Month: October 2012

Immigrants bringing ‘female genital mutilation’ practice with them to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those beautiful things that multiculturalism brings to America!  Right?

From the Huffington Post:

BOSTON (RNS) The one thing that Afrah Farah will tell you about her genital cutting experience is that it happened. She doesn’t want to say how old she was, where it happened, or who was or wasn’t with her.

Yet, despite the painful memories that the experience evokes and her concerns about people’s reactions, Farah, said she knows she has to speak out.

“It’s basically a traumatizing experience. It’s traumatizing for every young girl that goes through that. It’s something that sticks in your memory, and physically,” said Farah, a Somali immigrant who came to the Boston area by way of Kuwait and Germany in 2007, and now works as a drug developer in a Massachusetts laboratory.

“There are millions of people who are affiliated with this procedure — parents, grandparents, people in the community — and to label them all as bad people or barbaric, that’s wrong. You will push them away. To solve a problem like this, you need to approach people with respect.”

Because of its severity and prevalence, female genital mutilation (FGM, or “cutting”) is arguably one of the most important human rights issues in the world. It’s also become increasingly important in the U.S. as the number of immigrants from countries where it is practiced grows.

The African Women’s Health Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston estimated in 2000 that almost 228,000 females in the U.S. had either undergone or could undergo the procedure, although some anti-FGM activists dispute that figure.

[…..]

The WHO estimates that nearly 140 million women in the world have undergone the procedure, while another 2 million women undergo the procedure annually — about 6,000 per day.

[…..]

Activists also worry that some girls in America have the procedure done here or are sent back home, usually over summer vacations so they have time to heal. To stop this, activists are organizing behind the Girls Protection Act, which would make it illegal to send girls abroad for genital cutting. Penalties would include a five-year prison term and fine.

Good, send them to jail!

There is lots more, read it all.

Burma: Violence escalates again between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I continue to write about faraway Burma (Myanmar) because American readers need to know that there is an on-going push by federal refugee contractors to bring Rohingya Muslims to the US for resettlement.   So, please pay attention to what is happening in Burma so you might be able to protest any big push for more Rohingya resettlement.

Here is the latest news on renewed violence, from Time* magazine:

Buddhists say the Muslims are attempting to out-breed them and thus win the “fertility war”:

The bloodshed has polarized Burma, which is officially known as Myanmar. Some people from Burma’s ethnic Bamar (or Burman) nationality, which shares a Buddhist faith with the Arakanese, accuse the Muslim Rohingya of being recent illegal immigrants from nearby Bangladesh. They contend that the Rohingya, most of whom do not have Burmese citizenship, should be deported. The Bangladeshi government also refuses most members of the 800,000-strong community citizenship. When I was in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state earlier this year, Arakanese told me they felt that the Rohingya were waging a kind of fertility war by procreating more prolifically than the local Buddhist population.

Aung San Suu Kyi had fallen for the ‘diversity is strength myth’!

President Thein Sein, a retired general who has introduced a series of reforms in one of the world’s most closed societies, has stated that the Rohingya are not Burmese nationals. Earlier this month, the Burmese President prevented the Organization of the Islamic Conference from opening up offices in Burma, after Buddhist clerics protested the Muslim body’s proposed entry into the country. Even Burma’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has tended to shy away publicly from the ethnic issue, although while on a trip to the U.S. last month she did address the fragile state of Burmese ethnic unity: “We have to learn to live together as a union. We had great hopes that our diversity would be our strength. Those hopes have not been realized. We owe it to the world, to all those who have supported us, to make that change.”

Who is more deadly?  Arakanese or Rohingya?

On social media, both the Arakanese and Rohingya have claimed fatalities from the latest violence. The Associated Press, which had a photographer in Arakan, reported that one local hospital was filled with only Arakanese victims. But the wire service cautioned that might have been because the Rohingya were too frightened to visit a government-run institution. An official in the Burmese President’s office contends that intervention by Burmese military forces prevented the bloodshed from escalating further.

* This (below) is what I reported in a post in 2009 about an earlier (2002!) story from Time that they seem to have forgotten:

Here is what Time magazine said about Rohingya on October 14, 2002 in an article entitled, ‘Deadly Cargo’ by Alex Perry.  What, no search function at Time?

Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border, and in Muslim Rohingyas, tens of thousands of whom fled the ethnic and religious suppression of the Burmese military junta in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many Rohingyas are long-term refugees, but some are trained to cause trouble back home in camps tolerated by a succession of Bangladeshi governments. The original facilities date back to 1975, making them Asia’s oldest jihadi training camps. And one former Burmese guerrilla who visits the camps regularly describes three near Ukhia, south of the town of Cox’s Bazar, as able to accommodate a force of 2,500 between them.

For new readers we have been cataloging news on Rohingya for five years and have 122 previous posts at our Rohingya Reports category.

We didn’t see the Somali waves coming twenty years ago, but we have no excuse now not to raise an alarm when the US State Department via the United Nations pushes Rohingya resettlement.

More refugees being created in Libya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Not everything happening in the Libyan hell hole we (Obama and his Vulcans) helped create is happening in Benghazi (see my post yesterday at PTPR about the theory that Ambassador Stevens was involved in gun-running to Syrian rebels).  Now comes news that Gaddafi forces are alive and well, creating more refugees and challenging the government (whatever that is!).

Where is Ms. Responsibility to Protect Samantha Power these days?  Hiding out in the White House!

From Hamseyeh.net:

Bani Walid was supposed to be safe. The last of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists were supposed to have been purged from this Libyan desert town, after an eight-day offensive by the army. Instead, there was mayhem here on Thursday, as it became clear the Gaddafi loyalists are far from beaten.

A mile into what has become a ghost town after weeks of fighting and siege, a checkpoint of tense young pro-government militiamen barred entry, saying fighting was continuing. The staccatto boom of an anti-aircraft gun mingled with the heavy thumps of rocket-propelled grenades from somewhere inside the town.

Told to turn back, the Guardian found the road into town jammed with cars bringing several hundred refugees back home.

[…..]

“Our government says we can come home, it was on TV, and the militia says no,” said Mohammed Hamzen, wearing a long golden robe. “I am here with my children. What can I do with them?”

With thousands of angry refugees stranded on the desert highway, and pro-Gaddafi gunmen still resisting inside the town, Libya’s government has been left flat-footed by a crisis fast turning into its worst nightmare.

[…..]

…. the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, called for restraint ….  [LOL! I bet that has them shaking in their boots!—ed]

Somalis being bused in to Ohio polling place, are they citizens?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update #2:  For the new readers searching for information on who resettles Somalis in Ohio, here is one list of the federal contractors.   However, keep in mind that many Somalis there might be the result of so-called “secondary migration,” that is that they were resettled elsewhere but gravitated to Ohio because others of their ethnic background told them it was a good place to live.

Update:  No sooner had I posted this than I noticed that this older post of mine about Columbus, Ohio Somalis wanting taxpayer funded stuff from those they elect to office has been getting lots of hits this afternoon.  Check it out.

The other day I mentioned that in Maryland, Help Save Maryland was making flyers available to prospective immigrant voters that tell them what the law is (and the consequences of breaking the law!) involving casting a vote as a  non-citizen, here.

Now I see on Drudge today that the story I heard about through the grapevine two days ago has been reported, here at Human Events by blogger Sara Marie Brenner.

This is the gist of the story (Sara Marie Brenner is a special correspondent for Human Events, is a member of the Powell, Ohio City Council and blogs about politics at the Brenner Brief.)

While it’s not unusual for get-out-the-vote groups to help voters get to the polls, the volunteers who talked to Human Events observed a number of troubling and questionable activities.

A source, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a volunteer outside the Morse Road polling center.  She has witnessed Somalis who cannot speak English come to the polling center. They are brought in groups, by van or bus. The Democrats hand them a slate card and say, “vote Brown all the way down.” Given that Sherrod Brown is the incumbent Democrat Senator in Ohio, one can assume that this is the reference.

Non-English speaking voters may use an interpreter. The interpreters are permitted by law to interpret for the individual voting; however, they are forbidden from influencing their vote in any way. Another source who also wishes to remain anonymous has seen Democrat interpreters show the non-English speaking Somalis how to vote the Democrat slate that they were handed outside. According to this second source, there are not any Republican Somali interpreters available.

The logical follow-up question is whether a non-English speaking person is an American citizen. (That is my question too!—ed)

It is pretty easy to cheat!

Essentially, a person is asked to check a box stating that they are a citizen, and the poll worker is to trust that they are the person who is listed on the item being shown or the information being written. In other words, someone can be an illegal resident of the state of Ohio and the United States, get an apartment, turn on the heat, bring in the Columbia Gas bill, register to vote by the deadline, and vote by showing that same bill. There is then no verification that this individual is a citizen of the United States.

Does this make sense?

According to the Somali Community Association of Ohio’s web site, over 45,000 Somalis live in Ohio. Only 40 percent have become citizens of the United States, and only 25 percent speak English well enough to get a job.

So how did they speak English well enough to pass a citizenship test????

For new readers:   We have written about twenty posts in which we mention Ohio Somalis.  You can review that archive here.   Also, new readers should know that we have been admitting Somali refugees for going on thirty years.  From this post I wrote in 2008 you can get a feel for the size of the US Somali refugee population which is well over 100,000 by now. Thirty years of having large families gives them a big advantage in the demographics game.

In Maryland, reminding immigrants they must be US citizens in order to vote

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  Another report of Somalis voting who can’t speak English, this time in Kansas.  If they can’t speak English how did they pass their citizenship test?   Update October 27th:  More on Somalis voting in Ohio.

Voting without citizenship is a crime!

Some readers may know that Maryland voters will decide on November 6th whether to overturn a law passed by the legislature in 2011 and signed by Governor Martin O’Malley to give illegal aliens instate tuition rates at Maryland colleges.  The ballot question will ask voters to vote for or against the O’Malley law.   It is the first law successfully petitioned to referendum in the state in 20 years.   So you can see the incentive to try to cheat by those who would reap the benefit is pretty great in a state not used to conservative taxpaying citizens having much of a voice.

An aside:  yesterday someone reported to me that busloads of Somalis were arriving at Ohio polling places for early voting.  Of course Somalis have been here for a long time and many have become US citizens, but I do hope no one is leading those who aren’t citizens astray because deportation is one of the possible outcomes identified by Help Save Maryland if non-citizens vote.

Readers here may not know that there is a national grassroots campaign first set up by True the Vote but expanding to all fifty states where citizens are working to clean up voter rolls and improve election integrity.  In Maryland the group is known as Election Integrity Maryland, and it isn’t just about Election 2012 but will be an on-going effort for years to come.

This is a cross-post from Potomac Tea Party Report.  I assume other groups, like Help Save Maryland, in other states are undertaking similar efforts to educate non-citizens about voting.

Help Save Maryland launches campaign to remind immigrants that they must be US citizens to vote

Below is the press release from yesterday.  I would like to add that with increased efforts on-going now in Maryland to clean up voter rolls it will become increasingly possible to identify non-citizen voters.  And, no matter who wins the Presidency in November, this issue of election integrity will be a leading issue in Maryland for years to come.

ROCKVILLE, MD– Help Save Maryland – a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots citizens’ organization – launched an educational campaign to remind immigrants that if they are not U.S. citizens, then voting in a federal or state election can be a serious crime.

Help Save Maryland is distributing an informational flyer, “Voting Without Citizenship is a Crime” in 5 languages – English, Spanish, French, Korean and Chinese.

“Maryland is home to over 730,000 people born outside of the United States,” says Brad Botwin, Director of Help Save Maryland.  “Many of them are not yet naturalized citizens.  As a service to the community, we want to make sure that all non-citizen immigrants — legal and illegal — don’t make a terrible mistake on November 6th.”

While a few Maryland jurisdictions allow non-citizens to vote in their local elections, in general, non-citizens who vote in Maryland federal and state elections may be subject to fines, imprisonment and/or deportation.  Even registering to vote, or encouraging other non-citizens to register to vote, is a serious crime in Maryland, punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

The problem has been made worse by Maryland’s past history of giving drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens. And organizations, such as CASA de Maryland, which provide services to illegal aliens, have posted notices in Spanish outside their facilities about helping people register to vote.

“While gathering signatures last year against the so-called Maryland DREAM Act, I repeatedly encountered recent immigrants who believed their Maryland drivers license was proof they were registered voters,” says Paul Mendez, a MDPetition.com volunteer.  “In all the excitement of a presidential election, it’s easy to imagine that non-citizens might mistakenly attempt to vote and commit a crime without knowing it.”

“Voting Without Citizenship is a Crime” flyers are available for no charge on Help Save Maryland’s website (www.HelpSaveMaryland.org).

We encourage county Boards of Elections, religious groups, community service providers, libraries, schools, and organizations that serve Maryland’s immigrant population to distribute these flyers, which will also be handed out at polling locations on Election Day by Help Save Maryland volunteers.

Help Save Maryland is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.  Its mission is to provide facts regarding the cost of illegal aliens who live and/or work in Maryland.  Help Save Maryland fosters public awareness and education, and supports analysis and research.