later revealed that Decent Home Care Inc. received more than $1 million in payments from the state in 2008 to provide nonmedical services to the elderly and disabled. The company was paid to deliver in-home services to 45 clients under the state’s Medicaid program, known as MaineCare, meaning it spent an estimated $22,222 per client that year.

There is more, read on.

For new readers, we have dozens of posts on Lewiston.  Just type the word into our search function.

Toulouse terror attack: the final straw for some on European immigration question

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Anti-immigration rally in Denmark Saturday.

This is an AP story published at The Blaze (Hat tip: Susan):

LONDON (AP) — An al-Qaida-inspired gunman kills paratroopers and Jewish children in southern France. A far-right fanatic enraged by Muslim immigration guns down dozens of youths at a summer camp in Norway.

Two atrocities in the space of the year, coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, are raising fears across Europe that a growing climate of ethnic and religious hostility is inspiring extremist violence — and creating the conditions for deadly clashes.

The attacks in France and Norway represent the most horrific extremes of two trends of intolerance troubling Europe: strengthening far-right sentiment that has sometimes bled into the mainstream, and growing Islamic radicalization in Europe’s disadvantaged, immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.

With Europe still stunned by last week’s killings in Toulouse, France, a loosely knit group of xenophobic “defense leagues” plans to rally in Denmark Saturday against what they call the growing Islamic presence in western Europe.

Who says Western Europe has been the envy of the world?  The Socialists? The Communists? Who loved those open borders policies?  The delusional ‘diversity is strength’ gang?

For decades, western Europe has been the envy of the world with its high standard of living and tolerant social climate. Today, Europe is gripped by a profound economic crisis and festering conflict over immigration, religion and cultural identity.

Tensions over immigration from northern Africa and other countries with large Islamic populations have fueled the rise of far-right movements across Europe. In France, the ultranationlist National Front is expected to make gains in upcoming presidential and legislative elections. Xenophobic parties in Austria, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands have all gained support in recent years.

Only “intolerant” nutty people see a war between good and evil—really?

Nicolas Lebourg, a historian who studies the far-right at Perpignan University in southern France, said that both Breivik and Merah were products of an increasingly polarized Europe.

“For people who are a little fragile, people who are a little sensitive … we’re overheating them by telling them that there’s this cosmic war between good and evil,” Lebourg said.

Idaho refugees get federal grants to start businesses

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars!

First, it is well-established that Idaho has a refugee overload problem.  We most recently told you about it here.

Then in what seems to be a pattern, what I call fluffy-puffy (refugees see first snow!) stories about refugees and their previous hard lives from which they had to “flee” (popular word in refugee writing 101) appear in local papers.  Just like this story about a well-educated Congolese man who had to flee Africa and found his way to Idaho—as if he chose Idaho.  No, it doesn’t work that way.  Refugees don’t initially choose where they will live—a refugee agency (a contractor) picked Idaho.   These are stories to soften up potential critics.   But, that isn’t what I want to tell you about today.

What was most interesting to me was the side bar to the story in the Idaho Statesman that says this:

Some refugees who worked as educators in their home countries and others interested in the field are in the process of opening their own child-care businesses. They’re enrolled in the New Investment New Opportunities program through the local nonprofit Micro Enterprise Training and Assistance.

NINO, which began in October, provides small federal grants from the national office of refugee resettlement to help refugees kickstart their businesses.

About 20 men and women have signed up in Boise, said Terry McDonald, who heads up the program. Participants are in various stages, from still working on their child-care licensing to preparing to open their doors.

Grants not loans?

Let me understand this.  The federal government is giving GRANTS not LOANS to refugees to open child-care businesses.  Are there no out-of-work Americans in Idaho who would like to run child-care programs and are they getting GRANTS?   I wish we had enough people following the federal government’s spending to research just how these GRANTS are being used. How much is siphoned off for salaries and offices at each step?  And, does anyone audit these programs?

We need someone to please follow the money through the labyrinth of groups sucking on the federal tax payer.  I tried to find a Form 990 for the group Micro-Enterprise Training Assistance (META) and couldn’t find one.  Here we see that META is an affiliate of Mountain States Group and got a start in 2002 with a grant from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

If you go here at the META website you can see a list of funders and you might think—well there are all sorts of private funders listed, right?  However, if those private businesses are giving, it isn’t much because when you then check out the Form 990 here for Mountain States Group (p.9), you see a different picture.   This is simply one more ‘quasi-government’ group that is taking taxpayer money (your money) and laundering it through a series of non-profit groups which are in turn spending it to fund businesses for refugees that will compete with you!

In that most recent Form 990 (linked above) Mountain States Group had a total revenue stream of $10.7 million and $9.8 million came from taxpayers—from federal (and probably state) funds.

Now, have a look at USA Spending.gov and you will see that Mountain States Group received $52 million in 177 different grants from mostly the Office of Refugee Resettlement.   Scroll down here at the Office of Refugee Resettlement for some recent grants to Mountain States.

It has been my contention since I started writing this blog in 2007 that if the federal government wishes to be involved in immigrant business, immigrant social services, immigrant this and immigrant that, then this should be done through offices and agencies of government and not through unaccountable non-profits.   I am sure these grants are not thoroughly audited, but most importantly a citizen wanting to complain has little recourse.

If this money was being disbursed  directly by an agency of government (rather than being laundered through layers of non-profit groups) at least one could go to one’s elected officials and complain—and vote those officials out of office if they aren’t responsive.   

Readers, the political Left is changing this country bit by bit through these non-profits and, adding insult to injury, using your money to do it!

Endnote:  This is one more post in my new category entitled ‘legal immigration and jobs.’

Push is on for European Union to fund more refugee resettlement to certain countries

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….but, I thought the EU was broke?

I wish I had time to look more thoroughly through all the documents about this plan, but in the meantime here is the news from European Parliament News:

The EU takes in only 4,500 out of the 200,000 refugees that need resettling in the world each year, but aims to do more by setting up a joint resettlement programme under the European Refugee Fund. The new 2013 programme will encourage member states to get involved by providing them with a fixed amount of money for each person resettled. MEPs will debate the initiative in plenary on Wednesday and vote on it on Thursday. The civil liberties committee recommends approving it.

To be paid by the head, but two countries won’t participate:

If the Parliament endorses the programme, member states will have until 1 May 2012 to send the European Commission an estimate of the number of people they will resettle next year. Member states that receive funding from the European Refugee Fund for the first time will receive €6,000 for every person resettled. Those that have used the fund only once get €5,000 and all others €4,000 per person.  Ireland and Denmark will not participate in the joint resettlement programme for 2013.   [I wonder why—not a good experience with refugees so far?—ed]

Only certain groups will be welcome:

The EP and the Council have agreed on a list of vulnerable groups and the regions they can come from that are eligible for taking part in the programme.

Follow this link to the document to be voted on today for the resettlement priorities:

“ANNEX
List of the specific common Union resettlement priorities for 2013
(1) Congolese refugees in the Great Lakes Region (Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia);
(2) Refugees from Iraq in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan;
(3) Afghan refugees in Turkey, Pakistan, Iran;
(4) Somali refugees in Ethiopia;
(5) Burmese refugees in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand;
(6) Eritrean refugees in Eastern Sudan.”

Somali sex trafficking trial delayed in Nashville

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you were planning to try to get a seat in the courtroom this week for one of the biggest trials in Tennessee history, you will have to wait until next week.

According to the AP published at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the trial has been delayed a week to allow defense attorneys time to review more documents.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A federal judge has delayed the start of a trial for more than a dozen people accused in a sex trafficking ring run by Somali gangs that reached from Minnesota to Tennessee.

Opening arguments were scheduled to start Monday, but over the weekend the U.S. attorney’s office released to defense attorneys hundreds of pages of investigator notes and hours of telephone recordings of one of the juvenile female victims.

The indictment said three gangs called the Somali Outlaws, the Somali Mafia and the Lady Outlaws were forcing teenage girls into prostitution and operated in St. Paul, Minn.; Minneapolis; Columbus, Ohio; and Nashville.

The indictment accuses the gangs of finding and recruiting young girls, some also Somali, for the purpose of prostitution in exchange for money and drugs between 2000 and 2010.

Most of the defendants are from the Somali refugee populations in Minnesota and Tennessee.

U.S. District Judge William J. Haynes pushed the start of the trial back one week to give the defense attorneys time to review the additional evidence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Van Vincent told the court that the late release of the documents was not intentional.

For new readers, here is a post I wrote in 2008 that is still almost daily one of the top posts here at RRW.  In it we show how many Somali refugees have entered the US legally as refugees over the last two decades—over a hundred thousand now.   One federal contractor that played a big role in resettling Somali Muslims is Catholic Charities.

And, here is one of many previous posts on this sex trafficking case.  You can find links to earlier posts there.