Category: Africa

Not again! Lewiston, ME in an uproar over Somalis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Apparently the shouting got so bad at a school meeting last night, one assistant principal walked out.    I thought Newsweek told us only a few short months ago that the multicultural experiment with Somali refugees in Lewiston was going fabulously well? Newsweek credited Somalis for creating an economic boom.   No cultural clash here they said.  Judging from this story today it sure doesn’t sound like its all sweetness and light!  Hat tip:  Jane Doe.  From the Sun Journal:

LEWISTON – Somali parents, many of whom got so upset that they yelled at school officials, crowded a community room Wednesday night and ticked off ways they’re unhappy with local schools.

[….]

One father said his children bring home forms to sign. The parents, some of whom do not know English or have had no schooling, don’t understand what they’re signing and don’t know what kind of help their children can receive.

One mother said the school teaches health education classes that go against their culture. They received a permission slip to sign, but it didn’t adequately explain what’s covered in the class. If someone told them the class covered sex education, that would be clearer, she said.

Near the end of the meeting, parents were complaining about the ELL program, teachers and discipline. Abdirisak Maalin accused Somali representative Abdi Musa of not interpreting correctly. People were yelling at the same time, making it hard for anyone to be heard, despite pleas for order. [Ah, isn’t diversity beautiful!]

“This is ridiculous. I’m leaving,” said Paul Amnott, assistant principal at Lewiston High School.

But don’t stop there!  Go to the Sun Journal and read the comments.  There were 120 when I visited a little while ago and they, much more clearly than the news accounts, demonstrate how roiled this town is over the Somalis.

Be sure to revisit my post from earlier today on a federal raid in Lewiston yesterday, here.

* For new readers, the US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

Van packed with refugees overturns in Arizona killing five (now six)….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 8th:  After seeing police report we have a lot more questions, here.

Update June 11th:  More details here plus further confirmation that the IRC was supplying refugee workers to Eurofresh.   Also, the driver’s name is listed and it would appear he was also a refugee.  No mention of whose van it was.

Related story June 8th:  Ten illegal aliens died in a van crash in Arizona yesterday.  The van carried at least 22 aliens.  The crash occurred when the driver lost control and the van rolled over, here.

Update later on June 7th:  AP is reporting that a 6th refugee has died from injuries sustained in the accident, here.

Update June 7th:  Refugee agencies take up collection for refugee families—presumably for those directly effected by the tragedy.

….and critically injuring at least 5 others.    The Burundian refugees* had been resettled by one of the Top Ten government contractors—the International Rescue Committee (the outfit whose CEO has a salary and benefits package of $400,000).  I would like to know if IRC rented this van and was it overloaded?  I thought these vans only seated 15?   How about seat belts? 

From the Arizona Daily Star:

Five people from Tucson died Wednesday when the passenger van they were in rolled over on Interstate 10 east of Benson, authorities said.

The dead and injured were Burundi refugees who had been resettled in Tucson by an international agency.

The van, which had 17 occupants, was westbound near Texas Canyon just after 2 p.m. when the driver lost control and the vehicle rolled over, according to an Arizona Department of Public Safety press release.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the single-vehicle crash.

Twelve occupants were taken by helicopter to hospitals in Tucson, the press release stated.

University Medical Center received eleven of the occupants, said Jean Spinelli, a UMC spokeswoman. 

Six of the victims were in critical condition and five were in serious condition Wednesday night, Spinelli said.

So, let’s see, these refugees were ‘rescued’ from a refugee camp in Tanzania only to meet death on an Arizona highway as they were being taken to supply cheap labor for a big business in John McCain’s state.   Someone ought to check McCain campaign donors in Arizona.

Although officials originally believed the group to be tourists from Tanzania, the director of a relief agency in Tucson said the people were Burundians who had fled to a Tanzanian refugee camp before being relocated to Tucson.

The group was seeking work at Eurofresh Inc., a hydroponics vegetable grower in Willcox, said Ken Briggs, executive director of the International Rescue Committee’s Tucson office.

He said the Burundians had been living in Tucson for a few years.

The International Rescue Committee specializes in humanitarian and emergency relief, relocating refugees and providing health care to communities around the world.

Eurofresh has become a major Southern Arizona employer of refugees.

So, more proof of what I have been saying all along—the “humanitarian” groups resettling refugees, and the US State Department, serve as “head hunters” for big businesses in the US.  The US taxpayer foots the bill.

I could scream!

How come all of you naive “volunteers” in the refugee resettlement industry don’t get this?  How can you not see that the Open Borders movement is just a front for big business interests?

Darn, I wish I had a  category for tragedies.

*Endnote:  We resettled 2,889 Burundians in 2008 and so far in this fiscal year the number is 421 up to April 30th (that is for the whole US).  Prior to that, in 2007, we resettled 4,525 (with 337 to AZ),  in 2006 it was 469 nationally and only 50 to AZ.  If you would like to look at some numbers yourselves for years 2000-2007 go here.   As far as I know 2008 and 2009 are not available to the public.

In letter to EU, UNHCR slaps Italy for returning illegals to Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve reported ad nauseam (see posts on Malta) about the problems countries along the Mediterranean are having with boatloads of African illegal aliens coming ashore.  You might want to read the dark novel ‘The Camp of the Saints’ one day to understand how prescient the author, Jean Raspail, was back in the 1970’s.  Although a tad bit less dramatic then Raspail’s depiction of boatloads of third worlders arriving on European shores, today’s immigrant tide will have the same ultimate effect.

One country, Italy, is fighting back.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) this week whacked Italy for returning illegal aliens to Libya sending a warning message to other EU countries to respect “refugee rights.”

2 June – The top United Nations refugee official has called on the European Union (EU) to ensure that migration control measures do not undermine fundamental rights of asylum-seekers and refugees.

High Commissioner António Guterres expressed concerns about the situation of people intercepted at sea in the Mediterranean and the responses of governments to this, including those of Italy, in a letter addressed to the Czech EU Presidency ahead of a meeting of the group’s Justice and Home Affairs Ministers later this week.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) voiced its concern last month after Italy sent over 200 people it rescued off Maltese waters back to Libya before properly assessing their possible protection needs.

Italy,  if you value your country, continue to resist!

DC area Somalis watched by federal authorities

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

By the time I read through this article at World Net Daily, I thought I was reading a summary of Refugee Resettlement Watch posts from the last year!    Except I didn’t know about this Northern Virginia cluster of Somalis.

Fearing the next terror attack could emerge from America’s growing Somali refugee population, federal authorities have stepped up surveillance in Somali communities – including a large enclave just outside Washington.

In fact, WND has learned that the Baileys Crossroads area of Northern Virginia – about 10 miles from the capital – was a critical focus of security investigations in advance of the presidential inauguration in January.

Investigators say a troubling number of the area’s Somali men hold “militant” anti-American views and sympathize with al-Qaida. They typically work as taxi drivers, gathering at local coffeehouses during their breaks, as well as at a nearby mosque tied to 9/11.

We told you about the inauguration scare at the time.

“Somalis were the hot topic during the inauguration, and they still are,” said a senior investigator assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington. “They’re very militant, and they’re all over that area.”

What do you know!   Food stamp fraud too.

The local [Minneapolis] Somali community has also been the subject of federal investigations into terrorist money-laundering. Agents suspect Somali refugees have funneled millions of dollars from food-stamp fraud and drug sales through Somali grocery stores into overseas bank accounts used by al-Qaida.

Then here is the Nashville connection as well.

A large number of Somali refugees have also settled in Nashville, Tennessee, stirring up fears of radicalization there as well. A predominantly Somali mosque in Nashville – the Al-Farooq Islamic Center – sells Islamic texts and tapes that support violent jihad, according to former federal investigator Dave Gaubatz, who recently conducted an undercover investigation at the mosque.

“The leadership is very sharia-compliant,” he said, “and has several manuals by Islamic terrorists, as well as lectures by Ali al-Timimi,” a radical American Muslim cleric who in 2005 was convicted of soliciting violent jihad.

And, another locale we mention frequently, Shelbyville, TN.  It is all here!

The suburbs of Shelbyville and Dover have also become Somali strongholds. Local newspapers have reported that police are hesitant to even patrol after dark at the apartment complexes where the Somalis live.

It is a good summary, read it all.

Somali with terrorist ties pleads guilty in Minnesota

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Years ago Somali immigrant Mohammed Warsame was arrested on charges involving material support of terrorism after traveling to an Afghanistan training camp.  Yesterday the case came to an end according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

More than five years after FBI agents first knocked on the door of his Minneapolis apartment, terrorism suspect Mohammed Abdullah Warsame brought an abrupt end to his legal battles Wednesday by pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiring to provide material support and resources to Al-Qaida.

Four other charges against Warsame, 35, will be dropped, including providing material support to the terrorist organization and making false statements to the FBI.

[….]

Prosecutors described the plea agreement in a news release, saying that Warsame attended two training camps in Afghanistan in 2000, met Osama bin Laden at one camp, and later worked at an Al-Qaida guesthouse and clinic. In 2001, he traveled from Pakistan to Canada, establishing e-mail contacts with several Al-Qaida associates he had met in Afghanistan, the news release said. He sent money to one of his former training camp commanders, it said. After moving to Minneapolis, he maintained e-mail contact in 2002 and 2003 with several people associated with Al-Qaida, the release said.

Read on.

So why does this interest us?   We first told you that we had discovered that Minneapolis Somali Justice Center head honcho, Omar Jamal, was a relative of Warsame here.   We have written extensively about how Jamal, who had been convicted of immigration fraud and was expected to be deported, curiously places himself  in the middle of many issues involving Somali refugees and immigrants in the US.   He even went to New York recently to defend the Somali pirate.

Here his family connection to Warsame is mentioned in a 2004 CNN report:

Omar Jamal, Warsame’s uncle and executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis, told CNN he is prepared for a lengthy process.

And, here is what he said to Minnesota Public Radio a month later.  No mention of the family connection.

A spokesman for the Warsame family, Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Center, said it’s important to keep in mind Warsame is innocent until proven guilty.

“We don’t have to lose the sight that this is an allegation from the government. This is subject to proof, burden of proof on the government side. This will be the thing in the court. This trial will go on very long period of time. And it’s going to be the part of the government to prove that,” says Jamal.

By the way, it is believed that Jamal himself came into the US through Canada.

Here is our archive on the many posts we have written on the flamboyant Omar Jamal.