Category: Africa

More disgusting news on DNA testing in Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a more detailed article then we had previously seen about the widespread fraud in the largest portion of our legal immigration program—family reunification.  Guess what?  The majority of East Africans who apply to come to join relatives in America are not related (that is the first bit of disgusting news).  Widespread fraud has caused the suspension of the program:

The State Department has suspended a humanitarian program to reunite thousands of African refugees with relatives in the U.S. after unprecedented DNA testing by the government revealed widespread fraud.

This suspension began in April.  Why haven’t we heard about the details sooner?  Disgusting!  (Our first little hint of this was back in July here.)  The Wall Street Journal continues:

Typically, a refugee already living in the U.S., a so-called anchor, is entitled to apply for permission to bring a spouse, minor children, parents and siblings. The process requires interviews, medical examinations and security screening.

But suspicion has grown in recent years that unrelated Africans were posing as family members to gain entry. “This program is designed for people to reunify with family members” already in the U.S., says Barbara Strack, director of the refugee division at U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services. “We wanted to have empirical data” to confirm suspected fraud, she says.

In February, the State Department launched pilot testing in Kenya to verify family relationships, mainly among Somalis.

Regular readers of RRW, will not be surprised at the Somalis.  The BBC tells us that only 20% of those who applied were legitimately related.  Can you just imagine how many East African refugees got into the US fraudulently since 911?

And, then how is this for more disgusting news.  Catholic Charities and other of these groups which make their living resettling refugees using your tax dollars try to suggest there are other ways of defining family.  You can just call someone son or daughter and magically they can come to America:

“No one condones people gaining entry by false means; the integrity of the program must be ensured,” says Bob Carey, chair of Refugee Council USA, a coalition of U.S. agencies that work on refugee issues, and vice president of resettlement for the International Rescue Committee. However, he adds, “DNA is not the only means to assess family relationships.”

Refugee advocates say the definition of family among Africans extends beyond blood relatives, especially when families fleeing persecution are scattered. “Some families are raising children who aren’t their own but whom they call son or daughter,” says Ms. Fox of Catholic Charities.

The Wall Street Journal ends with a bright bit of information.  The numbers of refugees admitted this fiscal year are low so far.  The Bush Administration aimed for 80,000 total refugees by the end of FY08.  September 30th marks the end of the year.   Looks like they won’t make 80,000.

Between Oct. 1, 2007, and Aug. 13 of this year, the U.S. admitted 45,644 refugees. For the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2008, the Bush administration set a ceiling for African refugees at 16,000. But by Aug. 13, only 6,780 Africans had been admitted.

Update:  More numbers here.  They tested 5000 applicants finding that only 20% were telling the truth and this article says 95% of family reunification applicants come from Africa.

Illegal aliens in Malta get US State Department tea party send-off

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One of our faithful readers keeps asking me if we are in Alice in Wonderland.   Yup, Jim we are—tea party included.

We have written before about the tiny island nation of Malta and how illegal aliens from Africa arrive there by the thousands in boats every year, and are magically transformed into refugees (with all the perks) by our State Department and whisked off to a city near you.   But a tea party send-off!  From The Times of Malta:

… the mood at the US Ambassador’s residence in Attard, where the interview took place, is one of hope and optimism. Together with other refugees, Mr Isman is surrounded by his four children and second wife.

The siblings are happily playing with other young Somalis and Eritreans as well as Ambassador Molly Bordanaro’s children at a tea party held in honour of the group of refugees who will be leaving shortly for the US.

Welcoming the immigrants to ‘America’, Ms Bordonaro said she was proud to be hosting the Somalis and Eritreans at her residence and that they could soon complete the process of becoming US citizens.

In this lengthy article the Somali illegal alien describes how he planned to get into the European Union and travelled across Africa with his goal to ultimately reach Malta.  He hit the jackpot when he was admitted to the US.

He is also well aware that tiny Malta continues to grapple with more immigrant arrivals. Statistics show that nearly 2,000 illegal immigrants landed on the island this year, an all-time record.  [Edit: tiny island is struggling because the word is out, get to Malta and a plane ticket to US].

As with all asylum seekers who arrive in an EU state, Mr Isman was left virtually in limbo because to the Dublin Convention, which only permits immigrants to apply for refugee status in the first country they land on.

Mr Isman had no choice but to make ends meet and harbour the frustration until one day he realised his dream was turning into reality – together with his family, he was one of those selected for the US’s refugee resettlement programme with Malta.

He is on his way to Colorado where he says there are lots of “black people.”

Starting his journey to Colorado this week, he is hopeful that he will find it easy to integrate as there are “many more black people”.

I guess Ambassador Bordonaro forgot to inform him that American blacks and Somali immigrants aren’t getting along too well these days—no tea parties here.   And, by the way, check out the photo of Isman at the Times article, he doesn’t even look Somali, what is up with that?  Looks more like an Arab to me, or as a reader just suggested an Egyptian.

Use our search function to learn more about Malta.

Krikorian on the origins of the Somali flood to the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday in reponse to questions about the Tyson Foods’ religious accomodation of a minority of Somalis working at a chicken processing plant in Tennessee, Mark Krikorian head of the Center for Immigration Studies said the following:

“Tanzania and Mozambique actually offered to take these people. But they needed the United States and the U.N. to provide funding for resettlement,” he adds. “Instead the State Department said, ‘No we’re just going to bring them into the United States.’ It’s insane!”

This all happened before my time of writing about refugee resettlement, but I have heard this before.  I would love to know just how we decided to take 80,000 and counting Somalis.  Just now I wanted to go to the Office of Refugee Resettlement databases to see in what year we began bringing Somalis to the US and guess what, they have apparently blocked my access again.

I found this article by Thomas Allen at VDARE that tells us something about the Somali Bantu influx in the earlier days.  It chronicles some of the towns that fought back against resettlement in their communities and it shows what a hypocrit Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) is.

I suspect that businesses like Tyson’s Food had a hand in pressuring the government to bring them some cheap workers.  And, a lengthy report written by Heidi Boas tells us the Congressional Black Caucus had a hand in promoting refugee resettlement from Africa.  (Sorry I can’t give you a link, it’s a report you have to pay for now, but I got a copy awhile back).  Here is what I wrote previously.

“The New Face of America’s Refugees: African Refugee Resettlement to the United States:”

….several of the individuals interviewed for this paper identified the Congressional Black Caucus as one of the most influential groups advocating over the past decade for increased African refugee resettlement to the United States.

Gosh, why do you think the Congressional Black Caucus directed our attention to Africa which prior to this time had not been a major refugee resettlement feeder continent?   Wouldn’t you love to know the history of all this!

I’m sorry we didn’t make a category for posts on Somalis, but you can just use our search function to find out what we have found out over the last year.

Maybe Somali polygamy perpetuates possible gene connection to autism

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I  wrote a post a little over a week ago about how Somali refugee children in America are showing extremely high and unexplained rates of autism for those born in the US.   Minnesota schools are seeing these children enter the sytsem and are attempting to cope with the alarming influx.

In our earlier post we cited an article that had a couple of possible suggestions.  One was the usual complaint about immunizations and the other was the possibility that the relative lack (compared to Africa) of sunshine in Minnesota (and Sweden where the problem is also appearing) might explain the high rate.

However, this article in a blog called “A War of Illusions” leads to another possible cause for the high rate of autism in Somalis in America.  But, first here is what the post says about the situation in Minnesota where a conference will soon take place to address the crisis.

About a quarter of all autism children who attend autism classrooms for students functioning too low to be mainstreamed in regular schoolrooms are Somali. Special education specialists said that indicates that the degree of autism Somali children are developing is on the severe end of the autism spectrum.

“I’m not seeing Aspergers syndrome and the full spectrum of autism in Somali children. It is the more classic forms of autism in general; it is the more severe forms of autism that we’re seeing in our Somali babies that are born here,” said Anne Harrington, early childhood special education coordinator for the Minneapolis district and a specialist on the topic.

“If they’re having more children, many of the siblings also have autism. We have a number of [Somali] families who have two children on the autism spectrum and sometimes more. I’ve been working to get somebody to look at this and pay attention because it feels like this is too specific [to Somalis]. It’s got to be preventable,” Harrington said.

The article also tells us there is a lot of shame in the Somali community associated with families who have autistic children which makes me think that the tough life in Africa may have eliminated some of these children at a young age thus making it appear that somehow their move to the US is responsible for a jump in the numbers.

The blogger then leads us to new research that may show that autism is genetic. 

Many cases of autism are caused by genetic defects that disrupt the brain’s ability to learn, according to groundbreaking research that promises to lead to new therapies.

To do the research scientists needed to find large families in which cousins married cousins—they found them in Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Research into autism genetics has been hampered by the difficulty of finding autistic and non-autistic siblings in the same family to study. To get around this, the new study investigated 88 families from the Middle East, Turkey and Pakistan, where the average number of children is much larger than in Europe and America. The scientists also concentrated on families in which the mother and father were cousins, which is a risk factor for autism.

In five families, they found large segments of the genome were missing. Non-autistic members still had one working copy of these regions, but those with autism lacked working copies altogether.

I suggest genetic researchers check these Minnesota Somali families many of whom may be linked by a few polygamous fathers—an Islamic cultural practice creeping into America with the refugees—and a surefire way to spread a defective gene.   Or if political correctness hinders that line of questioning, at least check the cousins marrying cousins angle.

Refugee news from around the globe

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There is so much happening and so little time to comment, so to be sure you aren’t missing refugee and immigrant news from around the world, here are a few nuggets:

Italy declared emergency over illegal immigrants arriving in boats and a few days later 800 more came ashore from Africa.

Some 800 immigrants arrived in Southern Italy on Thursday (31 July), just a few days after the country declared a national state of emergency over what it describes as the “exceptional and persistent influx” of irregular immigrants.

Rohingya Muslim refugees go to New Zealand.  To see why this could be a problem for New Zealand, see our category Rohingya Reports here.

New Zealand has already welcomed the Rohingya Refugees from Bangladesh. The first batch of 23 Refugee were resettled on 28th June 2008 that included the members of the Rohingya Youth Development Forum (RYDF), Arakan-Burma.

Japan may soon take refugees.   Heretofore Japan has avoided taking refugees but now is working with the UN to start opening its doors.

Critics say Japan is a generous supporter of refugee programs overseas but shuts the door when people seek asylum in its own shores.

North Korean refugee coming to US from Russia.

He is the first North Korean defector to find asylum in the U.S. from Russia, which has refused to recognize North Korean defectors as refugees and approve their seeking of asylum to the U.S. for fear of harming diplomatic ties with the North.

South Africa, the rainbow nation, has a large and growing group of impoverished people—white people!   Will South African whites be considered for refugee resettlement some day?

It is not politically correct to talk about white, poor people,” said Dirk Hermann, a senior Solidarity official. “They are the nation’s forgotten people. Zuma’s been surprised by the level of poverty among the white population which is not talked about. They have been poorly served by the government.