World Refugee Daywas started by the United Nations in 2000. It is a PR gimmick to give the media a reason to write about refugees on this day and for the local resettlement contractors to hold special events that would attract media attention.
US State Department employees asked themselves via a photo essay, what this day means to them (besides a pay check). Visit them here. The first photo is of Anne Richard, Asst. Secretary of State for Population Refugees and Migration and she believes it means ‘American History.’ I think she might mean how they are changing American history, but I can’t be sure.
Then my favorite photo is this one (below)—I want the map! It’s a photo of Laurence Bartlett, Director of Admissions who presided over the State Department hearings critics attended, here, in front of a map.
It’s too bad he is blocking some of the states obviously displaying color-coded dots which show refugee resettlement target sites in the US. If you click on the photo in the original link, it will enlarge enough for you to see some hot spots, but who knows what the color-coding means. I’m guessing it has something to do with the nationality of refugees or it could be a code for which contractors are located in a particular city.
To add to Australia’s already deep troubles over thousands of Muslim asylum seekers arriving in boats, now Somalis are saying they have to go illegally to Australia because they aren’t being considered for refugee status there due to their skin color.
Main Street, Collie in Western Australia will soon be home to asylum seekers. Photo: wikipedia
If you are a regular reader here you know Australia is in turmoil over the asylum issue. But, one thing that Australia and Canada have in common that we don’t have in the US is that the conflicts and public debate over refugee/asylum issues are out in the open in the mainstream media. When is the last time you heard any public debate on how many refugees we should be taking and from where in the likes of the Washington Post or the New York Times, or even Fox News?
Come to think of it, that story in the LA Times about the US taking Syrians may be one of the most forthright articles I’ve seen in the US press which normally stays mum when there is opposition to resettlement.
Here are two mentions of the latest headache for the Australian government. Somalis say they are going illegally to Australia because Australia won’t let Africans in through the front door.
Somali refugees waiting in Indonesia, say they’re being forced to take dangerous boat voyages because Australia is refusing to resettle Africans.
The refugees say they have been told by the United Nations refugee agency, in Jakarta, that there’s no point applying to be resettled in Australia.
They wonder whether they’re being rejected automatically from Australia’s humanitarian program because of their skin colour.
Then here is The Australian(you will have to sign-in for the whole story):
PEOPLE-SMUGGLERS in Kenya and Somalia are telling Somalis seeking asylum they can easily get them to Australia through Malaysia and Indonesia. Australian Somali Association president Abdullahi Farah said he had been expecting an influx of Somalis arriving by boat as the message of an Australian option grew.
It comes as a woman was found dead on an asylum-seeker boat carrying about 60 Africans and people from the Middle East after it was stopped by HMAS Warramunga east-northeast of Christmas Island on Saturday.
Meanwhile little Collie in Western Australia was not consulted before being informed that asylum seeking families would soon come to live there. But, they say they will be “welcoming” to the “seed” community nonetheless. (The seed reference comes from Welcoming America, here, where refugees are seeds and your community is the soil in which they grow!).
LOCAL community leaders have expressed disappointment at a lack of consultation surrounding the relocation of asylum seekers to Collie.
The Collie Mail last week reported that nine families seeking asylum would be relocated to Collie later this month.
Collie Shire president Wayne Sanford said council found out about the plan through the press.
“There was no briefing to councillors before the decision to consider Collie was made,” he said.
Cr Sanford said he was disappointed the Department of Immigration did not consult with the local government body from a planning perspective.
“Collie is a very inclusive and welcoming community and I am sure the community will welcome these people and make sure they are provided with a safe and positive environment and support where and when needed,” he said.
So, for all readers who imagine you can escape to Australia, forget it!
This is a new twist on convenience store scams I usually write about. Food stamp fraud on a massive scale is being perpetrated on the American taxpayer, but this time franchise owner’s of 7-Eleven stores in New York and Virginia have been found to be harboring illegal alien workers and then keeping a portion of their wages.
The Long Island home purchased by alleged immigrant scammers, Farrukh Baig, 57, and Bushra Baig, 49, was purchased for $1.75 million in 2004. CARRIE MILLER PHOTO
The report in the Washington Posttells us that now a nationwide effort is being made to check other 7-Eleven stores for similar types of fraud. And, it reminded me, has the killer been identified in the murder of the Bhutanese refugee in St. Louis who was found shot in the 7-Eleven store in which he worked.
And, you know what is galling too! All the illegal alien Pakis taken into custody in the 7-Eleven raids could get amnesty in the coming months if the Gang of Eight is successful in getting a bill to Obama this year.
Here is the WaPostory. I had to laugh because the alleged perps are not identified until the closing paragraphs.
A married couple and two brothers who operated 7-Eleven stores in Virginia and New York employed dozens of illegal immigrants under assumed identities and exploited the workers by pocketing some of their wages and requiring them to pay rent to live in unlicensed boardinghouses, authorities said.
Federal indictments unsealed Monday in Brooklyn, N.Y., allege that the four owners and five additional defendants carried out the years-long scheme at four 7-Eleven stores in the Norfolk area and 10 stores in Long Island, N.Y.
At least 50 illegal immigrants, most or all of them from Pakistan, were employed at various times under more than 20 stolen identities of U.S. citizens, some of which were used repeatedly, authorities said.
“From their 7-Eleven stores, the defendants dispensed wire fraud and identity theft along with Slurpees and hot dogs,” said Loretta E. Lynch, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, whose office is handling the case. “The defendants not only systematically employed illegal immigrants but concealed their crimes by raiding the cradle and the grave to steal the identities of children and even the dead.”
More stores are going to be investigated. Maybe Homeland Security should check that 7-Eleven in South St. Louis where the refugee was recently murdered.
The alleged scheme had been going on for more than a decade, authorities said. They said the investigation is continuing and that federal agents were inspecting the employment record at about 30 other 7-Eleven stores in the country. Lynch called the case “one of the largest criminal immigrant employment investigations ever conducted” by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Coming out of the shadows! In the last two paragraphs we learn who the crooks are:
The married couple, Farrukh Baig, 57, and Bushra Baig, 49, both of Long Island, controlled the franchise rights to four Virginia 7-Eleven stores in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake, according to the prosecutors. The brothers, Azhar Zia, 49, and Ummar Uppal, 48, also of Long Island, controlled the franchise rights to two 7-Elevens in Long Island.
The Baigs and Zia are naturalized U.S. citizens and Uppal is a Pakistani national, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Of five additional defendants, who helped the Baigs run their stores, authorities said, three are naturalized U.S. citizens, one is a Pakistani national and one is a citizen of the Philippines.
PHOTO! There are more details in the Suffolk Times and it is where the photo is from.
Readers, this post only tangentially involves refugees (that we know of so far!), some enterprising blogger-wannabe should write a blog primarily dedicated to reporting on scams to rip-off the infidels—food stamp fraud, Medicare/Medicaid fraud, wire fraud and trafficking (human!) like this story.
From the editor: I have so much I could post here at RRW today, but circumstances out of my control are getting in the way. This is what I posted just a few minutes ago at Potomac Tea Party Report about events in DC tomorrow which might be of some interest to readers here as well.
Glenn Beck
Glenn Beck announced yesterday that he too will be in Washington, DC tomorrow for the rally to bring the Nation’s attention to the IRS targeting scandal, and at the same time the Brave 70 will hold an all day event in opposition to the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill working its way through the Senate.
The Seventy members of the House will be challenging Speaker John Boehner and his inner circle (including Paul Ryan) on the so-called “comprehensive” immigration reform bill that Boehner would like to see pass the House in some form so he can go to conference committee and ‘compromise’ with what is expected to be an egregious Senate version of the bill (S.744).
If you missed it, Rush Limbaugh was great yesterday on his radio show saying that this push for amnesty isn’t driven by humanitarianism (and Hispanics won’t be voting Republican), it is being pushed on both sides of the aisle by moneyed interests who simply want the cheap labor supply, and if people like Rubio (Rush implied) want a future in national politics he has to tow the line or he won’t get the big campaign donations. Limbaugh says they are all crony capitalists now—the big money doesn’t care who (or which party) is in the White House just so they get to put their hands into the government till.
Leading the 70 Member revolt are Reps. Steve King, Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert.
Here is Beck on his show yesterday (hat tip: Cathy):
This Wednesday, June 19, in Washington D.C. there will be an open forum that will feature “border security, anti-amnesty members of Congress.” The debate is slated for 9AM to 12PM and then again from 2PM to 5PM. In between, members of Congress will join with an already-planned Tea Party rally against the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations. Glenn will be joining the event and speaking at noon.
“There are 70 Republicans now in congress that we sent there,” Glenn said. “They’re standing up this week and they’re about to be slaughtered.”
“I think there will be five people in Washington this week on Wednesday because it’s, you know, it’s a Wednesday. It’s in the middle of the week. Who does this? It’s costing me a fortune to be able to get the TV and everybody up there to be able to ‑‑ to be able to just cover it, let alone speak up there. I’m flying a few of my pastors and my priests and my rabbi friends up with me for an announcement with the Black‑Robe Regiment. That’s not something I want to do. Last thing I want to do is get back on an airplane and travel up to Washington D.C. and stand there and be a part of that.”
“There are many things I don’t believe in anymore, and Washington is one of them. And I despise that city now. Because it has just become a symbol of corruption to me, a symbol of grotesque growth, where the rest of us are suffering in the rest of the country,” he said.
Here is the location of the Audit the IRS rally. The Lincoln-Douglas style debate on immigration will be in front of the US Capital (presumably where the rally will also take place, but I don’t know that for sure).
For people in Western Maryland, the Hagerstown Tea Party still has seats available on its bus(as of this writing!).
For everything we have said here at RRW about S.744, the “mother of all legislative train wrecks”, go here.
Last week a former Somali refugee, owner of a home health care business, killed three of his employees and himself in a multi-culty neighborhood because he was mentally distraught over a divorce we are told by the ‘Somali Jesse Jackson’ Omar Jamal. The divorce happened years earlier in Texas and the shooter, Ahmed Dirir, had since remarried, but Jamal expects us to believe this was all about a nutty guy in need of mental health treatment. No sense looking any further.
Omar Jamal representing the new Somali government at the United Nations
Gee where have we heard that before?
Remember when the Canadian Somali died in Denverjust before the Democrat National Convention in 2008. You don’t remember? of course not! The media was very quickly silenced when Jamal came on the scene. The Canadian Somali died in a hotel room near the convention venue with enough cyanide to kill scores of people. After talking to family in Canada, guess who told the media the dead man was just a nut in need of mental health services?
Here is the story in which the AP reporter appears to have swallowed Jamal’s just-a-man-distraught-over-divorce story.
The St. Louis businessman who killed three employees before turning the gun on himself was a Somali immigrant, described by friends as an intelligent man who was quick to reach out to other new-arriving Somalis, but who had lingering anger years after the divorce from his first wife. [Men angry with former wives usually kill the wife, not his innocent employees.—ed]
Police say 59-year-old Ahmed Dirir walked into his business, AK Home Health Care LLC, on Thursday afternoon, got into a brief argument, and then shot his three employees. Killed were 44-year-old Khadra Muse of Olivette, Mo., 29-year-old Seaeed Abdulla of St. Louis, and 54-year-old Bernice Solomon-Redd of East St. Louis, Ill.
Dirir, Muse and Abdulla were all from Somalia, said Omar Jamal of the Somali mission to the U.N. Jamal, who often gets involved in issues of high interest involving Somalis in the U.S., said he spoke with several friends and relatives of Dirir and the victims, including the wives of Dirir and Abdulla.
The home health agency was headquartered in a small business incubator building in a former movie theater on Cherokee Street, a revitalizing mixed-race neighborhood about five miles south of downtown St. Louis.
Jamal: If only he had the mental health treatment he needed!
Police haven’t disclosed a motive, but Jamal said the relatives and friends of Dirir he spoke with described a marked change in his demeanor after he and his wife divorced in Texas years earlier. It wasn’t clear when the divorce was finalized, though friends said Dirir had remarried.
“It is sad he didn’t get attention that could have prevented all of this from happening,” Jamal said.
It’s sad that we have admitted so many insane refugees into the US too!
It just occurred to me, maybe US authorities gave Jamal a pass and let him stay in the US in exchange for his role in reporting to the authorities and stopping prying eyes (reporters) every time some fellow Somali got in trouble.
