Now we have ‘gypsies’ ripping-off America (the land of opportunity)!

03/06/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an incredible story from Illinois. A family of Romani was arrested this week for shoplifting millions of dollars of merchandise from stores over a ten year period and selling the stolen goods on eBay.

More of David Lubell’s Immigrant ‘entrepreneurs?‘

The $1.3 million home of the Bogdanov family. Photo: Alexandra Chachkevitch, Chicago Tribune

The first story sent to me today by a reader while I was away is this one from AP. Note that the only way we know they are immigrants is that the wife needed a Romani translator for her court appearance.

However, a second story unearthed by ‘pungentpeppers’ identified them as being from the former Yugoslavia. The funny thing is that you have to watch the ABC News clip (to the very end) attached to the written story to find out where they are from and that they may not even be US citizens. Amazing how skittish the media is about reporting immigrant wrong-doing.

By the way, we have taken refugees from the former Yugoslavia (thousands of them!) so they could indeed be refugees.

From AP:

CHICAGO (AP) — A father, mother and daughter from a posh Chicago suburb stole $7 million in merchandise during a decadelong shoplifting spree — traveling to stores nationwide and targeting dolls, toys, cosmetics and other valuables — according to a federal complaint released Wednesday.

The three were arrested earlier this week at their $1.3 million Northbrook home after returning from a three-day trip through Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana, where authorities say they shoplifted from stores. Working in tandem, the family traveled from their Chicago-area residence to hit businesses in multiple states, including Maryland, Tennessee and Florida, according to the 20-page complaint.

Branko Bogdanov, 58, Lela Bogdanov, 52, and their 34-year-old daughter, Julia Bogdanov, are charged with one count each of interstate transportation of stolen property.

[….]

Lela Bogdanov frequently donned a long black skirt with large compartments sewn on the inside during the alleged shoplifting binges and was caught on surveillance cameras leaving some stores with her skirt looking notably fuller than when she entered, the complaint says.

Standing in orange jail clothes Wednesday in federal court, Lela Bogdanov wiped away tears as U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Mason explained her rights. She followed the proceedings through a Romani interpreter.

The Chicago Tribune story (which has the photo) does mention their ethnicity.

Update: Here is the criminal complaint.

CDC fears “suicide contagion” in Bhutanese refugee population

03/06/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is yet one more story on the high rate of suicide in the Bhutanese refugee population in the US. This time from New Hampshire via WBUR (Boston’s NPR station). Hat tip ‘pungentpeppers.’

This New Hampshire woman’s father hanged himself on Thanksgiving day. He was 73.

We only noted a link to the New Hampshire suicides in a post in January where we learned some refugees remaining in the camps were upset at the UN for splitting up families. You might want to revisit that post because it gives some background as to how we have resettled 70,000 Bhutanese since 2007. The number in the WBUR story is wrong.

The interview (read about the New Hampshire case) mentions the disappointment some refugees have when the US does not meet their expectations and with the Bhutanese it is pointed out that their culture does not have the same taboos about suicide as some other ethnic groups, or most Americans.

So, as the numbers grow, there is some speculation that “suicide contagion” could set in.

WBUR:

The numbers trouble the Centers for Disease Control, which began investigating the deaths a few years ago. By early 2012, it had 16 cases to look at from a three-year period. The CDC calculated a suicide rate higher than the national and global average, and it hasn’t changed since then.

SHARMILA SHETTY: The Bhutanese and I think in general just that part of the world, the perspective on suicide is very different from I think a lot of other populations and ethnicities.

LESSARD (interviewer): Dr. Sharmila Shetty was a lead investigator on the CDC report. She says the Hindu and Buddhist cultures don’t have strict taboos against suicide as, say, Muslim or Western cultures do. But beyond that, Shetty says the causes can be myriad and frustratingly unknowable.

[….]

SHETTY: There is this phenomenon called suicide contagion.

LESSARD: Shetty explains that if you know someone who ends his or her life, or you hear about it, you are more likely to do it yourself. That’s why she says it’s best to address the problem proactively. Following the CDC’s initial report, the national Office of Refugee Resettlement put a suicide hotline number on its front webpage.

Sounds good, but I wonder how many refugees call Washington if they are thinking about suicide? Would you?

Hmong woman scams St. Paul library system

03/05/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For a little break from the usual immigrant-run welfare fraud (food stamps and healthcare) we’ve written about lately, here is a story from December (‘pungentpeppers’ found it recently on a Hmong website) about a different sort of fraud.

LOL! I guess you can say that immigrants bring ‘vibrant diversity’ even in their schemes to rip-off Americans.

Nhia Vue displayed ‘vibrant diversity’ in her method of fraud.

The Hmong website story is here. But, it is originally from the Star-Tribune:

A childless St. Paul woman allegedly created library cards for 24 imaginary children in order to steal thousands of dollars in video games and DVDs from the Ramsey County library system.

Nhia Vue, who turns 23 Thursday, has been charged in Ramsey County District Court with one count of theft.

According to the complaint, she checked out 50 video games, 41 DVDs and 21 books from different county public library branches between May 13 and June 4. The items were valued at just over $4,100.

The charges said she pawned 46 games and 22 DVDs. Authorities recovered some of the items, which showed signs of tampering. Library labels were peeled off and library markings on the DVDs were blackened with a permanent marker, the charges allege.

“I’ve never had … anyone take advantage of the library system in quite this way,” Library Director Susan Nemitz said. “It’s wildly disappointing.”

[….]

“Vue admitted she doesn’t have any children and each of the accounts she created is for a fictitious person,” the charges said. “Vue claimed her problems started because she is disabled and cannot stand on her foot for a long period of time.

She is surely already on disability and food stamps!

She allegedly told authorities that she knew what she did was wrong, but that she needed money for food and spending.

How does she have a tax return at her apparent level of income?

“I didn’t look at it as stealing,” she said, according to charges. “I looked at it as borrowing. I thought I could pay them back on my taxes.”

Just last month we reported on more serious Hmong crime stories, here.

How many Hmong do you have?

Wikipedia has this summary of the numbers of Hmong living in the US thanks to the refugee resettlement program:

States with the largest Hmong population include: California (86,989; 0.2%), Minnesota (63,619; 1.2%), Wisconsin (47,127; 0.8%), and North Carolina (10,433; 0.1%), Michigan (5,924; 0.1%), Colorado (3,859; 0.1%), Georgia (3,623; 0.03%), Alaska (3,534; 0.5%), Oklahoma (3,369; 0.1%), and Oregon (2,920; 0.1%).[2][8] The metropolitan areas of Fresno and Minneapolis-St. Paul have especially large Hmong communities.[9] The City of Wausau in Wisconsin has the largest Hmong population per capita in the United States. 3,569 Hmong people live in Wausau (9.1% of its population).

Today, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, 260,073 people of Hmong decent reside in the United States up from 186,310 in 2000.[10] The vast majority of the growth since 2000 was from natural increase, except for the admission of a final group of over 15,000 refugees in 2004 and 2005 from Wat Tham Krabok in Thailand. Of the 260,073 Hmong-Americans, 247,595 or 95.2% are Hmong alone, and the remaining 12,478 are mixed Hmong with some other ethnicity or race. The Hmong-American population is among the youngest of all groups in the United States, with the majority being under 30 years old, born after 1980, with most part-Hmong are under 10 years old.[11]

UN tries, fails, to stop female genital mutilation in Somaliland

03/04/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Once in awhile the UN does something we can support.

As you read this news account, know that many African refugees in America (and in 30 other countries!) still believe in this brutal practice (adding “vibrant” cultural diversity/enrichment to your community).

From Japan Times:

HARGEISA, SOMALIA – The 30 Somali teenagers — both boys and girls — all agreed: Female genital mutilation is harmful and the practice should be abandoned. But what they really meant, they revealed moments later, is that girls should still have their genitalia cut — just not sewn shut.

Read ‘Infidel’ for a personal account of the mutilation Somalis believe is required of them under Islamic law.

“It’s our tradition, and if the girls are not subjected to ‘suna’ (cutting) she will not be accepted for marriage,” said Asthma Ibrahim Jabril, 17.

The students, who are part of an after-school club in Somaliland that the U.N. children’s agency helps fund, discuss issues like child labor, early marriage and female genital mutilation in a classroom with several large hearts scrawled along the walls. Somaliland is a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia that has remained largely peaceful during Somalia’s decades of conflict.

UNICEF is weaving a delicate campaign to educate communities in Somaliland about the harms of female genital mutilation and to get leaders, who are meeting there this month to debate the practice, to denounce it.

Child rights advocates in nearly 30 countries are fighting to reduce the number of girls subjected to the cutting of their genitalia, a practice that goes back thousands of years and that Somali practitioners often link to Islamic requirements.

Egyptian pharaohs blamed, not Islam

Experts try to convince them that this is not a religious practice, but they are having none of it!

Officials with UNICEF tried to underscore that they do not believe female genital mutilation is required by Islam, though it is not strictly practiced by Muslims. Haydar Nasser, a UNICEF official who is Iraqi by birth but now a Canadian citizen, told the leaders that they were following a custom first practiced by the Egyptians some 6,000 years ago, long before Islam was founded.

“So the question to you to discuss today is why as a Muslim practice do you employ a pharaoh practice, pharaohs who went to hell because they are ‘kaffirs,’” he said, using the Arabic word for someone who doesn’t believe in Islam.

Thanks, but no thanks!

At the end of the daylong meeting that UNICEF had hoped would end in a decision to abandon female genital mutilation, the religious leaders — including the minister of religious affairs — say they could not agree to abandon suna. The practice of female genital cutting will continue.

I’m glad to see that the UN is trying, it’s better than turning a blind eye in the name of cultural relativism.

Six Somalis headed to US arrested in Mexico

03/04/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Asha Omar (19) granted asylum in El Paso, Texas in 2010, tells the improbable tale that she “made her way” by herself to America with a stop in Cuba before reaching the Mexican border. http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_17039428

This is not a surprise. The only surprise is that any major news outlet (Fox News) is reporting it. We have long known that Somalis are among the OTMs (other than Mexicans) targeting the US border. And, I have long suspected that some NGOs are quietly urging the asylum seeker ruse. See our post from 2011 where we called for a Congressional investigation—3 years ahead of the House Republicans—about asylum fraud!

From Fox News Latino (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

Police found six Somali migrants who were abandoned in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas by the people traffickers they hired to smuggle them into the United States, officials said.

The men had been lost for eight days, the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

The Africans were found near the border with Guatemala and were dehydrated, the AG’s office said.

The migrants were provided with medical assistance, food and legal assistance.

[….]

“After being rescued, the migrants said they were abandoned upon entering Mexican territory by the traffickers who claimed to be taking them to the United States,” the AG’s office said.

Mexico is a safe country (Cuba as well!) and so therefore we expect these Somali aliens supposedly fearing al-Shabaab to ask for asylum there as international law demands.