Day: February 15, 2015

First Syrian refugees arriving in Louisville, KY; helped with grant from Islamic charity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just as we have been discussing the testimony this past week by the FBI to the House Homeland Security Committee and how difficult it is to vet the thousands of Syrians in the UN’s pipeline to America, news is coming that the first Syrians are arriving.

This information about a Muslim charity giving grants for refugee resettlement is the first I have seen of this practice.

Head quartered in Alexandria, VA, Islamic Relief USA is not a rinkey-dink charity—in a recent Form 990 they reported $65 million in income in one year.

***Update***Ryan Mauro writing at the Clarion Project says that Islamic Relief USA is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (here).

Here is a story from WAVE 3 News from Louisville after an intro about the Bosnian caseworker from Kentucky Refugee Ministries:

“We all came as refugees and now it’s about time for us to give back,” said Semsudin Haseljic.

Syrian refugees arriving in Louisville, KY on Friday. Looks like nutritional deprivation was not a concern for this family

He arrived in Louisville to get treatment when he lost both legs in the Bosnian war. “It was difficult at the beginning because I was here by myself,” Haseljic said. “I didn’t have any money, any clothes, any family members.”

Today, he’s a caseworker with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. The organization with the help of the Bosnian American Islamic Center, and thanks to a grant from Islamic Relief USA, is bringing a family fleeing civil war in Syria. “This is a young couple, a husband and wife, and two young children,” Haseljic said.

Mohammed Masmoom and his family have had a long journey, stretching many months and miles, but when asked about his emotions today, all he could talk about was his welcome.

“He feels great that he saw all these people welcome him in the airport,” said Miriam Jaleel, who translated for the family.

The family was taken to the apartment that’s been rented in their name for a welcome meal, and then a weekend to adjust and decompress.

On Monday, Kentucky Refugee Ministries will begin explaining the services [including welfare—ed] they can expect, the English classes they’ll take and the help they’ll get finding jobs. The goal is for them to be self-sufficient in five to eight months and then help other families that Refugee Ministries expects to arrive in [from?] Syria.

By the way, Louisville is a preferred resettlement site for the federal government.   And, Kentucky is a Wilson-Fish state which means that Kentucky elected officials at the local and state level have no say in any of this—it is all done with federal contractors like Kentucky Refugee Ministries.

But….Mitch and Rand could say a whole lot about this if they wanted to!

Syrians: Who might we let in through the refugee program? And, who is coming back?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you about recent FBI testimony (here) that Homeland Security is not capable of properly screening prospective Syrian refugees that the UN has chosen for us because there is no way to get any data from a “failed state.”   As a result, the State Department’s plan to bring in 9,000-10,000 this year has hit a roadblock.

Eleven months ago, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was calling for the US to admit 75,000 Syrian refugees over a 5 year period. I wonder have they modified their demands? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/03/29/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-us-should-bring-75000-syrians-to-us-over-next-5-years/

Below, Leo Hohmann, writing at World Net Daily, gives us more detail about the House Homeland Security hearing last week and the FBI testimony, but in his more indepth analysis he also tells us about those ‘Americans’ who have gone to Syria recently and returned—what were they doing in Syria and do they pose a threat to us?

Longtime readers here know that Somali ‘youths’ who we took in and cared for have thumbed their noses at the good life here and have gone to join jihadists around the world, but how many other former “refugees” have gone for jihad training?

And, do you know that there is no way to stop their return to your cities?

World Net Daily (toward the end of a detailed story).  ‘Syrian refugee program called backdoor for jihadists’:

“We know that foreign fighters have gone from 15,000 to 20,000. We know that 5,000 of these foreign fighters have Western passports that could get them entrance into the United States,” McCaul said. “… There are hundreds of Americans who have traveled to the region to fight with ISIS. We know that some of them have returned, and that’s a classified number. But my first question is, for those who have returned to the United States, what assurances can you give the American people, and what are we doing about it to make sure they do not attack in the United States?”

Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, also testified Wednesday and said the numbers are far from clear.

“We know what we know, but that comes from a wide variety of sources and we have always assessed that there is likely more information out there that we have not yet been able to collect … And that is possible there are greater numbers of foreign fighters and potentially even greater numbers of individuals from Western countries who have traveled to the conflict zones.”

Steinbach agreed the numbers could be much greater than the 150 or so Americans suspected of fighting for ISIS, also called ISIL.  [I will bet a large percentage of those who have gone to Syria come from the Muslim immigrant community in the US—ed]

“I would not be truthful if I told you we knew about all the returnees. We know what we know. There is a number that we don’t know about,” he told the committee. “The ones we know about, that have returned from Syria and the conflict zone. … Regardless of the intelligence that we started with, we build a case to disrupt. … And we seek to determine the root cause of their travel, what they did in Syria, and then ultimately if it was in support of a foreign terrorist organization such as ISIL we look for prosecution or some other type of disruption.”

Don’t you think it would be very simple to rescind the passports of anyone traveling to Syria and Iraq for no legitimate reason?  Or, flag everyone coming back for interrogation?

Click here for our archive on ‘Syrian refugees.’

About the photo:  The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was not alone among the refugee resettlement contractors in demanding 15,000 Syrians a year—most of the nine were on board.  Readers may remember that the contractors persuaded the Obama Administration to relax security screening for Syrians, here, one year ago this month.

Last October, HIAS launched a petition drive to pressure the President to raise the quota of total refugees for FY2015 from 70,000-100,000 to accommodate more Syrians.

By the way, for all of our new readers, the contractors like to refer to themselves as VOLAGS (short for Voluntary agencies) which is such a joke since they are largely funded by you—the American taxpayer.

Germany: Most measles cases linked to refugees, asylum seekers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a little story I didn’t get around to a couple of days ago.  Thanks to Robin (and maybe someone else) who sent it my way.

We think we have it bad—check out Germany’s measles cases and this more detailed story. Spikes in Germany related to refugee and asylum seeker waves. http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/health/measles-outbreak-in-germany-10-times-worse-that-in-usa/article/425487?noredir=1

From Fox News:

Authorities in Berlin say a spike in measles infections has been traced to unvaccinated refugees but at least two measles cases appear to have come from the United States.

Berlin has recorded 468 cases of measles this year, more than the rest of Germany had during all of 2014.

Dr. Dirk Werber of Berlin’s state health office said Friday that a child asylum seeker from Bosnia is considered the index case because many subsequent infections among refugees were genetically identical.

Measles has since spread to Berlin’s non-refugee population, partly because immunization rates among over-45s are low.

Two cases are believed to have been caught in the US.  Related to refugees here too?  That we don’t know.

Werber said one woman and possibly a child appeared to have contracted measles while traveling in the United States.

Germany is having its migrant problems, that is for sure!  Click here for our complete archive on Germany.

And, go here, for our ‘health issues’ category.

Illinois sexual assault allegations against revered Imam reveal insularity of some US Muslim immigrant communities

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….but maybe times are changing!

***Update*** February 16th: the Imam has left the country!  (at Creeping Sharia)

This is a long story in the New York Times that you should have a look at.  The Islamic school, where the sexual abuse is said to have occurred, is described as having a “fundamentalist” orientation.

ELGIN, Ill. — Ordinarily, she never wore a veil. But it was required at the Islamic school where she worked, and she remembers being surprised when the head of the school, a conservative imam, suggested that she remove it and reveal her face.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem

When the imam, Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, came into the office where she worked, she said, he would sometimes touch her cheek or put an arm around her shoulder. Mr. Saleem was revered in her close-knit community, and she did not object at first. But simply being alone together represented a forbidden intimacy, and looking back, she said those first gestures should have been more alarming.

“It’s not something that gets done,” the 23-year-old woman said recently. “Men and women don’t even shake hands.”

Over time, she said the touching became more aggressive, reaching a point that she did something almost unheard-of in her community. She told people: her family, a social worker, an Islamic scholar. Recently, she went to the police. As word spread of what she had told them, three other women came forward, telling detectives that as young girls they had been molested by Mr. Saleem.

[….]

The accusations are particularly jarring because of Mr. Saleem’s stature. “In the South Asian community, he is like Billy Graham. He’s the archbishop of Chicago,” said Omer Mozaffar, an Islamic scholar who serves as the Muslim chaplain at Loyola University Chicago and who acted as a mediator between Mr. Saleem and his first accuser last year.

Three cheers for the brave women who have stepped forward with information.

There is a lot more about this diversity is beautiful (not!) news, here.