San Diego Somalis thinking about going “home” to Somalia!

02/19/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Obama meets with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the White House in January.

A few weeks ago we reported that the new Somali President (Hassan Sheikh Mohamud) had come to the US, stopped in with Obama and later Hillary Clinton before going on to Minneapolis where he exhorted his fellow Somalis of the “diaspora” to come on back to Africa.

Now, here is a story that Somalis in the City Heights section of San Diego, where there is (incidentally) a Somali terror-funding trial going on, are contemplating a return. And, not only that, but they have been back and forth already.

So this is my fundamental question, if Somalis are traveling safely back and forth to Mogadishu, why are we still bringing in Somalis by the thousands to the US?

Here are the stats for this fiscal year (2013) that began on October 1, 2012. In those four months, we have brought in 2,260 “refugees” from Somalia at a time when the country is considered safe enough for American Somalis to fly back and forth. By the way, in all of Fiscal Year 2011 (when Al-shabaab was at its height) we brought 3,161 Somalis (all year!), so if we continue the pace of the previous 4 months of this fiscal year (when Somalia is safer) we will bring over 6,000! Does that make any sense?

We will pay “church” contractors to resettle them, feed and house them, and educate the kids through college (disrupt communities!).

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave them in Africa and help them get Somalia functioning?

Also, remember that countries like Denmark are contemplating refusing Somali asylum seekers because they say Somalia is no longer a complete hell hole, here.

Here is the story from KPBS in San Diego:

The United States officially recognized the Somali government last month for the first time since 1991, alerting Somali refugees in City Heights and throughout the world their homeland is making a comeback.

Somalia has been called “the world’s most failed state,” enduring deadly famines and more than two decades of civil war with al Shabaab militants linked to al Qaeda.

The nation is rebuilding under a newly elected president, who recently urged refugees at a speech in Minnesota, home to the nation’s largest population of Somali refugees, to return to Somalia to help.

But will Somalis who have spent more than 20 years away – some even beginning life outside of their family’s homeland – make the move to Africa?

“The conversation, it’s already among the community,” said Mohamed Ahmed, a 23-year-old Somali living in City Heights. “People have already been back. People are planning to go back. And some people are a bit skeptical about going back and they’re not really comfortable about the situation back home.”

Ahmed left Somalia with his family when he was two months old and came to the U.S. at age of 4. He’s about to graduate from San Diego State University, alongside other East Africans who arrived in America in the 1990s.

He says the timing for a revived Somali state couldn’t be better. Many members of the Somali diaspora are poised to graduate from American and European universities, if they haven’t already.

Ahmed said Somalis who grew up in Europe are returning to work in their native country – at a rate of about 1,000 per month, according to some reports. Flights in and out of Mogadishu have multiplied. Rent has climbed. Last year, young Somali professionals hosted a TEDxMogadishu talk.

Nah! Not so fast! Few will go “home.”

Abdi Mohamoud, executive director of Horn of Africa, a San Diego nonprofit that provides support for local East African refugees, said Ahmed’s drive is common among children of refugees.

“With the tragedy of having so many refugees flee from Somalia, the advantage has become that many of those refugees went to other developed countries and many of them were able to get very high-quality educations,” Mohamoud said. “They’re very eager to try to improve the devastation that their parents have fled.”

But Mohamoud said he’s not convinced many young Somalis will actually make the move to Africa.

Mohamoud went on to say that he predicted 95% would stay in the US.

Remittances! Another word for the “redistribution” of wealth!

The KPBS report also notes this extra cost to the US economy—the same one we reported here regarding El Salvador!

And Somalia’s economy has a long way to go. Currently, remittances from Somali families in City Heights and throughout the world account for about half the nation’s gross domestic product.

British Imam: We are populating Europe and being paid on welfare to do it

02/18/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s what Anjem Choudary was caught on tape telling his followers (Thanks to Drudge). Gates of Vienna has the story too, here. So why is it so hard for infidels to see and believe?

From The Telegraph:

Anjem Choudary was secretly filmed mocking non-Muslims for working in 9-5 jobs their whole lives, and told followers that some revered Islamic figures had only ever worked one or two days a year.

“The rest of the year they were busy with jihad [holy war] and things like that,” he said. “People will say, ‘Ah, but you are not working’.

“But the normal situation is for you to take money from the kuffar [non-believers].

“So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance. You need to get support.”

He went on to tell a 30-strong crowd: “We are going to take England — the Muslims are coming.”

Ridiculing the daily lives of UK workers, Choudary said: “You find people are busy working the whole of their life. They wake up at 7 o’clock. They go to work at 9 o’clock.

“They work for eight, nine hours a day. They come home at 7 o’clock, watch EastEnders, sleep, and they do that for 40 years of their life. That is called slavery.”

Choudary, a father-of-four, claims more than £25,000 a year in benefits, £8,000 more than the take-home pay of some soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to the Sun, which covertly filmed the preacher at three meetings.

At another meeting in Slough infiltrated by the Sun, Choudary was filmed proclaiming that Islam was taking over Europe.

“Now we are taking over Birmingham and populating it,” he said.

“Brussels is 30 per cent, 40 per cent Muslim and Amsterdam. Bradford is 17 per cent Muslim.

The Barbarians at the Gate get it!

Minneapolis High School riot reveals tensions between Somalis and American blacks

02/16/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Somalis wait in line to register at refugee camp in Kenya Photo credit: Roberto Schmidt/AFP

Update February 21st: Somali community organizer says too much police brutality and not enough cultural competence at South High last week, here.

Several readers have sent me stories about the riot involving hundreds of students at Minneapolis South High two days ago.

There is so much coverage of the story I don’t know where to begin, but maybe with the basics. I wondered to myself yesterday why our old post, “Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis?” was going through the roof with hits. It is our top post still today right above “Barbarians at the Gate.”

I guess this story is why people are searching for just how the Somalis got to Minneapolis (Little Mogadishu) in the first place.

First here is a bit of the food-fight-riot story as introduced by Daniel Greenfield writing at The Counter Jihad Report (Hat tip: Gary):

Bringing huge numbers of Muslim Somalis into the United States and depositing them in places like Minnesota may rank as the one of the worst policies of the last three years and the growing violence is only the tip of the iceberg.

A sensible rule of thumb on immigration policy should be that if a country is a fundamentally violent and broken place, then importing large numbers of its inhabitants will only spread that violence to the United States.

[The ‘church’ groups (and some secular ones as well) contracted by the US State Department think otherwise—here are the nine major contractors, called Volags (short for voluntary agency which they no longer are) that resettle refugees in your cities and towns—ed].

Before I get to the riot, I have to correct Greenfield. He suggests this is a policy of the last three years? Readers, we have been resettling Somali refugees for going on 30 years as this 2008 post of mine demonstrates. By 1993 we had resettled over 4000 and every year since then those Volags (contractors) resettled many thousands each year. Today, the resettled numbers top 100,000 (and they have been producing children for decades) so surely the numbers exceed a quarter of a million by now.

The only year we dropped down to bringing only a few hundred (242) was in 2002. Do you know why? The whole refugee resettlement program came to a screeching halt after 9/11 (briefly!). Then it picked right up again the following year. To date George W. Bush’s State Department brought higher annual numbers of Somalis then any President so far. In 2004 (12,814), 2005 (10,101) and 2006 (10,330).

In 2008, the numbers took another dip (to 2,523) when the State Department realized that the Somalis (and some other ethnic groups) had been lying about who their family members were for the purpose of reuniting the ‘family’ (chain migration). The State Department estimated at the time that there could be tens of thousands of “refugees” who lied to get into the US.

Family reunification has only recently been re-opened and we have already brought over 2000 Somalis in FY 2013 (I directed readers to the stats in this post about how Denmark is considering sending Somalis back to the now “safe” Somalia). At that rate Obama could come close to Bush’s numbers.

So back to the riots

This is not the first time we have seen conflicts involving Somalis in high school. Update: Bruce sends us this news clip which ends with comments that there has been a long history of tension between black Americans and the Somali immigrants.

In Minnesota alone we saw many conflicts develop in the St. Cloud school district here . Here is one of our earliest posts on the “friction.”

Greenfield directs us to this report (via Blazing Cat Fur) on the Minneapolis diversity-is-beautiful melee. (emphasis mine)

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A number of police cars responded to Minneapolis South High School Thursday after an alleged food fight escalated into a melee involving 200 to 300 students.

Sgt. William Palmer, of the Minneapolis Police Department, said no weapons were involved in the incident. However, four people were taken to the hospital following the melee. Police were pelted by thrown objects as they rushed to break up the brawl.

Twelve people complained that they had been sprayed with mace. Police at the scene said they had to use chemical agent to get the crowd under control as they were being pelted with objects as they tried to break things up.

One student, Abdi Sheikh, said he saw hundreds of students fighting in what appeared to be a racial incident.

“A big riot,” he said. “It was all types of races.”

Another student, Symone Glasker, said that an initial fight happened during the school’s first lunch period. By the time the third lunch period started, all the hype from the initial fight caused tensions to boil over.

She said the fights were over pride.

“I know it’s a pride thing between Muslims and black people,” she said. “They want their pride back for something. I don’t know.”

She also said “boys were hitting girls” and that some people were lying on the floor, with their hands over their heads, in surrender.

The fight, students say, was the result of long-simmering tensions between the 8 percent of students who are Somali Americans and the 20 percent who are African Americans.

On that last line (above), I’ve laughed before about how the Volags have placed Somalis in black neighborhoods with the notion (I guess!) that the black brothers could relate. It is not about skin color it’s about African culture vs. American culture and about Muslims vs. infidels!

Greenfield has a bunch of links to the story, here.

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs has the story too, here (hat tip: John).

And, be sure to visit the comments at Blazing Cat Fur (some are pretty funny), but here is one which is somewhat close to the truth. They won’t, of course blame Bush, but in this case they would be partially right.

This is gonna get funny, the progressives, will have to tie themselves into knots, trying to figure out who to blame… Likely they’ll resort to the default and blame Bush. (robins111)

This is getting too long. If you want to learn more about Somalis (we probably have more than 500 posts here at RRW), just search ‘Somali.’ Or, shorten your search by adding another search word—try ‘Somali terror’, ‘Somali meatpacker’ or ‘Somali San Diego’ for example!

Next! Watch for news that CAIR sticks its nose into the latest Minnesota mess.

Yes! The Barbarians are at the gate(s) of Europe

02/15/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They are at the Gates of Vienna and they are at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany demanding they be allowed to stay. Some, as this gushy piece in the International Herald Tribune (appropriately titled: Barbarians at the Gate) tells us, are “asylum shoppers” meaning they have been turned down for refugee status in another western country and now are camping on public streets in Germany demanding stuff.

Here is writer Lucian Kim making sure the reader hears the warm and fuzzy side of the nice folks just yearning for a better life! And, it’s all about how Germans don’t like outsiders, don’t you know! (emphasis below is mine)

BERLIN — There’s a refugee camp in the center of the German capital filled with people who have fled conflicts around the world. They sleep in tents and eat donated food. Almost all of them are breaking German law just by being here.

For more than four months, about 50 asylum seekers and their supporters have been braving the elements on a square in Berlin’s bohemian Kreuzberg neighborhood. The Occupy-style camp appeared in October after a group of refugees marched from Bavaria to Berlin to protest Germany’s restrictive asylum law. Some even held a hunger strike at the Brandenburg Gate.

Refugees shout slogans during a protest by asylum seekers calling for fairer treatment from authorities, as they pass through Brandenburg Gate in Berlin October 13, 2012. Credit: REUTERS

Their main demand: the abolition of the so-called “Residenzpflicht,” or residence requirement, which limits asylum seekers’ freedom of movement while their applications are pending. Critics contend [pdf] that Germany is the only country in the European Union with such a restriction, and that the regulation’s real purpose is to isolate and intimidate refugees.

When I visited the camp on Monday, laundry hung over unmade beds and worn couches inside one of the tents. Two gas heaters gasped against the cold seeping up through the pallets that raised the floor from the ground. A photographer’s lamp provided the only light.

This is where Waleed Mohamed Adam lives. The soft-spoken 28-year-old said he had fled his home in Darfur in 2007, reaching Europe via Libya. He has lost all contact with his family.

And he has no documents. As Adam put it, “My fingerprints are in the Netherlands.” Because his asylum application there was denied, he can’t get a second hearing in Germany and faces deportation. [The EU doesn’t allow “shopping” for another country if you’ve been previously denied, so you can bet there is much more to Adam’s story—ed]

Gee, could that be “soft spoken” Waleed Mohamed Adam with his fist raised in that photo from October?

The squatters were given the equivalent of $300 a month to live on, but demanded and got $500 from that foreigner-hating German government!

Kim continues:

Without any legal status, the refugees aren’t treated much better than criminals. They find themselves in a trap: Dependent on meager state handouts because they are restricted from working or studying, they are under constant suspicion of milking the social welfare system.

This contemptuous treatment was confirmed by Germany’s Constitutional Court in July, when it ruled that the $300 monthly allowance for refugees — which hadn’t been adjusted in 19 years — must be raised to the minimum social benefits granted to Germans, about $500.

[…..]

Germany’s harsh asylum law reveals its lingering discomfort with “ausländer,” or foreigners — even as an aging, shrinking indigenous population is projected to lose its standard of living unless it welcomes immigrants. [Does Kim actually believe that opening a western country to mass immigration—to colonizers—from the third world will improve the living standards of westerners!—ed]

Kim tells us there is one woman in the camp and she speaks fluent English. I suspect she is the Commie agitator in this group. This is about flooding the West with needy third-worlders to bring instability and chaos and to ultimately bring down capitalism. They have advanced pretty far don’t you think!

….. The only woman in the camp, Napuli Paul Langa is a born leader. Although she had to break off her schooling in her native South Sudan, she speaks fluent English. She said she had to flee because of her human rights activism. [If she really cared about human rights she would stay and fight for her own country! How can anyone fall for this propaganda!—ed]

She didn’t expect to have to carry on that struggle in Germany. In November, Langa was one of the refugees’ delegates at a meeting with members of Parliament that turned out to be fruitless.

“This is the fighting place, the political place,” she said of the camp. “We’re staying here. We’re going to protest in the streets until they meet our demands.”

Kim has more, read it all.

They are squatting and demanding all over Europe, here in the Netherlands and then there is poor Greece. You can bet this is all a coordinated strategy.

Maryland Delegate: “…money is a principal driver of the foreign governments’ interest in immigration reform.”

02/15/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note: I posted this yesterday at Potomac Tea Party Report but since we frequently write about “Temporary” Refugees here, I thought this might be of interest to RRW readers as well.

That quote would be from Del. Ana Sol GUTIERREZ of Montgomery County, Maryland when she was being interviewed by The Hill a week ago on why she wants her El Salvadoran countrymen, who are now here on Temporary Protected Status, included in “comprehensive immigration reform.” In fact, she wants them first in line.

She is referring to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came here illegally decades ago, but were given “temporary” refugee status (because back home there was a long-ago civil war or more likely a big storm or earthquake) and can do everything any American can do except vote. However, they do get drivers licenses and I’ll bet you a buck they vote!

So what’s this about money to foreign governments? And, beyond humanitarian concern?

Gutierrez in front of Salvadoran Money transfer business. Photo credit: Greg Dohler/The Gazette

The Hill tells us it is all about “remittances” here (emphasis mine):

Foreign governments are working hard to shape the debate on immigration reform as momentum for a comprehensive bill builds in Congress.

[….]

A number of countries with significant immigration ties to the United States — notably Mexico, Ireland and several Central American nations — have been making their concerns known while doing their best to avoid meddling in domestic affairs.

For many countries, the issue goes beyond humanitarian concern: Remittances from foreign nationals living in the U.S. provide a significant boost to the economies of their home countries.

Mexicans are here illegally but many Central Americans have TPS:

An estimated 7 million Mexicans in the country illegally stand to benefit from reform.

While Mexico has adopted a wait-and-see attitude, other countries have specific changes they hope to see in the law. However, they’re happy to do so discreetly — letting American groups take the lead.

That’s the case with El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, three countries whose citizens have long been eligible for a temporary immigration status first offered in the wake of the civil wars of the 1980s.

The countries hope that immigration reform will include a path to permanent legal status, and eventually citizenship, for the estimated 300,000 or so Central Americans who are in the United States under the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which is up for renewal periodically. [LOL! for Salvadorans it was renewed just in time for the November 2012 election!—ed]

Gutierrez: We want the Salvadorans first in line

The Salvadoran embassy has requested updated data from U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services, said Maryland state Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D), a Salvadoran-American immigration activist.

The embassy reached out to other embassies to do the same in order to get a better sense of how many Central Americans currently benefit from the program. El Salvador is believed to have about 210,000 of its citizens currently in the U.S. under the program.

“We just need to be able to say, ‘These are the people we want to be first in line because they’ve already been here,’ ” Gutierrez said. “First of all, they have to pass background checks every 18 months, they have to pay taxes, they’ve been here with a legal status.

So far! (So far!) “Temporary” refugees are not included in Obama’s amnesty plan. Let the squabbling begin!

TPS reform is not included in the principles of the White House immigration reform proposal, Gutierrez said.

So readers, the next time someone puts you on an emotional guilt-trip about the poor and downtrodden seeking a “better future,” remember! as I said yesterday, this is all being driven by money for big businesses in need of cheap labor and by foreign governments propping up their economies as Gutierrez makes clear!

The Hill story continues:

Gutierrez said money is a principal driver of the foreign governments’ interest in immigration reform.

[….]

Total remittances to El Salvador in 2010 were $3.6 billion in 2010.

For Mexico, the figure was $22.7 billion, or 2.1 percent of GDP.

That says it all, fewer jobs for Americans because we need to prop-up the third world.

Read the entire Hill story, there is much more.

For more on the TPS racket, see all of our previous posts at Potomac Tea Party Report . And here are the posts at RRW on the topic.