Category: Immigration fraud

Warship rescue update! Not Somalis after all!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Crew on the USS San Antonio help African migrants aboard the ship after their dinghy encountered rough waters in their attempt to get to Europe. Photo: US Navy

Reader Charles, from Malta, has alerted us to more news on the latest African migrant boat incident we told you about last night.  Turns out the migrants are not Somalis but come from various African nations and when brought ashore in Malta became violent demanding they be taken to Italy.

I don’t know who made the Somali ID mistake, but I wouldn’t put it past the illegal aliens to initially claim Somali ethnicity knowing the West is bending over backwards to accommodate Somali “refugees.”

Below are the two reports from Charles (emphasis is mine).

From the Times of Malta (yesterday):

A group of 129 migrants arrived at Marsamxett on board a patrol boat – some 24 hours after their rubber dinghy was spotting in rough seas 70 miles south of Malta yesterday.

One was referred to hospital.

The migrants – mainly men – appeared in good health as they disembarked from the deck of the patrol boat. Some were covered by blankets.

Most of them – 70, are from Gambia, 36 from Senegal, two from Nigeria, three from Sierra Leone, one from Guinea, six from Guinea-Bissau, 10 from Mali, and one from Burkina Faso.

Clearly economic migrants!  Not “refugees” or “asylum seekers” escaping persecution!

To read more of the story, one must subscribe.

Then also from the Times of Malta yesterday, rescued Africans got violent when they were placed in detention:

A group of some 130 newly-arrived migrants caused a disturbance at Safi Detention Camp – protesting that they wanted to be sent to Italy.

Informed sources said the disturbance started when members of the group objected to being held at Safi Detention Centre.

They insisted that they wanted to be sent to Italy.

Items were thrown at Detention officers and reinforcements of the Police Rapid Intervention Unit and the AFM were called in.

Photo is from an AFP story that has the nationalities of the aliens listed as well.

For new readers, I’ll bet we have over a hundred posts on Malta over the last 6 plus years.  We follow the island nation’s troubles with illegal immigration because the US State Department (egged-on by the Jesuits of Malta) has contributed to it by turning some Somalis (mostly young men!) who arrived there illegally into “refugees” and sent them to America thus creating a magnet for more illegals to attempt the journey.  Click here for our Malta archive.

Addendum:  Here is a story I don’t have time to post. It is about the pile-up of mostly economic migrants in Libya all hoping to get aboard one of these vessels to Europe.  I wonder what Samantha Power, Hillary and Susan Rice think now about their excellent adventure in Libya—so much for the responsibility to protect!

US Warship in Mediterranean rescues Somalis from dinghy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
It’s a good thing the USS San Antonio doesn’t carry immigration lawyers on board or asylum requests might have been filed!

Update October 18th:  Not Somalis at all!  Instead a mishmash of African economic migrants who turned violent when put in detention in Malta—read all about it here!

120 of them according to the news from the Associated Press:

VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — The American warship where an al-Qaida suspect was interrogated after being snatched from Libya by U.S. special forces has come to the rescue of 120 Somali migrants.

A statement Thursday from the Maltese army says it asked the USS San Antonio to intervene Wednesday because it was close to the migrants’ dinghy. The Somalis were having trouble in rough seas and high winds some 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Malta and were taken to the Mediterranean island.

Libyan terror suspect Abu Anas al-Libi, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was captured during a military raid in Libya on Oct. 5 and questioned for a week aboard the San Antonio before being transferred to the U.S. He is due to stand trial on terror charges in New York City.

The ship is very similar to the one that came to the rescue in the newly released Somali pirate movie, “Captain Phillips,” which I had not particularly wanted to see after I read reports that some of the crew of the Maersk Alabama thought the film was inaccurate.  After seeing it, I do recommend the movie for a whole host of reasons I won’t go into here.  But, if you read Greenfield’s ‘Hyena Cure’ yesterday (and see the movie) you may see that Greenfield is on to something.

Regular readers know that boats are launching daily carrying illegal migrants from Africa hoping to reach the promised land—Europe.   Some make it, some don’t.

Malta: Questions swirl about whether Libyan milita-men shot at refugee-loaded boat causing it to sink

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We mentioned the second Mediterranean boat-sinking in just over a week, here.  Now there are allegations that the boat was fired-on by Libyans.

Survivors (looks like mostly young men) arrive in Valletta on Maltese patrol boat.
Photo: (AFP/Matthew Mirabelli)

The UN is asking for an explanation and at least Malta’s Prime Minister is trying to get some negotiations underway with Libyan Prime Minister,  Ali Zidan.

But, this is what I don’t get, why doesn’t the world community, with the UN leading the way, demand that the Libyan government stop these boat launchings on their side of the Mediterranean in the first place?

The UN could then use its state-of-the-art refugee camp in Jordan, Al Azraq, by safely transporting these would-be mariners to it.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune (emphasis mine):

VALLETTA, Malta — Syrian survivors of the latest shipwreck involving migrants in the Mediterranean Sea claim Libya’s coast guard fired on their boat after reaching it a couple of hours out of port, the U.N. refugee agency said Monday.

The survivors of last Friday’s shipwreck have told UNHCR that the Libyans opened fire after ordering the boat to stop, damaging the hull and wounding four people, the U.N. agency’s spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said from Geneva.

“The boat took on water, and people started coming up from below, which could have contributed to the capsizing, according to witness testimony,” Fleming said. She added that the four wounded were treated by doctors among the refugees on board.

UNHCR has asked Libya for an explanation based on the survivor accounts and the fact that people with bullet wounds have been among the more than 200 people rescued and taken to Malta and Italy.

The bodies of 34 people have been recovered, but survivors have told the U.N. that 400 to 500 people were on board, meaning more than 200 could still be missing.

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan denied the allegations in a press conference Sunday during a visit by Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to discuss the wave of refugees arriving by boat from Libya in Malta and Italy. He pledged an investigation.

UNHCR has expressed concern that Syrians escaping civil war are facing a perilous sea journey to reach safety in Europe.

In a related story, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah expressed his sorrow at the large number of Palestinians who were also on the doomed ship.

Ethiopian war criminal got into US as refugee by lying about his identity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Imagine that!

Kefelgn Alemu Worku has been found guilty in US court in Denver and will likely serve 15 years in prison for lying.

Kefelgn Alemu Worku

Thanks to Creeping Sharia for tipping us off to this latest news.

I searched our thousands of posts and voila, I knew I recognized the name, we first reported on Worku here in 2012.  It is really worth visiting that post to see how complex a fraud was perpetrated on the US State Department.  Worku didn’t just claim (in isolation) to be someone else, but “kids” in America (not his kids) actually helped perpetrate the scam and allowed him to assume the identity of their ailing father.   He came to the US through ‘family’ reunification.

Here is the news of the conviction yesterday at East Africa News (emphasis is mine):

A United States court has convicted an Ethiopian immigrant, who is suspected of having committed war crimes in his home country, on charges of immigration fraud and identity theft.

Prosecutors told the court that the accused, Kefelgn Alemu Worku, had lied about his past and stolen someone else’s identity before immigrating to Colorado in 2004 as a refugee. Worku admitted that he had used a false name to gain entry and citizenship in the United States but denied allegations that he had tortured and killed political prisoners while working as a prison guard in Ethiopia in the 1970’s.

The accused was arrested in May 2011 after Ethiopian Immigrants, Samuel Ketema, 53, and his brother, Kiflu, 58, identified and confronted him at a cafe in Aurora, Colorado. Kiflu claims he witnessed Worku torturing and killing several prisoners – including one of Kiflu’s best friends – while serving a prison sentence in Ethiopia.

So we taxpayers absorbed the expenses of his resettlement, his use of social services, his legal case and now we get to take care of him in prison for the next 15 years!

Worku now faces up to 15 years in prison following his conviction. Dozens of Ethiopian immigrants who thronged the court during the trial seemed satisfied with the verdict.

The charges brought against Worku in Denver were for immigration violations and not the war crimes that he is accused of having committed nearly four decades ago. Ethiopia already tried him for those crimes in absentia and sentenced him to hanging.

I guess what this really means is that in lieu of deportation and hanging, we get to pay for him in prison for 15 years, then what?  Will he be released into America to collect his senior citizen benefits because he is a US citizen?  But, wait! is he a US citizen if he used another person’s identity?

Clamp-down on illegal boats seems to have cooled Rohingya plans to make a run on Australia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Gosh, could strict border enforcement work!

For new readers, the Rohingya are Muslims, some of whom have lived in Burma, others in Bangladesh.  They are often called “stateless” by the human rights industrial complex which has made them a cause celebre in a public relations campaign we have followed for over five years.   We have a category specifically for Rohingya posts, here (156 previous posts!)

Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, second from right, is quoted often in support of Rohingya.

 

Australians, fed up with the thousands of mostly Muslim illegal migrants coming to their shores in recent years, has elected a government which is sending signals that it won’t be a push-over as some recent governments have been on the subject of illegal immigration.

Here is an article in The Irrawaddy which reports that Rohingya people (already in their own “cultural zones” of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh) are now having second thoughts about trying to reach Australia.  Emphasis below is mine.

KUALA LUMPUR — Australia’s clampdown on refugees and migrants trying to reach the country’s shores by boat has prompted uncertainty among Rohingya who, facing state oppression and attacks by Arakanese Buddhists, have fled Burma in the tens of thousands in recent years.

Since Australia’s now-ousted Labor government decided in July to prevent refugees traveling by sea from landing in Australia—saying that would-be arrivals would be taken to processing centers in neighboring Nauru and Papua New Guinea (PNG)—some Rohingya who had hopes of making it to Australia are now in a bind.

“We are disappointed, we feel like we are stuck,” said Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani, president of the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organization Malaysia (MERHOM). “Many of us do not have papers here [in Malaysia] and we have no status in Burma. It is a difficult situation for anyone who hoped to travel to Australia,” Ahmad told The Irrawaddy.  [To “travel” or make an illegal run for Australian shores!—ed]

Thousands of Rohingya refugees undertake a treacherous maritime journey from western Burma to Thailand or Malaysia. From there some in turn hope to reach Australia, usually attempting another dangerous maritime crossing through the Indian Ocean.

[…..]

Rohingya arrivals to Australia are difficult to quantify, as those who do make it are listed as “stateless” by Australia, while some others who arrived in Australia over recent years claimed to be Rohingya but were assessed by Australia to be either Bangladeshi nationals or Burmese Muslims, according to Chris Lewa.  [I suspect that those Rohingya getting into the US through refugee resettlement are being referred to as Burmese Muslims as well, since the word ‘Rohingya’ is associated with some pretty rough types.—ed]

Australian government statistics—covering the years from 1998 to 2012—list 2,204 stateless maritime arrivals to Australia, a cohort that includes Kurds, Palestinians and Rohingya.

The boat people issue became a major election issue as immigration restrictionist Tony Abbott was elected as the new Prime Minister last month.

A voter backlash against the arrival of over 40,000 asylum seekers since 2007, when policy was relaxed for a time, prompted both of Australia’s main parties to suggest tighter controls.

I found this bit of the story of interest too:

Indonesia is a common transit point for refugees trying to reach Australia, Rohingya included. At least 28 Middle Eastern migrants drowned when a boat, which was aiming to reach Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, sank off Indonesia in late September.

Note they are simply referred to generically as ‘Middle Eastern’ migrants with no mention that they were Lebanese pretending to be Syrian refugees as our commenter ‘pungentpeppers’ reported here.

The photo is from this story about a UNHCR meeting in June.  In a cursory search I can’t find a specific website for Lewa’s Arakan Project, lots of references to Lewa and the status of the Project as an NGO, but no website.  if any industrious readers find one, let us know!