Month: August 2013

State Department responds to Springfield Mayor

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Barbara Day, the US State Department Office of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) Domestic Resettlement Section Chief, in a letter Wednesday, said PRM would be reviewing the three major contractors resettling refugees to Massachusetts when they make their plans for FY2014 (which happens very soon as FY’14 begins October 1).

When you read this consider that Barbara Day came to the State Department from Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota (a subcontractor of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, one of the three agencies she will be reviewing).

This is another example of the close ties between the grantors and the grantees.  As we have reported many times on these pages, the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in Health and Human Services (Eskinder Negash) is also a former contractor.  I am sure they are honorable people, but there really should be a law against contractors becoming the federal grantor to their former organization.

***Update*** How could I forget that the Asst. Secretary of State for PRM, Anne Richard, is also a former contractor!

Here is Day’s letter, and by the way, she is the person you should contact at the State Department if you have problems in your city!

This news (and the copy of the letter) was reported in The Republican which has been doing a great job following this story.  Read the whole informative article.  This little segment (below) caught my eye because it shows what a large percentage of the money allotted to refugees goes to the “church” middlemen to run the operation.

I have said on these pages that these middlemen contractors  (faux non-profits) should be shut out of the process and if a state agrees to resettle refugees it should be done through a state office COMPLETELY ACCOUNTABLE TO ELECTED OFFICIALS AND TAXPAYERS.

Here is what caught my eye:

Lutheran Social Services received $1,238,200 in refugee resettlement and refugee services funding in Hampden County in fiscal 2013. Of that amount, $362,500 goes directly to clients [refugees—ed] and $875,700 goes for operating the services, a spokeswoman said.

A significant portion of the funds, however, is not only for newly arriving refugees but for all refugees served, some for up to five years, the spokeswoman said. The grants include funding for services such as case management, education and employment efforts, according to a summary.

Read it all.

If you are arriving here for the first time, you can review all of our coverage of the controversy in Springfield, Massachusetts by clicking here.

Arizona: Largest food stamp fraud bust in state’s history

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 1:  I just came across this handy information on how to report suspected food stamp fraud in your town!

When I saw the first reports around the country about this case that involved a SWAT team, I had to laugh because those reports all just said “three men with the same last name”—no photo, no name!   Now, I see the story got wider coverage and there was no hesitancy by the likes of the Daily Caller to name names.

The Sweiss family fraudsters! (alleged fraudsters) Every time I see a warm and fuzzy story about immigrant entrepreneurs helping the US economy, these are the kinds of faces I see.

By the way, the perps are a father and two sons with the last name ‘Sweiss’.  I looked around a little and see that they might be Jordanian.  In any case, their passports have been confiscated.

From the Daily Caller:

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne announced the state’s largest undercover food stamp fraud bust and the arrests of three individuals involved on Thursday.

K & S convenience store employees Kameel Sweiss, 51, Ameer Sweis, 22, Faday Sweiss, 33, were arrested Wednesday for allegedly illegally conducting an enterprise, fraudulent schemes and artifices, money laundering, unlawful use of food stamps and computer tampering.

According to Horne, Wednesday morning SWAT units of the Phoenix Police Department entered the K & S convenience store to execute search warrants and seized $32,876 in cash, a key to a private bank vault holding $550,480 in cash, bank records, accounts, food stamp cards, business ledgers and three vehicles.

[….]

“This business was stealing taxpayer money by allowing a person with a food stamp card to purchase something small, such as a bag of chips, and then overcharge that card to make a fraudulent profit,” Horne explained in a statement.

“This seizure is the largest in our state’s history with regard to food stamp fraud and should serve as a strong warning to those who continue to engage in these kinds of illegal actions,” he added.

For new readers, we follow immigrant food stamp fraud here as a hobby.  I’m still waiting for a would-be blogger to take this on as a full time project.  I promise there are stories daily on immigrant-run ‘mom & pop’ groceries ripping off the US taxpayer.  Type ‘food stamp fraud’ into our search function and you will see dozens and dozens of posts about this type of fraud from coast to coast.  And, by the way, this may be the largest in Arizona so far, but it’s not the largest we have reported from elsewhere in the US.

Third Tsarnaev friend, son of refugee worker, indicted for lying to investigators

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

He could get up to 16 years if convicted.

However, because he is the product of an elite “humanitarian” circle in Boston, I doubt he will see that much time.  See our earlier post entitled, Boston bomber pal gets out on bail with help from “refugee” mom’s elite friends.

Indicted! Robel Phillipos,19, son of Ethiopian refugee

From Reuters:

 BOSTON (Reuters) – A third college friend of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was indicted on charges he lied to federal investigators, the U.S. Attorney General for Massachusetts said in a statement on Thursday.

Robel Phillipos, 19, was one of the three people who removed a backpack full of fireworks and a laptop from Tsarnaev’s dormitory room at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth days after the April 15 attack, and later lied about it, prosecutors claim.

The two other students, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov – both from Kazakhstan – have already been indicted on obstruction charges and detained pending trial. They have pleaded not guilty.

Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan, ethnic Chechens, are believed to have set off a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the world-renowned marathon’s finish line, killing three people and maiming scores of others in one of the worst attacks on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001.

[….]

According to the indictment against Phillipos, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sent a text message to Kadyrbayev on April 18, shortly after the FBI published pictures of the bombing suspects, asking his friend to go to his “room and take what’s there.”

The three men allegedly took the laptop, backpack and other items from Tsarnaev’s room later that day and put them in a dumpster in nearby New Bedford. Investigators later recovered the items from a landfill, according to the indictment.

Phillipos, along with Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, concealed his actions during interviews with federal investigators between April 19 and April 25, according to the indictment.

The Kazakhs could get deported without jail time?

Phillipos, who has been under house arrest since May, faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted. Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov face up to 25 years in jail or deportation.

As much as I hate the thought of spending tax dollars on their incarceration, those two Kazakhs, if deported, will become major jihadi heroes in their home country and probably find some other way to terrorize humanity for Allah.

All of our posts on these terrorists is here in our ‘Boston Marathon bombing’ category.

Mexican newspaper claims 260% jump in number of asylum requests in US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is Breitbart:

A report from the Mexican newspaper El Universal states that the number of asylum claims by Mexican nationals in fiscal year 2013 so far has jumped 260% over the entire year of 2012. This provides another confirmation of the story about the flood of Mexican asylum claims that Breitbart News broke nationally two weeks ago.

Why is this happening?

Breitbart:

The increases seem to come from both heavier drug cartel violence and a change in policy by the Obama administration…The new Obama policy sets asylum claimants free on their own recognizance by default.

….and, coaching by open borders advocates and lawyers!

Our previous coverage of this scam is here and here.

For new readers:  “Refugees” are supposedly persecuted people that the UN and the State Department select abroad and fly to the US and resettle in your cities with the help of the refugee contractors.   They are legally allowed to access welfare and are financially supported largely by you, the taxpayer.

“Asylum-seekers” get here on their own steam and then claim to be persecuted for their political beliefs, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation (nothing about fear of crime in a country that should be able to protect its own people) and must prove they are persecuted to become “asylees” who are then also eligible for certain social services.  The Boston Bomber family had been granted asylum.

Mexicans who get in now using this asylum claim won’t be granted asylum, but that doesn’t matter, they are in now (feet firmly planted in the US) and ready to reap the benefits of the hoped-for amnesty coming from Republicans and Obama.

Somali refugee women keeping the Minnesota courts busy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They were just so excited about voting they did it more than once!

In our previous post we reported the latest conviction in the Somali missing youths case.   And, now (hat tip: Cathy) we learn of another criminal case involving Somali women in Minnesota—this time for voter fraud.

Rice County, MN courtroom. Photo: REBECCA KURIE

From Faribault Daily News:

About 50 men and women packed a Rice County courtroom Tuesday afternoon as two Somali women pleaded not guilty to charges of voter fraud stemming from the general election last November.

Farhiya Abdi Dool, 38, and Amina A Hassan, 31, each face one felony charge of unlawful voting for voting once by absentee ballot and once at a polling place during the 2012 general election. Each woman faces five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the offense.

The women, both naturalized U.S. citizens, were charged June 21.

With Minneapolis-based defense attorney Julie Nelson at their side, Dool and Hassan each entered a plea of not guilty on Tuesday afternoon. As was the case with their first court appearances, the women were backed by family members, friends, neighbors and advocates all listening closely to the proceedings.

Supporters of the women say that their actions were an honest mistake that should not be punished with a felony charge. Nelson took the defense a step further during an interview after the hearing.

Somehow because they came to this country as refugees they should get a pass???  Americans are offended!

“I find it offensive that these women have been criminally charged,” Nelson said. “These women came to this country, they are naturalized citizens, and they wanted to vote.”

Nelson said she expected the outcome of the cases to have a “chilling effect” on the Somali community.

We sure hope it “chills” the voter fraud in the “community.”  This isn’t the first time we have reported on fraud in the “Somali community” going back to Al Franken’s victory in that 2008 contested Senate race.  There was also a case of alleged Somali voter fraud in Kansas that actually may have swung the outcome of a race, here.  Then there is the Ohio case.  See a pattern?

Don’t you wonder how refugees become citizens when they can’t understand English.  How did they pass the test?

We have a couple of posts referencing Faribault.  This is one about Somalis moving into small town Minnesota and opening businesses with your tax dollars.  And, here is another about CAIR suing a dessert maker somewhere nearby about the Somali workers and the dress code.