Day: March 4, 2012

One more article about how refugee program slowed by stepped-up security checks

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve lost track of how many times we have heard the story about how refugee resettlement has slowed due to the discovery that some terrorists might get into the US through the program.  This incarnation is from the Denver Post a couple of days ago and I feel obligated to post it, if for no other reason then to keep our archives complete on the recent arrest in Colorado of Uzbek refugee—Jamshid Muhtorov.

The Denver Post:

The U.S. government, concerned that the refugee resettlement process might be exploited by terrorists, has tightened background checks for refugees coming into the country.

Twice in the past three years, Colorado refugees have been arrested on terrorism charges. They are among a few scattered across the country who have raised concerns about the process.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has taken an interest in the issue after it was learned two Iraqi refugees, living in his state of Kentucky, were arrested on terrorism charges, that story here.

The Denver Post continued:

The incidents raise questions about how Americans should balance helping refugees fleeing oppression versus protecting the homeland from security threats.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,called for congressional hearings to look into the resettlement process after the February 2011 arrests of two Iraqi refugees in Kentucky accused of conspiring to send weapons to al-Qaeda. [As far as I know the arrests happened in late May, so am not sure what this February date is.  LOL! maybe they were arrested in February and the public was not informed for months?—ed].

In July, he testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and questioned the numbers of refugees and other immigrants being allowed into the U.S.

“I don’t fault you for missing the needle in the haystack,” Paul said to the committee. “But you have to make the haystack smaller.”

Some don’t arrive radicalized, they get that way in America, says a United Nations mouthpiece:

No security check can prevent someone from becoming a terrorist after they enter the U.S. For example, officials say, there was nothing in Muhtorov’s file and screening that would have barred him from resettling in Colorado in 2007.

“You cannot screen the people on the basis of what they would become five years later,” Cochetel said.

Actually he is wrong in this case, there was plenty in Muhtorov’s (an Uzbek “freedom fighter”) file to at least give pause about whether he should have been admitted to the US.  And, it might have been discovered if he hadn’t been airlifted here outside the normal refugee resettlement screening process!

Life in the US turned me into an Islamist!

Will we never learn!  Continuing this myth that Islamic radicalization comes from socio-economic deprivation will be our undoing.

“Most recently, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have attempted to recruit and radicalize people to terrorism here in the United States, as we have seen in several plots and attacks, including the deadly attack two years ago on our service members at Fort Hood,” said President Barack Obama in August. “As a government, we are working to prevent all types of extremism that leads to violence, regardless of who inspires it.”

Greg Holloway, the prosecutor assigned to Muhtorov’s case, told a federal judge that Muhtorov might have become dissatisfied with his life in the U.S. and dedicated his life to global jihad.

Holloway read from letters submitted by Muhtorov’s supporters that said he was an educated man in Uzbekistan who had grown frustrated that the only jobs he was able to get involved manual labor. The truck driver had also worked at a meat-packing plant in Greeley and as a casino janitor in Black Hawk.

The income wasn’t enough for him to support his wife and two children on his own.

So, we are to believe he turned into an extremist Muslim so he could better support his family?

And, golly, not even his meat-packing job could make him happy!  He must not have been working for Tyson Foods (the premiere employer of happy Muslim meat-packing workers).

See “Top Posts” from time to time

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

New readers and long-time readers might want to visit “Top Posts” in the right hand sidebar of this page.  I find it interesting to see which posts are the most popular on a given day.  Some are several years old, but are read as search engines direct readers here or when an old issue becomes hot again. Not all ‘hits’ are, however, from search engines.  I am sure in some cases, a reader finds something pertaining to his or her home community and then sends the link around to others.

We’ve written over 4000 posts and had well over a million visitors since RRW began in mid-2007.  For a blog with a very narrow focus, I think that is pretty good!

Use our search function (upper left on this page)—it is really very good—by using a few key words for the topic you wish to research.

Does Canada have more criminal refugees then the US?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Or, is Canada’s legal system more willing to go after them and is the Canadian media better than US media about reporting cases like this one?

Here is the latest from the Toronto Sun on a crime ring involving “refugees” from Hungary.  This guy is convicted of trafficking humans and ripping off the welfare system.

Attila Kolompar sat in the prisoner’s box and never looked at the two young men he was convicted of keeping virtual slaves working at his contracting firm.

And Assistant Crown Attorney Anthony Skarica spared nothing when he described Kolompar — clad in prison orange overalls and a black leather jacket — as a member of a crime group that spearheaded an “invasion of evil” that breached Canada’s borders and threatens its financial stability.

Go to the full story to learn more about what he did.

Now, check this out, can any of you imagine a US news outlet reporting in this way? I can’t even imagine a US prosecutor using this kind of language! (Emphasis mine)

Superior Court Judge Stephen Glithero allowed Kolompar to get early parole, but only to be deported to Hungary.

“Canadians have certainly been badly abused by this man,” Glithero said in his sentencing of the man considered to be a mid-level player in the crime family. “If deported, one hopes he never makes his way back.”

Skarica described the Domotor family crime group, which originated from Papa, Hungary, as an entire criminal organization that came to Canada and applied for refugee status shortly after the country eased visa requirements in 2008.

The crime group “set up shop and operated unmolested,” Skarica told Glithero.

“This invasion of evil is part of an invasion of bogus refugees” that threatens the financial well-being of our governments, he said.

He suggested to the court, if totalled, bogus refugees’ claims must cost Canada billions.

* We have written a lot about Canada, go here, for our complete archive.  I just scanned a few posts I’ve written about Canada in recent months and many are about criminal refugees north of the border.

Senators push for more “temporary” refugees—Syrians this time

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has turned into a joke.  Maybe there were good intentions behind the idea of giving “temporary” refuge to people in the US (legally or ILLEGALLY) when their home country was embroiled in war or had been recently hit by a natural disaster, but now it has become one more backdoor amnesty.

I’ve written several posts recently at Potomac Tea Party Report and here at RRW about TPS for Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Syrians.

So what is the problem?  They never go home!  As I have oft repeated, ‘there is nothing quite so permanent as a temporary refugee’ (Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies).  And, by the way, “temporary” refugees are given work permits and can do anything a US citizen can do except vote (and they are probably doing that too!).

Now here is Fox News telling us that six US Senators are pushing Obama to grant TPS to Syrians (they estimate around 10,000 are in the US legally at this moment, but they don’t know how many illegal Syrians are here).

Several Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to allow Syrians who are already in the United States to stay, at least temporarily, out of concern it would be “too dangerous” for them to return home.

The senators want President Obama to invoke what’s known as “temporary protected status” for thousands of Syrians in the U.S. The designation typically is given to foreign nationals whose home countries are beset by war or natural disaster and who could face harm should they return.

The senators argued that Syrians in the U.S. are in just that kind of predicament, as Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s regime sustains its bloody crackdown on protesters across the country.

“It is obviously too dangerous for Syrian nationals to return to Syria,” the senators wrote in a letter to President Obama.

Arab advocacy groups have been calling for the federal government to grant the status for Syrians in the U.S.

The designation, however, is controversial as Washington tends to repeatedly extend “temporary” status. Critics claim the status can become semi-permanent. The government currently grants “TPS” to people from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.

Here are the six Senators pushing this latest backdoor amnesty program (no surprise!):

The letter was signed by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; Ben Cardin, D-Md.; and Bob Casey, D-Pa.

And, just a reminder of the Arab activist agitators and refugee contractors pushing the Senators:

United for a Free Syria (UFS), in close coordination with a broad coalition including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Syrian Expatriates Organization (SEO), Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), Syrian Americans for Democracy (SAD), South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI),* and Refugee Council USA (RCUSA)

So, where does this all end?  Will we have TPS for every political hot spot, every hurricane, every earthquake in the world.  And, why are the Syrians more important than say the Libyans, the Yemenis, the Egyptians, the Nigerians and so forth—all experiencing upheaval of one sort or another.

Remember TPS isn’t just for those who are here legally on some visa or another; the TPS given to Salvadorans and other Central Americans went largely to ILLEGAL aliens.

* HIAS and USCRI are federal refugee contractors whose bankroll comes mostly from you—the taxpayer.