Syrians, helped by Mexico, coming across the US border, seek asylum

02/23/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Asylum fraud is becoming the immigration crisis of the day and I believe historians will look back at this period as the tipping point—-America governed by soft leaders who allowed our great nation to be dragged into the third world through a complete breakdown of our borders. Don’t let it happen. Please speak up and inform your friends and neighbors about what is happening, and tell those jokes in Washington to grow a pair!

Immigration attorney: “In the next six months to a year, you will see even more Syrians crossing into the United States from Mexico.” Photo: Sandy Huffaker for The Wall Street Journal

Here is the latest asylum (fraud!) news from reporter Miriam Jordan at the Wall Street Journal (emphasis is mine):

In 2012, after being imprisoned and beaten, a Syrian dissident named Mohammad fled to neighboring Lebanon, where he applied for and was denied a U.S. tourist visa. Intent on rebuilding his life with family in California, he flew to Mexico City and then Tijuana. There, he crossed the U.S. border illegally and handed himself over to a customs official, seeking asylum.

Last month, the U.S. granted him that status. In a year, he will be eligible to apply for permanent U.S. residency.

With the three-year-old Syrian conflict raging on, and U.S. embassies in the Middle East increasingly denying tourist visas, more Syrians are arriving in Mexico on tourist visas and using the country as a gateway to possible U.S. asylum. A Mexican embassy spokesman “had no comment on this matter.”

Some say the phenomenon underscores the need for a more coordinated international response to the Syrian crisis, while others worry it may offer too easy a path to U.S. residence for potential terrorists, given al Qaeda’s rising presence in Syria.

The Department of Homeland Security in fiscal 2013 recorded 118 Syrian “credible-fear” referrals such as Mohammad’s, up from five in fiscal 2010. In these cases, migrants declare fear of harm if returned to their home country and may stay in the U.S. while pursuing asylum.

By the way, I came across this article last night blaming the government shut-down on the backlog of immigration court cases and not on the huge spike in asylum claims as illegal aliens increasingly come across our borders and ask for asylum.

Jordan continued:

At the beginning of the war, it was easier for Syrians to secure U.S. visas. [That explains this Muslim with the eight kids—ed]. Those who entered the U.S. in recent years with visas to study, work or tour also have been increasingly claiming asylum. In fiscal 2013, such applications numbered 1,335, up from 36 in 2010.But as the conflict has flared, the U.S. has denied a higher proportion of Syrian visa requests: 46% in fiscal 2013 compared with 28% three years earlier. Many don’t qualify because they can’t prove they will return home after visiting the U.S. Thus, hundreds of Syrians, including women and children, have begun to show up at the U.S.-Mexico border prepared to seek asylum.

There is more, read it all!

As we previously reported, only a tiny fraction of asylum seekers are detained, the vast majority are released into your towns and cities.

Lawmakers, though, specifically cited a newly uncovered Immigration and Customs Enforcement document that showed thousands of asylum seekers were released while awaiting a decision.

The document, obtained and reviewed by FoxNews.com, showed that in fiscal 2012, just 2,508 of the more than 24,000 asylum seekers were kept in custody.

When we first started writing RRW in 2007, it was all about the refugee resettlement side of the Refugee Act of 1980, but gradually over the years the open borders agitators have been working overtime to build up the asylum side of the law. I noted the change here in January 2011 (three years ago!!!) when I looked back at the 30th anniversary “celebration” of the Refugee Act I had attended the previous year (where there was much giddy enthusiasm for the asylum process). How did poor downtrodden Somali teens get halfway around the world and arrive at our Mexican border seeking asylum—who helps them, where did they get the money, I asked. Who now is helping the Syrians?

American taxpayers will support 60,000 unaccompanied minors this year predicts USCCB

02/22/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration office, which you (US taxpayers) are presently funding for the majority of its budget, has released a report predicting 60,000 illegal alien ‘kids’ will cross US borders this year. Some will be released to relatives and others will come under the Bishops’ care.

They say the ‘kids’ are escaping lawlessness at home and they deny that push factors include a pending ‘amnesty’ or Obama’s welcoming Dreamer policies. So because there is lawlessness around the world we are expected to welcome the kids!

This is a long article, but it is well-worth reading the entire thing for an insight into this latest phenomenon surely aided and abetted (if not entirely hatched) by the open borders lobby.

From the National Catholic Register (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

60,000 Unaccompanied Minors Could Arrive in U.S. in 2014, Warns Bishops’ Report

…last November, staff from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Migration and Refugee Services, the largest refugee resettlement agency in the world, organized a mission to Mexico and Central America to examine the reasons for increased number of young migrants crossing the border.

The resulting report, issued in January by the USCCB delegation led by Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, warned that an estimated 60,000 undocumented minors — referred to in U.S. law as “Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) — could arrive in this country before the close of 2014.

“The delegation found that a series of interrelated factors have contributed to this dramatic increase in migration and that a ‘perfect storm’ of a number of these root causes has coalesced to create this phenomenon,” according to the report. [LOL! they later say that none of the perfect storm has to do with a pending amnesty or Obama’s policies!—ed]

Report: It is all about a breakdown in the rule of law where they live. So, I guess that means it’s o.k. to break our laws too?

Poverty, weak educational opportunities and a bleak future with no job prospects were part of the problem. The report also noted that many youngsters hoped to be reunited with family members, especially parents who may already be working in this country.

However, the most urgent reasons for the “fear and hopelessness” that spurred teenagers to embark on a harrowing journey to the United States were “generalized violence at the state and local levels and a corresponding breakdown of the rule of law.”

Numbers dramatically increasing:

The majority of unaccompanied minors are taken into custody by the U.S. border patrol, placed in a shelter and then released to relatives, with the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services providing most of the initial services.

Last year, an estimated 20,000 minors passed through the “shelter release” program run by the HHS Office of Refugee Services, almost double the number of 2012. In the first quarter for this fiscal year, 9,881 minors had already been placed in shelters, with daily costs averaging about $400 per person, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal. [Taxpayer dollars pay the Bishops to take care of those not released, but articles like this one never make that clear—ed]

The USCCB and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (not mentioned here) are the two major federal contractors paid by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to take care of the ‘kids.’ We previously learned that when the kids reach the age of 18 they are free in America!

At the national level, the USCCB department of Migration and Refugee Services lobbies to improve options and services for undocumented minors, and oversees a country-wide network of mostly Church-affiliated agencies that administer foster care programs.

The USCCB also provides the kids with lawyers, according to the article.

A nod to the critics:

Critics of the federal shelter release program argue that by facilitating family reunification and providing services like free education, the shelter release program is encouraging young migrants to make a hazardous journey and to violate U.S. laws.

There would be no USCCB Office of Migration and Refugee Services without your money.

Go to page 11 of the USCCB 2012 annual report, here.

Note that out of a total revenue stream of $70.9 million, government grants and contracts were an astounding $65.9 million. They also garnered another $3.6 million from refugee travel loans (that is your money too!). We loan money for refugees to get to America and then the USCCB, acting as a collection agency, collects the money from the refugee and returns some portion of it to the taxpayer, but keeps a cut for its labors.

So, if my math is correct, this means that 98% of the USCCB’s immigration work is funded by YOU! And, that would mean that 98% of lobbyist Appleby’s salary is paid by you (remember they are actively supporting amnesty legislation). We have heard, but have never seen published officially anywhere, that the US State Department covers the entire cost of their DC office as well!

See our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ here.

Largest Medicaid fraud bust in DC history involves immigrants from Africa

02/21/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Great! More immigrant “entrepreneurs” for ‘Welcoming America’ to brag about!

We just mentioned yesterday in our widely read post on St. Cloud, MN that Somalis are busy setting up ‘home health care’ businesses and we have seen previous news accounts about how easy it is for such businesses to defraud the US taxpayer.

From Cameroon to DC: Here we come to rip-off some American taxpayers!

In this DC case, it appears that most of the fraudsters nabbed were from Cameroon according to (not surprisingly!) the last line in the story at CBS.DC. (It is very rare for the nationalities of immigrant law-breakers to be mentioned at all, so for this we are grateful.)

Many of those charged are immigrants from Cameroon in west Africa, but authorities did not go into detail about their nationalities.

Don’t you think there should be a law requiring that the public be informed about what LEGAL immigration program allowed these aliens to enter the US in the first place? It is always my first question!

Few of these crooks would be refugees because we don’t take many refugees from Cameroon. Nor does DC resettle many refugees although Maryland surely does. So how did they get here?

From CBS.DC. Hat tip: Bob. Emphasis is mine:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Federal authorities say 25 people have been charged in a wide-ranging scheme to obtain millions of dollars in fraudulent Medicaid payments from the District of Columbia government.

U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen calls it the largest health-care fraud case in the city’s history. It involved bogus claims for home care services, a category of Medicaid claim that has grown dramatically in the city over the past eight years. Machen says fraud is largely responsible for the increase in those claims. The uptick in billings for home care — from $40 million in 2006 to $280 million last year — was part of what tipped off authorities to illegal activity, U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen said.

“We concluded that much of the growth was due to aggressive networks of fraudsters paying kickbacks to beneficiaries to manufacture false claims for nonexistent services,” Machen said, later adding: “Medicaid fraud in the District of Columbia is at epidemic levels.”

Ms. Bikundi’s upscale home in Maryland!
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/02/florence-bikundi-arrested-in-medicaid-fraud-crackdown-100429.html

Among those charged Thursday was Florence Bikundi, 51, of Bowie, Md., the owner of a home care agency in suburban Maryland who had lost her nursing license and was ineligible to receive Medicaid payments. Authorities say that by using different names, she was able to bill the city for $75 million in Medicaid payments.

Prosecutors say many of the defendants persuaded patients to fake illness or injury so they could bill Medicaid for home care they didn’t receive. Some of those patients received kickbacks, authorities said, although no patients have been charged.

[….]

Machen said it wasn’t clear whether any of those payments went to legitimate home care services, but Bikundi was able to amass significant personal wealth, authorities said. Among the property seized from her were millions of dollars from 46 bank accounts, a 7,300-square-foot home valued at $927,000 and five luxury vehicles.

Sometimes I think there are fraud training programs abroad before the immigrant even gets here—maybe a Scams 101, or Fraud-planning for Dummies—-because some of the ones we’ve written about on these pages require a level of sophistication and an infusion of seed money that one wouldn’t expect your average migrant to be blessed with.

Just a reminder! We are posting stories like this one at a new facebook page entitled ‘Diversity’s Dark Side.’ Check it out and “Like” it, here.

Nashville: David Lubell’s immigrant entrepreneurs busted for selling illegal drugs …

02/21/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..from, what else, their convenience stores!

David Lubell of ‘Welcoming America’ founded ‘Welcoming Tennessee’ and now works for ORR and George Soros promoting immigrant entrepreneurs, among other multi-cultural joys.

Who is David Lubell? He is the much bally-hood founder of ‘Welcoming Tennessee’ and now he runs a partially government-funded non-profit (they get funds from GEORGE SOROS too!) called ‘Welcoming America’ that has been hired by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to get YOUR minds right about immigrants. We first showcased them here in June of 2013.

Keep in mind this is not a community organizing group geared toward encouraging refugees and other immigrants to try to fit in to your cities and towns, they are working on YOU (the “receiving community”), to make you more “welcoming” to the diversity coming your way.

Two days ago, Lubell was showcased at the New York Times blog which tells us that without David Lubell and his ‘Welcoming Tennessee‘ there would be no ‘vibrant’ immigrant city—Nashville— filled with foreign ‘entrepreneurs’ (one of their favorite themes involves immigrants bringing new business to your pathetic city) and ‘vibrant diversity.’

Nashville has the fastest growing foreign-born population in the US, here.

I have a pressing question, as do some of our readers: If immigrants were bringing economic boom times to beleaguered cities then why aren’t these cities—Lewiston, ME, Manchester, NH, Clarkston, GA?—clamoring for more immigrant entrepreneurs? Instead they are begging for less! LOL! Welcoming America and ORR calls these “pockets of resistance.”

Why, also, are those who resettle refugees always out scouting new fresh unsuspecting territory in which to place refugees—-like Wyoming!

So to the New York Times…..

First some stats that blew me away. Surely you are all familiar with the great wave of immigrants that came to America in the late 1880’s to early 1900’s (there was no welfare for them by the way, they had to survive and learn English or go back to where they came from and most were Europeans).

The wave was so great that the US cut off immigration to any large extent for decades following the 1920’s so that there might be time for the huge flood to assimilate, and to allow time for the American voters to calm down. Get this! We have allowed more immigration in the last 20 years than we did in 40 of the great wave.

From the NYT blog:

The need has rarely been greater. From 1990 to 2010, the United States immigrant population increased by 20 million, roughly the same number of people who entered the country during the great wave of immigration between 1880 and 1920. Today, there are about 40 million foreign-born people in the United States (about 46 percent are naturalized citizens).

Unlike the immigrants of the past, the new immigrants are more diverse and more scattered — many living in midsize cities like Boise, Idaho; Louisville, Ky.; Dayton, Ohio; and Memphis, where, until recently, the foreign-born populations were small. [Cities cited here are sites of refugee resettlement, immigrants just don’t “find their way” from Africa or the Middle East to Boise or Memphis!—ed]

Mohammad Amer busted in Nashville for drug sales out of a liquor store—Lubell immigrant entrepreneur?

Lubell’s Nashville entrepreneurs:

You can read the rest of the opinion piece, a paean to David Lubell, yourself because I want to tell you about some of Lubell’s Nashville entrepreneurial stars–Ebrahim Fahim, Maged Youssef Milkhail and Mohammad Amer! Word on the street in Nashville is that some of those charged are Egyptians who received asylum claiming religious persecution back home (are they among the 70% found to be frauds?)

From The Tennessean earlier this month:

Two convenience stores could go out of business after their owners — one of which has now been busted twice — admitted in court Friday that they sold a liquid form of synthetic marijuana

Metro police in January padlocked First Discount Tobacco & Beer and Dolphin Market Discount Tobacco & Beer on Lebanon Pike after they say the owners sold a liquid designed to get electronic cigarette users high. The products were sold for $40 per bottle with names such as “Relax” and “Maui Maui.” A worker at Dolphin Market marketed the drug to one customer as a way to get high.

It wasn’t the first time First Discount has been accused of selling illegal, synthetic marijuana. The store was shuttered in 2012 after they were found selling products called “7H Kush” and “Purple Diesel” marketed as “incense” but designed to get people high.

On Friday, that business’ owners, Said Ebrahim Fahim and Maged Youssef Milkhail, pleaded guilty to contempt of court charges for violating an order stemming from the 2012 raid. Criminal Court Judge Steve Dozier, who had made the 2012 order, ruled that the pair would avoid jail time, but First Discount would be padlocked for 90 days. He ordered that Dolphin Market, which had no priors, be closed for 30 days and forfeit $14,000.

Nashville police shut down 20 such businesses (at least temporarily)! I hope they were investigating food stamp fraud too!

With the help of a 2012 law, Nashville’s police and prosecutors have used public nuisances statutes to shut down nearly 20 businesses found to have been selling these illegal drugs, which are typically synthetic variants of marijuana, ecstasy or amphetamines marketed as incense or bath salts.

What’s a good Muslim entrepreneur (see photo of Mohammad Amer) doing running a liquor store? I guess that is a question for another day. But, here is the other bust reported in Nashville recently.

Once your city is deemed “welcoming,” get ready for more immigrant schemers (oops! entrepreneurs!) like these!

Somalis want to govern Minneapolis, but is this how to gain the confidence of the electorate?

02/19/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Political “consultant” in the Twin Cities and in Somalia, Ilhan Omar, was hospitalized after caucus brawl shut down by police.
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/profiles/ilhanomar

Allegations of threats, bullying, and paid agitators in the wake of Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party caucus earlier this month (see our original post on the blow-out here).

I warned you this was Somali day at RRW (see here, here, and here)!

From the MinnPost (hat tip: Michael). Emphasis below is mine:

The DFL caucus that ended in a brawl and sent a woman to the hospital earlier this month is at the center of allegations that threats and bullying were used to disrupt the political process and that some people were paid to attend the caucus.

Further, Minneapolis City Council Member Abdi Warsame’s involvement in a contentious state House race that prompted the caucus fight has swept up City Hall and fractured the East African political community.

MinnPost has learned that the day before the Cedar-Riverside caucus, Warsame told another council member, Andrew Johnson, that he should warn his aide to stay away from the caucus or there could be trouble for her.

Warsame is supporting longtime incumbent DFL Rep. Phyllis Kahn; Johnson’s aide, Somali activist Ilhan Omar, is widely believed to be supporting the challenger, fellow Somali Mohamud Noor, though she says she’s neutral in the race.

Omar did attend the caucus, and ended up in the hospital with a concussion.

Two caucuses were marred by violence!

The simmering divisions were on open display at two DFL precinct caucus meetings in Somali neighborhoods of Minneapolis. Both caucuses erupted in chaos and violence.

One caucus, in the Seward neighborhood, was able to finish its work. But the other caucus, in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, abruptly ended after Omar, Johnson’s aide who was allegedly warned not to attend, was injured during a fight and Minneapolis police shut down the scene.

No truer words could have been said!

“That’s not a good reason you should be beaten up … just [for] supporting somebody,” Abdi Mohamed, a Noor supporter who worked at the event, later said during an interview. “That’s un-American. That’s not why we came here. If we wanted violence, we could have stayed in Somalia. There’s plenty of violence every day.”

Officials in the city of Minneapolis human resources department are investigating possible workplace misconduct over actions that occurred in City Hall during the runup to the caucus. A city spokesman confirmed there is an open complaint against Warsame, but couldn’t provide additional details including whether the complaint and investigation are related.

The article goes on and on and on, read it all here.

For new readers: This 2011 post—Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis—is almost every day one of our top most-read posts. Thank the US State Department and its contractors—Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities and World Relief MN—and the generous welfare supplied by Minnesota taxpayers!