Month: May 2012

PR campaign is on to relieve refugees of travel loan repayment

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of the things that jumped out at me in the testimony at the May 1 US State Department “scoping meeting”  nearly two weeks ago was that refugee advocates seemed to have themes to their testimony—things that many are pushing to change.  One of those things was a plea to eliminate some responsibility for travel bills the refugees ring up.

Back in  2007 I was surprised to learn that the refugees sign a promissory note to begin repaying their travel “loan” shortly after arrival.  A State Department employee told us that it was good for the refugees to begin to have responsibility for loans.  Of course as an advocate for the taxpayers of America I want to see them repay their travel expenses to get to the US, but how the h*** can they do that if they don’t have jobs?

Here is a story from Idaho last week which gives more detail then I have ever seen about the “loan” program that comes through the International Organization for Migration (IOM).   Of course what the World Relief (one of the nine federal contractors) employee doesn’t tell you here is that his non-profit will get a cut of any money they can wring out of the refugees—it doesn’t all go back to the US Treasury!

From NPR Idaho (What is the program you likely haven’t heard of? Emphasis mine):

It’s called the International Organization for Migration U.S. Refugee Travel Loan Program.

What is it?  In short, it covers the cost of transportation for nearly all refugees resettled in the United States.  (For this year, that could be as many as 76,000 people.)

Basically, it’s a revolving loan fund.  The loans are interest-free, and the money comes from the U.S. Department of State.  In FY2011, the State Department contributed $78.35 million for the transportation of refugees.  That money  went to the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental group headquartered in Geneva.

Before refugees come to the U.S., whether they are coming from Iraq, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, they sign a promissory note.  It spells out the refugee or refugee family’s cost of  travel, and requires that monthly payments begin within six months of arrival in the U.S.  The loan amounts vary according to the number of people traveling, and where they’re traveling from.  One loan may be $1,413, another $10,306.

Payment amounts vary accordingly.  Promissory notes dictate that loans be repaid within 42 months of arrival.  That means monthly payments are determined by dividing the total loan amount by 36.  The promissory notes say that if a loan goes unpaid for four or more months or if a refugee doesn’t pay the loan fully within 46 months, the IOM can accelerate payment, and report the refugee to a collection agency.

Before the recession hit, Boise’s World Relief office resettled more than 300 refugees annually. In part due to the economic downturn, that number has been cut back. Last year the agency received a total of 166 refugees.

“What of it?” you might ask.  As StateImpact has reported elsewhere, the recession dealt an especially hard blow to Idaho’s refugee population.

Larry Jones is the Boise Field Office Director for a refugee resettlement agency called World Relief.  In a recent interview, he recollected what it was like to try to help refugees establish lives here in Idaho as the recession hit.  “Fewer and fewer people were able to get jobs,” he remembered.

Jones said the lack of jobs meant refugees needed more support.  “We started to see the needs of initial resettlement start to stretch from five or six months to maybe two years before someone got their first job,” he said.  “That’s a long time to be patching together support structures to keep people in their homes.”

Sounds like it is time for a moratorium on the whole program!

More here on refugees to Idaho.  And, lots more by typing “Idaho” into our search function!

Auntie Zeituni’s got a book too!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, it’s about being abused in America, or so says Howie Carr writing at the Boston Herald.

Readers will recall that in 2008 then candidate Obama’s long-lost dear Auntie from ‘Dreams from my Father’ fame was found living illegally (she had been ordered deported) in public housing in Boston.  A subsequent trial (where she had a hot shot lawyer) resulted in a grant of asylum in the US.  Now she has a tell-all book.   I really hope she addresses her previously reported anger at her nephew for leaving her out of White House family doings (I bet that is the elegant First Lady’s doing).

Here is Carr:

Auntie Zeituni has written a book. It’s called “Tears of Abuse,” on account of how tough she’s had it.

Have I read it? Of course not. Have you read her nephew’s best-seller — Dreams from My Ghostwriter, I mean Father? No one has — it’s sold millions of copies, but until two weeks ago, not a single reader got far enough into it to learn that Obama was a dog-eater with “composite” girlfriends.

Anyway, I have the press release on “Tears of Abuse,” which describes Auntie Zeituni’s journey to the United States “where she faces the unthinkable; failing health and quarantined in a hospital while on vacation in a foreign country.”

Vacation? Surely she meant to say “welfare.”

“As her story unfolds she becomes a resident of (a) homeless shelter and a subject of deportation.”

How dare they! Just because she’s an illegal alien, they want to deport her.

Carr is so funny, I didn’t know where to stop.  But, it’s unethical to post the whole piece, so please visit Carr’s column, here.   I might be tempted to read Auntie Z’s book to see if she has her version of events in sync with “Dreams from my father.”

Since we are on the subject of “Dreams…,” here is the answer to something I wondered about a few weeks ago when there was all the hoop-la about Obama eating dogs in Indonesia.  Muslims hate dogs—they are on the list of the ten most vile things on earth, right up there with dead bodies, feces and pigs.  So, I had been thinking that Muslims probably don’t eat them.  Here is a story from a couple of weeks ago by John Hinderaker at Powerline about Obama and dog-eating (hat tip:  Judy).  He ends his piece with this:

ONE MORE THING: Muslims don’t eat dogs. Barack Obama lived with a Muslim stepfather in a Muslim area of Indonesia. Dogs were not eaten there; presumably not in Obama’s Muslim household. So Obama’s claim in his autobiography that he ate dog in Indonesia may well be false–an error introduced by Bill Ayers or whoever actually wrote Obama’s autobiography. But it is way too late now for Obama to disavow the autobiography that he allegedly wrote.

San Diego: Somalis say no to another liquor store

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From KPBS News:

There’s a corner of University Avenue in San Diego that’s home to a store called University Market. It’s also home to a Buddhist Temple, a mosque and an Islamic parochial school.

Ahmed Malinomar is leading the opposition to a liquor license for a store that’s right next to a mosque on University Avenue.

Due to intense pressure from Somalis, a local planning committee has already recommended that the license be denied.

He [the owner of the store who doesn’t want his name used] said he needs to sell alcohol, due to financial competition form many new Somali markets that have opened across the street and right next door to him. He said University Market has been a friend to San Diego Somalis, allowing members of the mosque to use the parking lot. Yet they have organized the opposition to his liquor license.

The question of the conditional use permit now goes before the San Diego Planning Commission. Islam forbids the use of alcoholic beverages, but Somalis I spoke with said that is not an issue in this debate.

Yeh sure!  Readers may recall that Somali cab drivers in Minnesota unsuccessfully tried to stop people from bringing even a closed bottle of liquor into their cabs.

By the way, we have a lot about San Diego Somalis, use our search function for more.

Minneapolis: Somalis protest at Wells Fargo Bank, joined by Latinos

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Readers may recall that the US Government has stopped money transfers to the Horn of Africa for fear the funds (likely garnered through our welfare system) are getting into the hands of the Islamists.

From CBS Minnesota:

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Dozens of Somalis in the Twin Cities are being joined by members of the area’s Latino community to protest their inability to transfer money back home to their loved ones.

A group of protestors gathered at the Wells Fargo Bank at 6th and Marquette in Mineapolis, threatening to close their accounts due to the bank’s alleged failure to restart money transfers to their families back home.

Ibrahim Nsur of Minneapolis said he was part of the delegation trying to solve the problem earlier this year, but he was treated with disrespect by bank executives.

“When they sat down with us, they told us they are not interested in doing this business,” said Nsur. “They did not tell us the real reason.”

However, Wells Fargo regional spokesperson Peggy Gunn says the decision to stop transfers to Somali is due to U.S. Federal Government regulations, and that this had been explained to their customers.

So close your account.

Great Britain: Political alliance seeks to halt Islamization of the UK and mass immigration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“This is a significant turning point for the resistance to Islamization in the UK.”

Baron at Gates of Vienna had this to say earlier this week.  (Hat tip: Ed):

One of the most important events in recent British history — and maybe European history — occurred last weekend while I was (alas!) away. On Saturday May 5 two leaders of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, joined the Executive Committee of the British Freedom Party.

So it’s official — the EDL and BF will remain separate organizations, but they are now working together.

Their mission to help the forgotten working class Brit includes:

The move establishes British Freedom as a new force in British politics – the only party with the strength and determination to call for Britain’s withdrawal from the unelected and totalitarian European Union, to confront militant Islam, halt mass immigration and defend democracy’s most vital ingredient – Free Speech.

British Freedom will also end the deliberately divisive policy of multiculturalism and reverse decades of destructive Political Correctness which exists only to promote division and Socialism – despite the appalling record of Socialist inspired mass murder, war, and the terrible economic, social and environmental carnage witnessed over the last century.

I reported back in February that Paul Weston, head of the British Freedom Party, had been in Nashville to “warn America” here.

Update:  Paul Weston’s speech is here.