Boston bomber pal gets out on bail with help from “refugee” mom’s elite friends

Robel Phillipos is charged with lying to federal investigators after he and others went to Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s room after Phillipos recognized his friend on the videos released by the FBI in the days following the marathon terrorist attack.  He did not call the police to report that he recognized the bombing suspect as his buddy.  A shouted question from a reporter yesterday as to why he didn’t alert authorities is heard at the end of this interview with his lawyers (as they walked away).

Mom outside court house. Phillipos lawyer is on the right. Photo Boston Globe

From the Daily Caller:

Robel Phillipos, the 19-year old classmate of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev who was charged with lying to federal investigators, gained release from custody with the help of a number of supportive affidavits from Boston-area academics and humanitarians close to his mother, according to a copy of his bond request obtained by the Daily Caller.

Mom is Ethiopian refugee who has important Boston “humanitarian” friends:

Phillipos’ mother Genet Bekele — an Ethiopian refugee who holds a master’s degree in social work from Boston University and worked for a refugee resettlement agency and as the director of the emergency shelter at the nonprofit battered women’s shelter Transition House — provided an affidavit in support of her son.

Transition House executive director Risa Mednick also provided an affidavit supporting Phillipos, claiming that she knew Phillipos’ mother when they both worked at Transition House and on the Cambridge Domestic Violence Task Force. Mednick claimed that Phillipos had a “surprisingly nuanced understanding of how social issues impact families and youth.

Wellesley College art professor Salem Mekuria also provided an affidavit defending Phillipos.

“Robel’s mother is one of the most humanitarian and generous beings I know. Having experienced hardship as a refugee after escaping from an oppressive military regime, she has been working tirelessly to help others with similar experiences,” Mekuria said in an affidavit.

Martha Goldberg, a sponsored programs administrator at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, also defended Phillipos and stated that many employees of the International Institute of Boston knew the young man.

“I met Genet fifteen years ago as a coworker at the International Institute of Boston. I knew all about Robel as she would talk about him and many of the other staff members knew him. We were all proud of him because he was a really sweet, smart kid,” Goldberg testified in her affidavit.  [Smart?—ed]

For my critics!  I do have sympathy for Mom!

Readers, if you are having trouble finding the International Institute of Boston that’s because it is now “doing business as” the International Institute of New England.  It is another of the 300 plus subcontractors resettling refugees and providing services to “new Americans.”  I believe they are still a subcontractor of USCRI (remember them here yesterday).

Some of these contractors (top nine who have a monopoly) and subcontractors have changed their names over the years, why?  I assume it’s because somehow they got in trouble with federal grant money, but who knows, it could be innocent name changes.  Here in 2009, I reported that USCRI itself changed its name.  In any case it makes it harder for the average taxpaying citizen to keep up with them!

All of our posts on the Boston Marathon Bombing are archived here.

Today’s State Department refugee testimony comes to you from North Carolina

But before we get to it, be sure to visit VDARE where Paul Nachman has penned an excellent piece urging readers there  to send in testimony by close of business tomorrow, May 8th.  He has some information from years before I followed this program that I found very enlightening. I think you will too.  Mr. Nachman shared his testimony with us here, yesterday.

Go here for instructions on how to send your comments (and don’t forget to copy them to your elected officials in Washington and you can throw in some state and local officials too for good measure).  Tomorrow is the deadline!  E-mail or fax instructions:

Persons wishing to present written comments should submit them by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 8, 2013 via email to spruellda@state.gov or fax (202) 453-9393.

The comments below are from Jon Sobieski of North Carolina (emphasis mine):

North Carolina is in the top ten resettlement states in the US (surprised?).  Type ‘North Carolina’ into our search function for more.

(See previous testimony from Texas, Tennessee, New Hampshire and MontanaWe have an archive here for all posts relating to this meeting.)

Mr. Sobieski wrote to his Senators and included his testimony.  In a P.S. he asks the Senators this question:

PS I would also like to know why the State Dept. has banned any camera or recording devices at their 1 day public comment hearing?  Isn’t that my tax money that is paying for that meeting?  What are they afraid of that they refuse to allow recording at the public hearing?

Readers should know that last year a serious effort was made to get the State Department to allow recording of the meeting but it was denied.  Good question Mr. Sobieski!

Ms. Anne Richard
Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration
US State Department
Washington, DC. 20520

April 27, 2013

Re: Federal Register Public Notice 8241 Comment Request

Dear Ms Richard:

I am writing to submit written comments on the President’s FY 2014 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program as part of the upcoming May 15 public hearing in Washington, DC. Sadly, the refugee and asylum resettlement programs have become overtly corrupt and harmful to America.   Below I outline only a few examples of the negative effect these programs are having.  For a nation that is broke, why are we financing huge numbers of inassimilable and dependent people into America?  Why do we allow family chain immigration for the initially approved refugee?  While I want to end the refugee and asylum programs due to their corruption and negative effects on communities, that request will likely be denied.  Therefore, I ask that a full scale audit of the performance of refugees and asylum seekers and the NGOs placing them in the US be completed before any further immigration is allowed.  There are so many questions that demand answers.  What percentage of entrants continues to use welfare after 1 year, 2 years, 5 years?  Can we ban Muslim immigration due to the inherent hatred and preaching of violence toward nonbelievers demanded by Islam and its teachings?  If no outright end can be considered, I urge that the government dramatically reduce refugee and asylum entries to less than 3,000 per year total including family resettlement (if family resettlement is not banned outright ).

The following are only a few of the many reasons that refugee and asylum entry must be stopped or drastically curtailed:

1)    The Boston marathon attacks were committed by jihadis allowed into the US as part of family repatriation.  What is more disconcerting is how their parents were able to easily attain asylum.  Just like that.  They were here on tourist visas and through the father’s sister, were able to get asylum status.  Who checked on these people?  Why do asylum seekers get unlimited welfare access?  Forever?  They did not pay a dime into the system and milked it for all it’s worth.  If their homeland was so terrible, why did they go back on ‘tourist’ visits and now live there permanently apparently.  Now we learn the mother was a shoplifter and skipped back to southern Russia to avoid trial for a $1600 theft (shoplifting) at Lord and Taylor’s.  Are they still on welfare?  Are we depositing welfare payments in their bank accounts in Russia?  America is a sucker and the State Dept. is the biggest sucker of all.  What about the hundreds of thousands of Somalis that the State Dept. has imported?  Is the State Dept. even aware of the criminal behavior Somalis are notorious for in Minneapolis?  Entire communities have been destroyed.  They don’t call areas of Minneapolis ‘Little Somalia’ for nothing.  There is truly a perverse agenda at the State Dept. as they bring in more and more inassimilable groups and dump them in American communities. And who pays for this folly?  We do, the struggling taxpayers.

2)    Who audits these NGOs like the IRC, Catholic, Hebrew, and so many others?  Is anyone looking at the long term ramifications of allowing these NGOs to have free reign to import thousands of inassimilable groups and dump them in our towns?  Why do officers of these NGOs make more than the President? David Milliband was just  hired as CEO of one group (International Rescue Committee) with a $430,000 salary!  Over half of their funding is paid by US taxpayers, others are over 90%!  Does anyone care about the citizens who have to deal with these NGOs and the inassimilable people they dump into our communities?

3)    The State Dept. is failing at screening evil asylum seekers, you appear to only be concerned with import quotas and spending all the money the foolish Congress allots to you.  Damn the American citizens.  Who cares about them and their communities?  To me, the State Dept. was right there in Boston helping these Muslim jihadists build and place these bombs so that they could slaughter the infidels they so despise.   Meanwhile, the stealth jihadists collect welfare and laugh at the stupid infidels in the US.  But it is the State Dept’s failures in managing this corrupt program that is the true evil.  It is as if the State Dept.  is a sponsor of terrorism against the American people.

4)    Why are we importing evil and inassimilable groups when we are broke and suffer from high unemployment?  Due to these groups low IQs and extremely low education levels, the only jobs they can get are the same jobs that our own poor and low IQ citizens are fighting for.  On top of that,  these NGOs provide free training and financial incentives to employers to hire these people over our own citizens.  This has to stop.

5)   Why are we financing NGOs?  Aren’t they supposed to be voluntary and charitable enterprises.  Instead, they are BIG BUSINESS feeding at the taxpayer trough.

6)    The refugee program, like all govt programs, started out small with a tightly targeted purpose and benevolent intentions.  Now it is a monster devouring billions of dollars and destroying our communities.  Indeed, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

7)    In conjunction with the above, U.S. admissions policy has become subsumed to the demands of the UNHCR. The UN is not our friend.  We should not allow a foreign agency to dictate policy to the U.S., especially when it causes adverse effects to local, often small, communities in rural areas. We owe the UN nothing, we owe the world nothing.   We should no longer acquiesce to the UN’s demands and sharply and I mean sharply curtail all asylum and refugee admissions.

The State Department should declare a one year moratorium on settlement and take a critical look at how this program has been corrupted and how adversely it is affecting American communities.

To fully understand the corruption and incompetence in America’s refugee and asylum program, I recommend you study at length the rich and insightful Refugee Resettlement Watch website.

Sincerely,

Jon Sobieski

CC:  Senator Richard Burr, Senator Kay Hagen
Representative Mel Watt
Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
Additional CCs to Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Lindsay Graham Senator John McCain

For your faxing enjoyment, Mr. Sobieski has included this list of fax numbers for Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  (you will probably need to put a ‘1’ in front of each number.

Handy numbers to have if you have comments to fax on S. 744 as well!

Sen. Charles Schumer US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-228-3027
Sen. Patrick Leahy US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-224-3479
Sen. Diane Feinstein US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-228-3954
Sen. Dick Durbin US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-228-0400
Sen. Amy Klobuchar US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-228-2186
Sen. Richard Blumenthal US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-224-9673
Sen. Mazie Hirono US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-224-2126
Sen. John Cornyn US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-228-2856
Sen. Chuck Grassley US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-224-6020
Sen. Orrin G.Hatch US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.202-224-6331unsuccessful fax, Hatch office investigating – update: his office gave me his direct email address  senatorhatch@hatch.senate.gov so I could deliver my comments 5/6/13
Sen. Jeff Sessions US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-224-3149
Sen. Jeff Flake US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-228-0515
Sen. TedCruz US Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.US 202-228-0755