Category: Ethnic Community Based Organizations

Oregon: Somali refugee Christmas tree bomber wants new trial

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But even more interesting news is linked here about the fact that Somalis and other African refugees are not doing well in Oregon (are they doing well anywhere?).

From AP:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Defense attorneys will argue Wednesday morning that a Portland, Oregon, man convicted of terrorism charges should be acquitted or granted a new trial.

Oral arguments will focus on the government’s use of evidence and its reliance on surveillance obtained through extrajudicial means.

The attorneys for Mohamed Mohamud (pictured in a mugshot at left) say prosecutors failed to notify them of information derived under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until Mohamud had already been convicted.

That failure, they say, withheld important information from the defense team and violated Mohamud’s constitutional rights.

Prosecutors responded in pre-hearing briefs that they didn’t disclose any new information when they informed Mohamud’s defense team of the surveillance in November.

Somali Community of Oregon

That story links us to an older article about the formation of the Somali American Council of Oregon which was started to “bring the Somali community together.”   In refugee industry lingo the Somali Community of Oregon is an ECBO (Ethnic Community Based Organization) which is eligible to receive your tax dollars to act as a “community organizing” and advocacy group (you know like what Obama did before he started running for elective office, that kind of organizing).

ECBOs stand up for their ethnic people and make sure their people get signed up for whatever they are entitled to.  Usually they register their people to vote as well. And, if their  people get in trouble with the law they go to bat for them (like the Christmas tree bomber).

See our category on ECBOs here.

Now check out this story from 2013 about the rough time the 10,000 plus Somalis of Oregon are having.  Weren’t we told that refugees are self-sufficient at high rates and that we weren’t importing poverty?

Recently we reported that 63% of Somalis in Minnesota live in poverty, and in Oregon it appears to be about the same rate!

The surveillance, arrest and conviction of Mohamed Osman Mohamud for domestic terrorism has created a watershed moment for Oregon’s Somalis. Before the case, the community was scattered, made up of many small groups, each with different regional, tribal and religious traditions.

Now the community, estimated at 10,000 people, is coming together through the Somali American Council of Oregon.

“We want to bring everyone together to build trust and faith in one another,” says Mussé Olol, (pictured) chair of the council.

[…..]

Right now, many Somali-born parents fear their children cannot thrive in America. Their challenges include the unique problems that come with being refugees from a war zone targeted by Islamic extremists. But they also face more familiar barriers of unemployment, poverty, racism, school failure and the school to prison pipeline.

[…..]

In 2010, the Coalition of Communities of Color and Portland State University released a report noting that more than half, 56 percent, of Multnomah County’s African immigrant and refugee children live in poverty.

According to Ann Curry Stevens, the Portland State researcher who authored the report, “That number has deteriorated and today two-thirds, 67 percent, of African children live in poverty.”

Read the whole story at The Skanner, it is very informative.

Soros strikes again with Open Society report on Somalis in Norway

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Somalis protest in Oslo: Some children taken out of families because of allegations of child abuse.

We told you previously that George Soros’ Open Society Foundation is doing a seven-city tour of Europe to report on how Somalis are doing in their new homes.  Our earlier report on their recommendations for Helsinki is here.

The seven cities are:  Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Malmo, Leicester, London, and Oslo.

And, why they picked Somalis of all the immigrant groups flooding Europe, I don’t know.  My guess is that since the Somalis can be fractious, maybe they are worried that Somalis will hurt their one-world goal more than other ethnic groups might due to their trouble assimilating.

Here is some of what the researchers recommend—it all involves Norway spending more money to train Somalis to do some sort of work and to push for their inclusion into the still discriminatory Norwegian society.  They also say Norway has to get away from this idea of “formal qualifications” for employment, and they recommend boosting the ethnic based community organizing groups (we have Somali ethnic community organizing groups all over the US largely paid for with taxpayer dollars to organize Somalis for engagement in the political process and to sign them up for the social services they are entitled to!  Never heard of it, see our whole category on ECBOs here).

There doesn’t seem to be a word that I see in the summary of the report about Somalis needing to try harder to fit in!

From PRIO Network (emphasis mine):

OSLO— Developing Oslo’s vibrant and dynamic Norwegian-Somali civil society organizations and strengthening their engagement with the city of Oslo is key to Norwegian-Somalis’ full and equal participation as residents of Oslo.

Poverty remains one of the single greatest barriers to Norwegian-Somali inclusion in Oslo. This leads to challenges in education, employment, housing and health and is further exacerbated by negative portrayals of Somalis within the Norwegian media.

The report Somalis in Oslo​, launched today by the Open Society Foundations, finds that the emphasis on formal qualifications within the Norwegian labour market together with discrimination in hiring processes are leading to high rates of Somali exclusion from employment in Oslo. To overcome the gap between the demands of the Norwegian labour market and the limited formal qualifications that many Somalis have upon entering Norway, the report recommends better emphasis be placed by employers and employment agencies on making more out of the actual skills and experiences of individuals.  [What might those be?—ed]

[…..]

Somalis in Oslo recommends that the city of Oslo, which has developed robust policies for managing inclusion, and others concerned with inclusion such as the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, the Directorate of Integration and Diversity and the Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion, strengthen their engagement with Somali and other minority communities. The research advises that Norwegian-Somali civil society organizations build their skills and improve collaboration to help better cross-community engagement. To tackle unemployment among Norwegian-Somalis, the research recommends government and civil society organizations address language needs, invest in mentor programs and offer help to Norwegian-Somalis on recruitment and employment practices.

See all of our previous posts on Norway by clicking here.

The photo is from this poorly written undated story, but is seems that the authorities have taken some children out of Somali homes where abuse has been alleged (you know, one of those cultural relevance things we westerners can’t appreciate).   While looking around on the subject of how Somalis are doing in Norway, I also found this 2011 post at Tundra Tabloids about welfare fraud among Somalis in Norway where Somali women claim to have no husband in order to receive generous welfare benefits (but continue to produce babies with their “former” hubby).

Like to learn a useful foreign language? Try Somali

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is not my title, it is the title of a Seattle Times article this past Thursday.

Here is how the article begins (emphasis mine):

At Foster High in Tukwila, an evening class is helping people learn to speak Somali. It’s not easy to learn, but in a region with a lot of Somali immigrants, learning it is not only is useful in the work world, but can also build community.

The steam from sweet Somali tea floats out of white plastic-foam cups as a handful of people weave in between desks tentatively greeting each other: “Barasho wanaagsan” (good to meet you).

This cheery Tukwila classroom, on loan from Foster High School, is hosting a series of weekly Somali-language classes through December.

It’s the second such course offered by the nonprofit Somali Community Services Coalition and it’s a rare opportunity for those who work and live with our region’s sizable Somali community.

“There’s no Somali-language classes available elsewhere,” says Nick Valera of the coalition, “I think there’s one that started in Minnesota recently … other than that there’s nothing that we’re aware of.”

Tonight’s students are paying $150 and spending one evening a week here for the next three months for a number of different reasons.

You gotta laugh, one commenter said another reason to learn Somali is that Somalia is a great place to vacation.

And, I’m thinking of another reason—-that hopefully our FBI is training agents in the Somali language.

Members of the SCSC from their “advocacy and civic engagement” page at their website. YOU pay for their advocacy! So who are they raising their fists at?

But, my interest in this article was in finding out more about the “nonprofit” Somali Community Services Coalition.

They are obviously an ECBO (Ethnic Community Based Organization) aka Ethnic Self-Help Organization (the newer federal terminology).

ECBOs modeled after ACORN

Do you remember when investigator James O’Keefe exposed ACORN?   Basically ACORN was funded by you (your tax dollars) and its function was to teach poor people how to access their welfare goodies, AND to community organize—sign up new voters, stir up chaos and generally push voters to the Left, to the Democrat Party.   That is what an ECBO does on a smaller scale and their political action is geared to getting taxpayer goodies and “rights” for THEIR people.

We have a whole category on ECBOs here, if you want to learn more.

Although there are federally-funded ECBOs for a wide variety of ethnic group, the Somalis have been very aggressive in setting them up—-some cities have more than one ECBO just for Somalis.

Here is a recent list of grants awarded to ethnic “self-help” groups at the Office of Refugee Resettlement (that is in the Dept. of Health and Human Services).

Now, here is the history of the Somali Community Services Coalition of Seattle.  Remarkably they say the following about the Somali resettlement numbers in the US—that they are four times larger than we have ever been able to document.

Resettlement agencies began placing Somalis in the United States in 1992 and, in 19 years, these agencies have overseen the resettlement of nearly 415,000 Somali refugees in the U.S.

As we have said many times, Americans have the right to congregate and form groups of all sorts (not groups for criminal activity of course), but why should taxpayers be forced to support goals like these (again, from the SCSC website):

When seeking aid, East Africans rely on community-based organizations, like SCSC, because of a shared language, history, and culture. SCSC remains grounded in our mission to enhance the well-being of Somalis throughout King County, empower families and individuals, and preserve the community’s rich cultural heritage. We fulfill our mission and respond to the needs of our community by offering immigration and employment assistance, community outreach, cultural events, social services and referrals, advocacy, an after-school tutoring program, and a youth summer enrichment program.

Why should the average hardworking US taxpayer have to pay for this?

Here is the SCSC’s most recent available Form 990.

Check out page 9, you will note that they took in $311,170 that year and $175,335 of that was from GOVERNMENT GRANTS.

So, again, why are we paying for Somali (or any particular group’s) “advocacy?”  

Photo is here.

Ethnic-based groups are taxpayer-supported “community organizers”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They are ethnic supremacist groups using your tax dollars to get government goodies to THEIR people and getting those same people politically involved.

Note below that the feds only talk now about “integration.”  “Assimilation” is banned from the lingo.

This morning I wrote about Mayor Sarno and Springfield Massachusetts’ refugee overload and the local Ethnic Community Based Organization (ECBO) was mentioned.  It’s my view that taxpayer-funded ECBOs represent the very worst in unfair and wasteful government spending.  (I did not find government funding going to the Springfield group/one-man project—yet).

One of the many Ethnic groups your tax dollars support! Among other things they do job-training so refugees can compete better against poor unemployed Americans. I’m citing the Nile Sisters because I liked their logo, not because they are any worse than the others!

ECBOs are like ACORN except they are organized around certain ethnic groups.  Before the critics jump in here, people in America can form, and associate with, any private group they wish (unless it’s a criminal activity of course).  But, when groups are funded by the taxpayer and then engage in really what amounts to ethnic-supremacist practices and political organizing they become an abomination.

Simply put groups with such names as Somali Community Center, Iraqi Mutual Aid Society and Burmese Advocacy Center Corporation are doing a couple of things—finding all the social services they can find for THEIR people and then using those people for their political advocacy.  That is the ACORN model!  And, it’s ‘community organizing 101!’  How this helps them “assimilate” (oops! integrate) is beyond me, except that they learn how to take advantage of the people who pay taxes.

Most importantly these politically-active groups could not survive without your tax dollars!

Here is the Office of Refugee Resettlement (Health and Human Services) description of their (your!) ETHNIC COMMUNITY SELF HELP program (they stopped using the ECBO label at some point a few years ago).

This program provides assistance to refugee community based organizations and other groups that address community building, facilitate cultural adjustment and integration of refugees, and deliver mutually supportive functions such as information exchange, civic participation, resource enhancement, orientation and support to newly arriving refugees (and other refugees that maybe in need of such assistance regardless of their resettlement date) and public education to the larger community on the background, needs and potential of refugees. In short, the purpose is to promote community organizing that builds bridges between newcomer refugee communities and community resources.

LOL!  Not bridges between the newcomers and Americans but bridges between newcomer refugee and resources (code for public assistance)!

Do you have federally-funded ECBOs in your city?

Check out the 2011 Ethnic community organizing grantees here.   2012 is here.  If you find some in your home town, you need to begin to follow their activities and take every chance you get to spread the word that they are taxpayer-funded mini-ACORNS.

The galling thing is that when one of these ECBOs blasts critics by calling them “racists” they are doing it with the financial funding of the critics (aka racists)!

Springfield, MA Somali says resettlement agencies don’t follow through

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a complaint that is at the root of how RRW got started in the first place.  Friends and I noticed that refugees brought to Hagerstown in Western Maryland were being placed in sub-standard housing in crime-ridden neighborhoods and one local teacher said that other teachers felt compelled to find them coats for cold weather and sufficient bedding.

Calls to the resettlement agency went unanswered and consequently one sick refugee woman sent a child (who did not speak English) out to knock on doors to find help (that really blew up the situation).  Word spreads fast in a small community prompting the inevitable questions:  Why are they here?  Who brought them? And, why isn’t that group taking proper care of them?

Coincidentally,  just the other day I came across this report from Thomas Allen writing at the Social Contract about some of what happened in Hagerstown that led up to the closure of the resettlement program in my county seat in 2007 (in the wake of a public meeting!).

Ibrahim, translator Bedel Omar and Mayor Domenic Sarno at press conference Monday. Photo: David Roback / The Republican

Here is the latest from Springfield, MA where Mayor Domenic Sarno has called for a moratorium on further resettlement and plans a community meeting for tomorrow night.  From WGGB/ABC40  (hat tip: Joanne):

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB) — Springfield mayor Domenic Sarno finds an ally in his fight to reform the refugee program.

The ally is a refugee himself.

Abdulahi Ibrahim came to Springfield from Somalia.

He says Lutheran Services helped him settle here.

But speaking through an interpreter from the East Africa Cultural Center,*** Ibrahim says there was a number of areas where he felt isolated after he got here.

One in coming to a climate he’s never seen,”We have seen a new climate, cold, snow, which we have not seen in our lives,” says Ibrahim.

Ibrahim says he even felt alone when it was time to daily chores like shopping,”We don’t know where to shop, what to shop, we don’t know the language, what we are going to buy,” says Ibrahim.

Mayor Sarno says Ibrahim came to him, thanking the mayor for bringing up many of these same issues when the mayor said he was calling for a moratorium on refugees coming into the city,”We asked them about cold weather months, whether coats are provided , they’re saying no education, transportation, social followup, health followup, they’re not there,” says Sarno.

The mayor says there needs to be accountability from the social service agencies who are bringing refugees to Springfield,”It really highlights what my people have brought to me of their non-followup,” says Sarno.

The refugee problems that have come up will be brought forward on Wednesday when Mayor Sarno meets with social service agencies.

The mayor reiterates his decision to call for a moratorium on refugees coming into the city in Springfield.

Be sure to watch the news clip.

The Somali man is an older man.   He surely gets SSI and other welfare help, and probably has no prospect of working.  Indeed remember that Massachusetts is one of the top states in the Nation where welfare pays better than working for a minimum wage.  The Wall Street Journal, reporting on a study from CATO last week, says that in Massachusetts’ welfare for a family is worth $42,515 per family (a figure which does not include the cost of educating the kids).

Editor’s note:  Just as I’m writing this post I see there is a much more detailed report at The Republican about Sarno’s surprise press conference here.  Ibrahim does have a wife and FIVE children, so he would be getting a boatload of goodies from the taxpayer.

The answer is NOT more taxpayer money for refugees and their resettlement contractors.

The logical answer to the resettlement agencies—mostly the Lutherans and Jews in Springfield—is to not bring more refugees to a town than they can do a quality job caring for.  But, here is the catch, they are paid by the head (through the US State Department and then with more grants from the Dept. of Health and Human Services) to resettle refugees.  So if they bring fewer numbers, their income drops.  The original refugee law from 1980 envisioned that the non-profits would put in substantial funding themselves, but that isn’t happening.

If you are planning to attend the meeting in Springfield tomorrow evening, please have a look at our fact sheet for some help in coming up with questions!

Photo of Bedel Omar at the website of the East Africa Cultural Center. Same man?

The ECBO!

***Good luck finding out much about the East Africa Cultural Center in Springfield.  This is about all I see (click here).  This 2011 article says Bedel Omar was running something called the Somali Development Center which must have been transformed into the East Africa Cultural Center.

We’ve seen a lot of these ECBOs (Ethnic Community Based Organizations) which started as Somali-community organizing outfits broaden their mission and I’m guessing someone told them if they want to get federal $$$ to run their organization it needs to be broader than just for Somalis.

Here are the federal grants from ORR to ECBOs for 2012 (if you don’t believe me that our tax dollars are going to essentially encourage, not assimilation, but further ethnic division in resettlement cities.)

I haven’t written much about ECBOs lately, new readers can visit our entire category on the topic by clicking here.  Basically they are mini-ACORNS helping their people get the “services” they are entitled to and then the organization serves as a conduit for political activity, voter registration etc.