UPDATE: A MUSLIM teen shot dead after he stabbed two counter-terrorism officers was a member of a radical Islamic group that was raided in Melbourne’s southeast two years ago.
Islamic Council of Victoria secretary Ghaith Krayem said members of Al Furqan told him that the 18-year-old Afghani man, described this morning as a “known terror suspect”, hadn’t been a part of the group for a while.
Al Furqan Information Centre in Springvale South was raided by counter-terrorism squads in 2012. It is thought the teenager came to the authorities attention following the raids.
It comes as police say they had “no choice” but to shoot dead the Narre Warren man after he stabbed the two officers outside Endeavour Hills police station last night.
The Joint Counter Terrorism Taskforce had been monitoring the teenager for a number of months, Victoria Police chief commissioner Ken Lay said.
Well, they have some other excuses, but that is the gist of it.
Unlike the US Canada still has some private charity for refugees.
Study is from Citizens for Public Justice – A member-driven, faith-based, public policy org. Research and analysis on poverty, ecological justice, and refugees in Canada.
Canada has both a government refugee resettlement program and one where churches and other civic groups can sponsor a family privately.
We previously had private sponsorship too until Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden (and other far Left Senators) pushed through the Refugee Act of 1980which set up the present system (ostensibly a public-private partnership that is pretty much all public money) where you (the taxpayer) pay churches and some secular agencies to care for refugees for a brief period of time via resettlement contractors.
Now it looks like Canada’s private sponsorship isn’t going so well—when people have to use their own personal funds to take care of refugees their humanitarian zeal starts to wane.
I’m thinking the US should go to completely private sponsorship and then we would find out very quickly who really cares for refugees—those willing to put their money where their mouth is!
Here is the news from The Star. Read between the lines—they don’t have enough private charitable dollars! And, in a “blended” form of the program, they want to be able to pick the ethnic groups they care about and not have families chosen for them.
Bureaucratic delays and federal cuts to health coverage are hurting the ability of churches and other groups to bring in refugees under Canada’s renowned private refugee sponsorship program, says a new study.
Based on a survey of the 85 private groups that have formal refugee sponsorship agreements with Ottawa, recent policy changes appear to threaten the vitality of the sponsorship program launched in 1978 amid an outpouring of public concern over the Southeast Asian “boat people” crisis.
Groups were concerned with waits that stretch into years, and “processing hurdles that jeopardize their … future engagement in resettlement work,” said the survey conducted by the advocacy group Citizens for Public Justice.
“Cuts to the Interim Federal Health program (for refugees) have left church-based and other voluntary sponsoring groups on the line for previously-covered supplemental health costs,” said the 15-page report, titled Private Sponsorship and Public Policy.
“About one-third . . . report that their sponsoring groups have had to decrease or end their involvement in the PSR (private sponsorship of refugees) program as a result of this increased liability.”
Since 1978, more than 200,000 refugees have come to Canada through the efforts and financial support of faith groups, individuals, and community and ethnic organizations plugged into the program. In 2013 alone, 6,623 privately sponsored refugees were resettled in Canada.
Seventy-two per cent of the agreement holders are churches or church-connected groups, including Mennonite, Christian Reformed, United, Alliance and Presbyterian denominations.
To set the stage, we have your basic story—‘legal aid’ lawyers whip up Somali tenants to complain about their landowner. It begins as follows at The Columbus Dispatch:
Cockroaches and mice scurry across the carpeted floor where Luul Botan’s three young children play.
The bathroom and kitchen faucets leak a steady stream of water. Some of the kitchen cabinets are broken. The drawers stick. And the front door doesn’t close easily, leaving the 32-year-old mother fearful that someone might break into their North Side apartment at night.
Remember this story from 2012 where police had to break up crowds of Somalis fighting for subsidized housing in Columbus. http://www.barenakedislam.com/2012/12/10/columbus-ohio-muslim-crowd-of-2000-turns-violent-waiting-to-apply-for-subsidized-apartments/
“The conditions are horrible, and the management at Capital Park apartments doesn’t care how bad it gets,” she said last week through a Somali interpreter.
Botan said she fears that her children, who are 5 years, 1 year and 4 months old, are being sickened by the insects and mouse droppings. She said she asked the manager five times to replace a missing screen in the living-room window of her second-floor apartment in the complex on Agler Road.
“I’m so afraid my daughter will fall out when she runs over to watch children playing outside. It’s so dangerous,” she said.
During the past several weeks, dozens of Capital Park residents have called the city of Columbus about what they say is a worsening problem. With the help of Legal Aid attorneys and other volunteers, the mostly low-income Somali refugees have also begun sending letters to the management of the 314-unit complex owned by Volunteers of America, requesting repairs that many have already asked for.
“The tenants in this case are stepping up, asking the landlord merely to do what Ohio law requires: Keep the rental property fit, habitable and up to code,” said Benjamin D. Horne, a managing attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Columbus.
Most of the residents were resettled by the federal government from refugee camps in Kenya, he said. They have little knowledge of their rights. [Nor little knowledge of how to care for a home and appliances, according to this story—ed]
I would like to know which refugee resettlement contractor resettled them in this building. And, what connection they have to Volunteers of America.
Is this one more example of how the whole refugee business has turned into one more get-rich scheme by people tapping into the federal treasury? I’ve been for a long time referring to refugee resettlement as an industry (driven by companies looking for cheap labor) and here is a whole new angle to the mess.
David Burch, a spokesman for the national office of the Volunteers of America in Alexandria, Va., said some complaints went directly to the city, which has sent 32 code-violation notices in the past three weeks.
[….]
Volunteers of America bought the complex in 2000 and did a $4.5 million renovation two years later, Burch said. Government sources, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, provided the funds for the renovation.
The 45-year-old complex is slated for another makeover in three years, he said, when it is eligible for more federal funding.
“Our primary goal is taking care of our people and making sure they have decent housing so they can build a successful life,” he said.
Now, check out a recent Form990 for Volunteers of America’s office in Alexandria, Virginia (just one branch of VOA):
It is a NON-PROFIT ‘holding company’ with $62 million in assets and although its employees are apparently paid nothing from the organization, its CEO makes nearly a half million dollars a year in salary and benefits! from related organizations (page 7) and there are seven other employees in the 6-figure range. What related organizations?
These financial machinations are all way beyond my ability to understand, but it sure confirms for me that there are some big players with big money (much of it your tax dollars) helping to drive the importation of “refugees” into America, while hiding under the white hat of humanitarianism.
What is up with Ohio—it sure is being targeted as a “welcoming” state for refugees? Making sure Ohio is blue? See our Ohio archive here and see especially this post where “Welcoming America” came to town in Cleveland over a year ago to be sure the community there is ready to welcome more immigrants. Apparently, Columbus is vying with Minneapolis in building a Somali enclave.
Watch for it! This is going to be one more excuse for the West to be pressured into opening the flood gates to the third world. Or, to at least send gazillion dollars down rat holes.
We’ve been telling you in our “climate refugees” categoryabout the behind-the-scenes scuffling over using the word “refugees” for people who are moving around due to global warming (or perceived global warming).
The humanitarians are not thrilled that the environmentalists are tapping into the good image they have built up over the warm and fuzzy word—refugee. (That image is crumbling now anyway because of increased attention to not only the demands “refugees” put on “welcoming” countries, but to the downright lies that go on with those driving the refugee agenda.) The Left is always manipulating the language!
Here is Secretary of State John Kerry in advance of the UN meeting which opens today, and where Obama is going to try to change the subject from Islamic terrorists to the threat of global warming (climate change now that they know we really aren’t warming).
Secretary of State John Kerry said the threats posed by climate change should be addressed with as much “immediacy” as confronting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the Ebola outbreak.
During a meeting with foreign ministers on Sunday, Kerry said global warming is creating “climate refugees.”
We see people fighting over water in some places. There are huge challenges to food security and challenges to the ecosystem, our fisheries and … the acidification of the ocean is a challenge for all of us,” Kerry said.
“And when you accrue all of this, while we are confronting ISIL and we are confronting terrorism and we are confronting Ebola and other things, those are immediate,” he added, using an alternate acronym for the terrorist group.
“This also has an immediacy that people need to come to understand, but it has even greater longer-term consequences that can cost hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars, lives, and the security of the world,” Kerry continued.
Kerry has drawn the ire of lawmakers in the past for comparing the threats of climate change to terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction.
Still, Kerry hasn’t backed down, and is a key player in President Obama’s diplomatic efforts on climate change.
Kerry made the comments ahead of a United Nations climate summit in New York where the president on Tuesday will urge 125 heads of state to take “ambitious” action in the fight against global warming.
