Wyoming being fed a pack of lies!

02/25/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Asst. Secretary of State for PRM, Anne Richard, meeting with Iraqis in Portland, Maine. Trying to make sure Maine stays on board? US State Department needs fresh territory in which to resettle refugees! http://www.pressherald.com/news/Federal-official-visits-Maine-refugee-business-owners-Photos.html

Sorry I can’t say it any other way!

Here is the latest puff-piece being circulated around the country about Wyoming (the only state with no refugee resettlement program) beginning to see the light, we are told, and REQUESTING refugees. We first reported the Republican governor’s outreach to the feds here.

As these refugee puff-pieces always do, this one starts out with the lovely success story of Congolese refugee Bertine Bahige (you can read his story yourself).

But, no matter how wonderful a person Bertine Bahige is, and how successful, Wyoming ‘leaders’ must remember at least two things—the cost of the refugees will after a few months be on the backs of the Wyoming taxpayer and no matter what promises you get now, Wyoming will not be choosing the refugees (choosing their nationalities or their religions), nor will it choose how many! The US State Department will be deciding that with its contractors.

So here is the article designed to tug on your heartstrings, but laced with lies. From the Casper Star Tribune (via SFGate) (hat tip: Joanne) Emphasis is mine:

Wyoming is the only state in the nation that doesn’t have a refugee resettlement program.

Bahige is hoping to change that.

He is Wyoming’s delegate for the United Nations Refugee Congress. Since 2010, he’s reached out to the Wyoming congressional delegation, state lawmakers and Gov. Matt Mead in hopes of creating a resettlement program in Wyoming.

Despite roadblocks, he’s pushed the ball in motion.

He’s working with the UW School of Law to draft a plan that Mead will consider for adoption.

They think they are going to get ALL federal money for this (note to Republican Governor Mead—that is taxpayer money too, and it comes with strings! You are handing over your state sovereignty and demographic future to the US State Department.)

No state dollars would fund a refugee resettlement program. The federal government would pump money into state agencies and a nongovernmental organization to oversee the initiative, said Suzan Pritchett, co-director at UW’s Center for International Human Rights Law Advocacy.

Wyoming’s Department of Family Services, Department of Workforce Services and Department of Health are among the agencies that would work with the federal government’s Health and Human Services and State Department to channel the money, said Merit Thomas, a policy adviser in the governor’s office.

Wyomingites, please take a few minutes and have a look at the costs to counties in Georgia for refugee resettlement. From Refugee Resettlement Relief. Here! And, longtime readers know that Tennesseans have for the last couple of years been attempting to get numbers like these out of their state agencies.

Wyoming will not pick the number or the nationalities/religions of refugees!

Suzan Pritchitt: “It may be inappropriate for some types of immigrant populations to move here.”

States like Colorado and Utah received more than 1,000 refugees in 2013. Wyoming would open its doors to a smaller number, Pritchett said. [Suzan Pritchett co-director at UW’s Center for International Human Rights Law Advocacy—ed]

The state’s low immigrant population may make it difficult for refugees who require certain places of worship and other cultural customs, she said.

This above, is of course, a reference to Muslim refugees. Don’t worry Ms. Pritchett, the US State Department will send you Muslims who will in turn build mosques, if you don’t have them already!

“Wyoming is not an immigrant-heavy state,” she said. “It may be inappropriate for some types of immigrant populations to move here. We are thinking about what’s the best fit for Wyoming and the capacity it can handle. It won’t be on the 1,000 per-year end of the scale.” [Again, Wyoming will not be making those decisions!—ed]

Refugees who arrive in the U.S. aren’t arbitrarily picked. After the UN chooses candidates, the Department of Homeland Security vets their backgrounds. Then the State Department chooses what cities will be best for the candidates.

They are not becoming self-sufficient! It may be a goal, but it is not happening! Look how they have chosen their words!

The goal of resettlement is not to enlist people on government welfare programs, Barclay said.

“It’s about self-sufficiency,” he said.

The refugees are enrolled in federal assistance programs like food stamps, but after eight months the federal government begins to wane support for most refugees. [Not true! refugees are on food stamps for years!—ed] Within the first four months, refugees are required to have jobs. One stipulation is that the immigrants have to repay their plane tickets. [And, the contractors get a cut of what they collect!—ed]

In Colorado, 72 percent of all refugees who found work became self-sufficient, said Paul Stein, state refugee coordinator. [72% who found work! What percent found work? And, how long did it take them?—ed]

All over America refugees are not working! Pockets of resistance to new resettlement have developed and the feds are desperate for new territory for thousands entering the US every month, so….

….to the residents of Casper and Gillette—you must ask questions! Lots and lots of questions!

St. Cloud, MN: Somali population grows rapidly since 2009, Lutherans help make it happen

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

Update February 20th: Just thought you might be interested in a comment this post received on Facebook, edit of F-word is mine:

Liban Abdullahi Well done, more muslims must go to united states we will invade back as you invaded our muslim countries, killing innocent and torturing guantanamo bay and you are sayind democratic.. F*** Off Democracy.. F*** Off United Nation..

A Somali blogger from St. Cloud says in his giddy report, here, that the population has expanded rapidly in last 5 years and is changing the face of St. Cloud. Emphasis below is mine:

In 2010, St. Cloud students protest “systemic racism!” Professor and community organizer Luke Tripp said, the same “conservative white” mind-set led to the election of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater.
http://wardheernews.com/News_10/Jan/23_Somali_students_protest_against_systemic_racism.html

The number of Somalia living in St. Cloud, MN, is growing. There is no official number of how many Somalis are living in the city now, but the unofficial estimate could be as high as 25,000 Somalis living in St. Cloud and the surrounding cities, like Waite Park, St. Joseph, Sartell and Sauk Rapids.

First Somalis moved to St Cloud in 2000, but about 50 percent of Somalis moved to the city in the recent years, from 2009 to 2013. [Lutheran Family Services opened its satellite resettlement office there!—ed]

In the streets of St. Cloud, Somalis are visible and can be easily seen, especially Somali women with their colorful traditional clothing.

[….]

Many Somalis work in assembly line jobs [meatpacking—ed], but a great number of Somalis got educated and they work in white collar jobs. Others opened their own businesses: medical transportation companies, homecare companies and daycare centers. [Home health and medical transport are companies rife with healthcare fraud as we have reported on many occasions—ed]

About 15 percent of the local school district are Somali, and a huge segment of Somalis are in the pipeline of the education process: in high schools, in colleges and in universities.

The biggest challenge facing Somalis in St. Cloud is housing, especially for families whose size is more than eight: there are families who consist of about 10 or 12 family members, there is no housing structures in the city designed for this kind of family sizes.

We have a huge archive, going back to at least 2008, on St. Cloud Somalis, here.

In 2010, Lutheran Social Services began resettling Somalis in St. Cloud directly from camps in Africa, here.

And, then I found this (below) at Friends of Refugees from 2010 (the St. Cloud Times link has disappeared, but blogger Chris Coen quoted the story):

Lutheran Social Services: Let’s put the Muslims together in St. Cloud!

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota has worked with refugees in St. Cloud since 2002, when it opened a refugee employment office. [I’ve told you these supposedly religious groups are headhunters for big business in need of cheap immigrant laborers!—ed] This year, the agency ratcheted up its efforts by establishing a refugee resettlement office in St. Cloud.

The office has contracted to resettle 100 refugees — mostly Somalis and a few Iraqis — in the St. Cloud area this year and in each of the next two years.

Jennifer Jimenez-Wheatley heads the new office, helping refugees find places to live, work, shop and worship. She helps them learn to speak and write English. She coordinates the resettlement process with local school, government and nonprofit agencies.

Iraqis too! One big happy Muslim melting pot!

Somalis have established a presence in St. Cloud, but the handful of Iraqis she’s helping settle here won’t be joining such a large community from their home country. Jimenez-Wheatley says St. Cloud’s refugee advisory committee — composed of city, school district and nonprofit officials — decided resettling Iraqis here made sense in part because they share the Muslim faith with the Somali community.

For fun, be sure to check out how rich the leaders of Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota become while bringing the joys of diversity to your cities and towns!

Hey, Wyoming, isn’t it the Lutherans who want to bring change to Casper and Gillette?

Afghan SIV applicants say US government dragging its feet on visas

02/10/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Special Immigrant Visa program was Sen. Ted Kennedy’s dark-of-night addition to Defense Authorization bill. Kennedy was also the power behind the Refugee Act of 1980.

The Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) is a program passed by Congress in the the dark of night in 2007 spearheaded by Senator Ted Kennedy, here is a document explaining how those who supposedly helped the US in the Iraq war, and their families, can get into the US where they will reap all the benefits refugees receive (welfare etc.). Here is a description of the Afghan SIV program.

You might want to see our previous post about one Afghan interpreter and his family arrested in New York.

From the Seattle Times (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

Thousands of Afghans who have served as U.S. military interpreters and who now fear for their lives are waiting in limbo to hear about their applications to move to the U.S. Though Congress authorized 8,750 visas for Afghan interpreters, only 1,982 had been issued through Dec. 10.

Stars of the Seattle Times story say they have already proven their loyalty to America and now want the US to “return the favor.”

For Nazari, who has worked for the U.S. military since 2006, years of waiting have left him confused and demoralized — and at risk of retaliation from insurgents who he says know what he does.

“We’re living in the 21st century,” Nazari said, speaking flawless English while sipping tea at a Kabul guesthouse. “If the State Department wants to find out if I’m a bad guy or a terrorist, just check their computer databases. It should take five minutes, not five years.”

Sardar Khan, 26, who has translated for the U.S. military since 2007, said he has waited nearly two years for a decision on his SIV application. He jokes that he and other applicants have “SIV syndrome” from constantly checking a State Department website for updates on their cases.

“We have already proved our honesty and loyalty to the United States,” Khan said. “All we ask now is for the United States to return the favor.”

Convicted Iraqi refugee terrorists got through old screening system and yet Obama now makes it even easier to get through!

US State Department says they are speeding things up, but are apparently still haunted by those Iraqi refugee terrorists convicted in Kentucky.

Jarrett Blanc, deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the State Department improved its processing times last year and has issued more Afghan interpreter visas during the latest fiscal year than in any previous year, a tenfold increase over 2012. In the last three months of the fiscal year that ended Oct. 1, he said, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued more interpreter visas than in the previous four years.

The department has also begun an appeals process for interpreters turned down at the embassy level, sped up the visa process for approved applicants and is doing more to spread word about the SIV program.

“We are committed to helping those who — at great personal risk — have helped us,” Blanc said.

Officials are concerned that Afghans with ties to insurgents or terrorists will slip through the vetting process. The 2011 arrests of two Iraqi refugees in Kentucky on terrorism charges slowed the visa process, though neither had been an interpreter. [Of course, now we can expect the vetting process to be relaxed!—ed]

The Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project calls the SIV process “prohibitively complicated, bureaucratic and opaque.” The group, which also assists Afghans, says more than 5,000 Afghan applicants are backlogged. It says only 6,675 of the 25,000 visas authorized for Iraqi interpreters have been issued.

In December, Congress extended the Iraq SIV program through Sept. 30, but failed to extend the Afghan program, which expires Sept. 30.

To readers: The next time you hear someone say I oppose illegal immigration, but legal immigration is a good thing, know that they don’t know what they are talking about!

NY Times: Obama security screening fix will first help those aliens already here

02/09/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Everyone is talking about it—the Obama Administration’s relaxation of security screening regulations originally put in place after 9/11. As we have reported, here***, the “refugee resettlement contractors” were lobbying hard for the rule change because they want to get thousands of Syrians admitted to the US this fiscal year partly because they are embarrassed that the US has not stepped-up to open our “welcoming” doors, and partly because they are paid by the head to bring ’em in.

Even the New York Times is talking about it (those bad ol’ Republican spoil-sports!):

Republican lawmakers are assailing new exemptions from antiterrorism laws the Obama administration issued this week for war zone refugees seeking to come to the United States, saying the rules are examples of unilateral action by President Obama that weaken immigration security.

The administration, under pressure to respond to the crisis of more than 2.3 million Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country, published two rules on Wednesday that will exempt refugees from provisions banning terrorists. The exemptions apply if the refugees provided only minor material support, such as meals or medical aid, to armed groups that have not been officially designated as terrorist organizations, or if they gave such support under pressure. [That old sandwich canard! Can you imagine a prospective refugee admitting that he/she gave a “sandwich to a rebel” at one time?—ed]

[…..]

“We are a nation of laws, and the executive branch should not be allowed to unilaterally suspend our immigration laws to provide benefits to those who have supported terrorists,” said John Cornyn of Texas, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration.

Administration officials and refugee advocates said the rules were a badly needed fix to sweeping antiterrorism laws passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

By the way, even the screening in place before last week didn’t keep those Iraqi refugee terrorists who went to Kentucky out of the US. Maybe the rules needed strengthening not weakening!

Then get this! The NYT says 3,000 are asylum seekers!

That means they have already entered the US illegally by coming across one of our borders or over-staying a visa! And, at minimum 70% could be fraudulent!

Officials said the exemptions, which would immediately affect some 3,000 asylum applicants, had been in the works for years.

***Check out the contractor Senate testimony—the Lutherans want 12,000 Syrians this year and the Catholics want 15,000 (no mention of favoring Christians!). It is always a shock to new readers when they learn that Lutherans and Catholics are resettling Muslims in their towns and cities.

Toledo (Lucas County) looking for more Middle Easterners, will “welcome” refugees

02/03/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ray Abou-Arab charged with murder in Toledo last week.

Update February 8th: Prosecutors seek the death penalty for Abou-Arab, here, (hat tip: Diane).

Update: Bond set at $5 million for Abou-Arab, here. Judge must be afraid he will skip the country.

Let me start by telling you about the tragic tale involving the alleged murder of two fire fighters in Toledo a week ago.

Ray Abou-Arab, an immigrant ‘businessman,’ has been arrested and charged with intentionally starting a fire which took the lives of two young firefighters. The gist of the story is here at The Blade (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’)

Less than a week after two Toledo firefighters died battling a North Toledo apartment fire, the property’s owner was charged with and arrested on two counts each of aggravated murder and aggravated arson.

Ray Abou-Arab, 61, of 1311 Sierra Dr., Oregon was held in the Lucas County jail Friday night pending arraignment Monday morning in Toledo Municipal Court.

Fire Pvts. Stephen Machcinski and James Dickman were pronounced dead Sunday afternoon at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center after being rescued from inside the two-story apartment building at 528 Magnolia St., where they had become trapped.

Abou-Arab has been around Toledo for awhile and some say he has been involved with questionable arson fires involving property he owned in the past.

When you watch the lengthy TV news account, here, you will see shots of Abou-Arab just hanging around and not looking too troubled. Toward the end there is some mention of an illegal substance being sold from a convenience store in the same building he is accused of igniting that resulted in the deaths of the firefighters.

Screen shot from the announcement that Toledo will take Iraqi refugees.
Arabic writing on the flag: Allahu Akbar!

So, Toledo (Lucus County) is having such success with its immigrant entrepreneurs that they announced in December that they will “welcome” 30 Iraqis through the US State Department’s refugee program!

From ABC13 (be sure to watch the news clip!):

Beginning around the first of the year, Toledo will become an immigrant resettlement city. It’s a story we first told you about back in July but now the pieces are in place to make the program a success.

The United States government is looking for communities that can welcome about 30-Iraqi families. Toledo has a long history of welcoming immigrants [like Ray Abou-Arab?–ed] and now it has a social structure that can help.

These communities like Toledo think they are going to make money off refugee resettlement! The reason that the State Department has ‘chosen’ Toledo is that other cities are full-up with economy-robbing refugees. Don’t you think that if refugees brought economic benefits that the cities that were already (supposedly) ‘booming’ as a result would be begging for more?

“New folks, new friends, new families that added value to our community.”

Lucas County Commissioner. Pete Gerken (D) says other immigrants want to build a future here, as well.

The State Department is looking for communities to welcome new refugees from Iraq, in 2014 and Gerken says they should come to Toledo.

He says, “What we found is they come here from other places, bring talent with them, bring family values with them, bring a work ethic with them.”

And, in some cases, they bring a life savings with them.

The Toledo Lucas County Land Bank is now part of this refugee resettlement program and will link immigrants with properties to help them build a life.

[…..]

….buy abandoned commercial sites, build a business, create jobs and contribute to the community. [Just like Ray Abou-Arab did?—-ed]

What studies??? It’s amazing—they just say this sort of thing and the locals lap it up!

Anneliese Grytafey (Toledo Community Foundation) says studies indicate a financial gain. “For every dollar that was invested to bring refugees into the community they saw a $10 dollar gain to their local economy,” Grytafey told 13abc.

The local economy gains for awhile as federal dollars flow in, but as the refugees don’t find work (Iraqis are not finding employment elsewhere, why would Toledo be any different?) and rely more and more on welfare, the local economy takes the hit.

[Flag of Iraq (1991-2004) after Saddam Hussein decreed to include “Allahu Akbar” between the stars in his own handwriting, in an attempt to garner support from the Islamic world.]

About the flag! Whoever made up the graphic in the ABC news clip took Saddam Hussein’s ‘God is Great’ (Allahu Akbar) off the old Iraqi flag and superimposed it on to the American flag’s stripes, here.

Category: Iraqi refugees