Reports are sprouting up everywhere with conflicting stories about the Mom (is she a liar?), the Dad (did he kidnap the kids and bring them to America?), will the State Department permit the Mom to come to the US to reclaim her kids and to (of course) stay? etc. And, now the siblings are in the mix talking to reporters too!
Then here comes CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) to defend the family—they say it is all about bullying that is hard on immigrants trying to adjust to America (America bad!) with no mention of the aggrieved Mom back in Ethiopia. In Islam, Dad has rights to kids, Mom doesn’t.
For background, our first report on the Somali stowaway is here.
CAIR speaks for the family, from Fox12 Oregon (Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’ who can’t get enough of this case!):
SAN FRANCISCO (HawaiiNewsNow) – The father of a teenager who stowed away on a flight from San Jose to Kahului plans to fly to Hawaii soon to take his son back to California.
The family of Yahya Abdi, 15, released a statement through a civil rights group called the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). [“Civil rights” group—ha! ha!—ed]
“The family is very relieved about their son’s safety. I think for the last week everyone has had the opportunity to learn about the harrowing circumstances of the trip, the very low likelihood of survival,” said Zahra Billoo, CAIR’s executive director.
The teenager told investigators on Maui that he climbed into the wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines plane after running away from the California home he shares with his father and stepmother. The boy was trying to reunite with his mother in Africa after just learning that she was alive, according to San Jose authorities.
“The family spent a lot of time displaced in Somalia and as a result of sort of the war-like conditions of that country the son had not had any formal education before arriving in the United States,” explained Billoo.
Abdulahi Yusuf said his son is struggling to adjust to life in the U.S. as a high school student.
“The dad said that he was a really good kid and that he is loved dearly by his family,” Billoo said. “Overall it was a very difficult situation and school was possibly the hardest of all of those pieces.”
Then get this! We need to supply him with social services!
“In this era of bullying and cyberspace and social media, things are already so difficult for youth, further aggravated for recent immigrants at times. I hope that they will get the social services that they need,” said Billoo.
There is more in the continuing soap opera:
Here is a story about Mom fretting in Ethiopia (with two more kids she would surely bring to the US, see photo). And, CBS interviewed siblings who say their birth mother is a liar and is only saying that the kids were taken to America against her wishes so that she too could get in to the US. I suspect hubby had two wives back in Africa at the same time and the State Department made it clear that he could bring only one wife to America.
By the way, this CBS news piece says the kids have been here for 5 years (something that seemed to be in dispute in some previous reports).
As I said before, why not send the whole kit-and-caboodle back to Africa and let the new Somali government sort out their domestic entanglements (involving at least 11 kids!). Why should the US taxpayers be on the hook for the legal wrangling, potentially new resettlements, and for “social services”?
For new readers: We have admitted well over 100,000 Somali refugees to the US. To check out the numbers visit this post, one of our most widely read posts*** over the last few years. It is a little out of date, but you get the idea.
In the first six months of this fiscal year we have admitted 3,708 additional Somalis.
Also, after being closed for years, the US State Department has resumed the Somali family reunification program that admitted tens of thousands of Somalis fraudulently to the US between 2003 and 2008 before a moratorium halted the program. The frauds were not found and deported!
***I will update that and let you know what the top five posts are now! Here it is!