Category: Iraqi refugees

Iraqi refugee arrested in Norway for predicting more jihadist attacks in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We will control the world in 20 years!

And, they say Anders Breivik, who said that Muslim immigrants were a treat threat to Europe and his native Norway, is insane.  I wonder does Breivik have access to news in prison or his psych-ward?

From The Local (Norways News in English):

Norway’s Progress Party has called for the immediate arrest of Mullah Krekar after the firebrand jihadist spoke of the need for renewed terrorist attacks on the United States. 

[What!   I thought Obama’s election was going to bring a new day to our relationship with the Muslim world, and instead we learn they want to take us over! How could this be?—ed]

The Norway-based extremist made the comments in an interview with Finland’s MTV3. He also claimed that Islam “will control the entire world” within the next 20 years.

More than a decade on from the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States that left almost 3,000 people dead, Krekar said:

“They have learned nothing from the 9/11 attacks. That’s why they need two more attacks. It’s the only way the Americans will understand that we [Muslims] are people and not animals or slaves.”

Morten Ørsal Johansen, immigration policy spokesman for the populist Progress Party, said the remarks merited placing Krekar under arrest.

The Jihadist “refugee” has been in Norway for twenty years with no signs of assimilating, instead he founded an extremist group.   And, so much for that yearning for democracy!

Krekar, the co-founder of Islamist militant group Ansar al-Islam, moved to Norway as a refugee from northern Iraq in 1991.*

In the Finnish TV interview, he also spoke cryptically of how European-style democracy would never take root in the Middle East. Likening the export of Western democracy to a “plastic banana”, he said it would never work in the Arab world because, unlike the real thing, “you can’t eat it.

More attacks are inevitable, says the Iraqi refugee:

He also argued in the three-minute interview that further terrorist attacks were unavoidable, VG reports.

“It’s going to happen. It’s meant to happen. Jihad is meant to happen, I’m certain of it. Jihad is like a cat. If you lock up a cat it becomes dangerous,” said Krekar.

Here is a conundrum for the “progressives” ruling Norway:  will Krekar go to prison or the psych-ward for saying essentially the same thing as Breivik said?

* 1991 !  Weren’t those refugees from the First Gulf War supposed to be the good guys escaping Saddam Hussein….hmmmm!    We resettled 823 Iraqis in 1991 (annual report table 5).  Can we assume Norway got the only bad apple?   For new readers, two Iraqi refugees were arrested on terror charges in Kentucky this year, and have caused Homeland Security to re-screen some vague number of recent Iraqi refugees here.

And, by the way we (the US) resettled 9,388 Iraqis in FY2011, 18,016 in 2010, 18,833 in 2009 and 13,823 in 2008 (stats here) for a grand total of 60,060 in four years, but surely they all are good guys hankering for democracy and a better life!  Right?

Sen. Rand Paul holding up benefits for refugees until audit of program is completed

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Most readers don’t know that we bring elderly refugees to the US and then give them Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

Apparently many senior refugees are not becoming citizens within the proscribed seven years, but refugee advocates want their Social Security extended anyway.

Here is an editorial at the New York Times ranting against Rand for placing a hold on an extension of benefits bill.  He first wants an audit of the Refugee Resettlement Program that allowed Iraqi alleged terrorists to be admitted through the program and resettled in his state.

The New York Times:

Here’s an addition to the file marked “Extreme Dysfunction: Congress Edition.” A bill that would extend life-saving cash assistance to 5,600 disabled and elderly refugees — a bill whose support is so broad that it includes Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a bill that would pay for itself and even raise a bit for deficit reduction — can’t get through the Senate.

The bill is stalled because Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has placed a hold on it. He is upset because a separate, unrelated refugee program gave benefits to two Iraqi men who were arrested in Kentucky on terrorism-related conspiracy charges. The two Iraqis never received any benefits under the program in question — Supplemental Security Income — and they were not old or sick. But Mr. Paul seems to have concluded that the country can’t give any aid to a small group of highly vulnerable refugees — including survivors of terrorist violence, torture, dictatorships and war — because of the off chance that some terrorists might get the help, too.

Mr. Schumer’s bill, which was expected to pass in a voice vote until Mr. Paul blocked it, is the latest extension of S.S.I. benefits to refugees who missed a deadline to become citizens.

Read it all!

Good for you Sen. Paul, the whole program is in need of a financial audit!

Church World Service sets its sites on State College, PA….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….. to establish a new resettlement hub!  

It basically works this way: refugee agency wears out its welcome somewhere nearby (no more jobs or housing, or the public gets overwhelmed with the refugee overload of social or education services), then they quietly scout out another site and set up an office before the public fully understands what is happening (and usually with the help of local publications or media which help soften the message to the community. (Gee, sounds like Hagerstown, MD in 2007!*)

Below is a story (part of a long story) about Church World Service (one of the top 11 federal contractors) targeting State College, PA (I wonder if there are any meatpacking or warehouse jobs nearby?).

As I said, this is a long article in Voices of Central Pennsylvania but I laughed to see that the most provocative information is near the end, and I especially liked this comment from an unnamed commenter to a local paper.  This is exactly how the majority of people in small town America feel about the refugee program (once they learn it is happening to them).

“Why couldn’t this Church World Service do something like this for a struggling American family?” asked one respondent to a Centre Daily Times article about the arrival of the Alshekhkders. [Iraqi family that just arrived]. “If they already do help American families, why not help more American families, until no more American families need help? When we get to that point, then they can go looking for publicity with a foreign family.”  [Because they are not paid by us to do that, there are NO big bucks and federal grants involved when caring for Americans!—ed]

Church World Service picked Iraqi Muslims for State College—figuring that would be the best fit!  They plan to resettle about 100 there this year.

Jones [Phil Jones, the newly-hired Director of the CWS refugee resettlement office of State College] began preparing for the arrival of refugees in February. One of his first tasks was to determine which refugees the State College community could best accommodate.

“The three main needs now [in terms of refugee relocation] are for Bhutanese, Burmese and Iraqis,” said Jones. “There’s a fairly significant Arabic-speaking population here, there’s a mosque here, there’s both Sunni and Shiite populations, and … Arabic language support, so it made sense that [Iraqis] would be the easiest population to start out with.”

Church World Service’s main office in New York told Jones that 50 Iraqi individuals, mostly young families, would arrive in July. According to Jones, the first family scheduled to come to State College in July was expecting a child in September. They had hoped to arrive before giving birth.

However, after this family and several others had passed all the necessary clearances and were ready to schedule their flights, the Dept. of Homeland Security added an additional security check which delayed their arrival indefinitely. That security check was a response to an incident in Tennessee [I think they mean the Iraqi refugees arrested in Kentucky on terrorism charges relating to sending bomb-making material to Iraq—ed] in which two Iraqi refugees were arrested for raising funds for Al Qaeda.

[….]

One group that plans to play an active role in supporting Iraqi refugees is the Islamic Society of Central Pennsylvania. Along with assisting in translation, members plan to help the refugees with many of the daily needs that arise as families learn how to navigate a new culture.  [Church World Service got the Islamic Society of Western MD involved in the Hagerstown resettlement, but something went awry and they weren’t much help.—ed]

Another organization that will play a large role in helping refugees transition to State College life is Global Connections, a local nonprofit housed on Penn State’s campus that works to foster cultural understanding and exchange.

Some in the community are not happy, but this publication tells us that only after we have waded through many column inches of gushy stuff.

Some community members have expressed concerns regarding the arrival of the refugees, predominantly due to the lack of affordable housing in Centre County and the competition for jobs.

In response to a Centre Daily Times article in January on CWS’s refugee office opening in State College, one poster wrote, “I appreciate what might be commendable efforts to help people in need, but this will make the problem of providing low cost housing to OUR own people more difficult. While the cultural environment of the Centre Region is attractive, the cost of living may be out of reach for these folks.”

Colby Woodring, Centre County Housing Case Manager, echoed the concern about finding suitable housing for the refugees.

“I imagine it could be just as difficult for the families CWS is helping relocate to find affordable permanent housing as anyone else in Centre County,”she said. “[However] it is helpful when those in need of housing assistance have support. I think it’s wonderful that CWS can offer that support for the refugee families needing assistance.” [They only help until their federal money runs out, then it’s up to the local community to find affordable housing for the refugees—ed].

Other residents have publically voiced worries about the pressures refugee families will place on social service agencies.

* CWS is gone from Hagerstown now and it’s a good thing because Washington Co., MD has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state.

Grover Norquist under fire on House floor yesterday

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you don’t know who Grover Norquist is, good for you!   However, the rest of you may know him as the supposed Svengali of the ‘no new taxes pledge’ and a reputed big shot and king-maker among the Republican establishment in Washington, DC, but he is a lot more than that.

We first told you about Norquist pushing fellow Republicans to support bringing tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees to the US, here in 2007.   Subsequently we have written about him on many occasions because he calls anyone who dares question his unsavory associations with now imprisoned terror funders—Islamophobes—and says Shariah law is compatible with the US Constitution (here).  Most people don’t know that he and Americans for Tax Reform (the group he founded more than 20 years ago) supported the Bush/McCain/Kennedy amnesty bill that the grassroots defeated in 2007, here.

Yesterday Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf went after Norquist on the House floor.   Of course, Wolf is attempting to discredit the Pledge, but in so doing he exposes Norquist’s questionable activities over the years.   You can see Wolf’s whole speech and report, here.

Search RRW for ‘Grover Norquist’ to learn more.

An inside look at the lives of Roanoke, VA refugee volunteers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a feature story in the Roanoke Times about Jim and Diana Martin and their work with Bhutanese (Nepalis) refugees that reportedly consumes 80 hours a week between the two of them. [By the way, if the resettlement agency they volunteer for is in the match grant system, their hours are recorded as in-kind service and the agency gets matching cash from you —the taxpayers—for the Martin’s work, but that is a story for another day.]

Since I had just written about Iraqis returning to Iraq when their American ‘stuff’ didn’t suit them, it’s this Iraqi part of this long article about the “caring” couple that caught my attention.

….the Martins were assigned as mentors to an Iraqi woman and her two sons.

It was a disaster, by all accounts.

The Martins greeted the family at the airport, and, rather than deliver them to the apartment they’d just spent days furnishing, they took them home to their own five-bedroom house in Botetourt County.

The house was in a new development, with flower beds and a 2-acre lawn, with computers and a wide-screen TV.
“We were so naive,” Diana says.

When the weekend ended, they delivered the Iraqis to their cramped, two-bedroom apartment, with the noisy neighbors and the thrift-store TV. The family was crestfallen.

It became clear, too, that the mother suffered from anxiety attacks. She spent several nights in the emergency room and became so homesick that she begged to be sent back to Iraq.

Not a good start for the Martins (like all of us they must have assumed that the Iraqis were appreciative of their new life).

So, in deciding to turn their attentions to the Nepalis who seemed (as the article tells us):

…. gracious and happy with what they had.

They got their answer:

Were the Nepalis the people God had in mind for her now?

The answer came just after Christmas 2009. They’d been visiting her son’s family in Colorado for the holiday and returned to learn that the Iraqi family they were mentoring had gone home to Iraq while they were gone.  [Not even a good-bye and thanks?]

In 2009 we also had other Iraqi refugees returning to the Middle East from Virginia, here.

The Roanoke Times article also gives us a good answer to why our health care costs will rise!

Eventually, Lutjen (Beth Lutjen, refugee office director, Commonwealth Catholic Charities’ Refugee and Immigration Services) asked the Martins to take on a few special cases:

The parents of a hemophiliac who couldn’t communicate with the child’s geneticist, even with an interpreter present.

Jim got the doctor to begin by describing a simple case of eye color before he launched into the couple’s chances of having another hemophiliac child.

Nar Sunawar, a man who arrived with bone infections as well as complications from childhood polio. A retired disability caseworker for the state of Texas, Diana spent weeks culling disparate medical records to prepare his claim. (“Dinah is Roanoke Mom,” Sunawar said recently at his Elm Avenue home, where Jim holds one of his three weekly English classes on the living room floor.)

A woman with an autoimmune disorder, who wrongly thought her Indian internist was overprescribing medications, causing her to bloat. Jim went with her to the doctor with the intention of firing him but came to realize the man was capable; he just didn’t communicate at their level.

“These people are off the farm with no education,” Jim explained. “Tell her: ‘Your body is trying to eat your kidney.’ “

There is more!  Read the whole article.

We have written about problems with refugee resettlement in Roanoke on many previous occasions.  In April 2008 we reported on conflicts between Black Americans and the new African refugees here.  Later that year we posted on jobless Iraqis in Roanoke, here.  But, probably the biggest refugee news out of Roanoke in recent years was the attempted kidnapping of some prominent women in the town by a bunch of refugees and the subsequent trial, here and here.  Most recently we had a national news story about a Bosnian refugee war criminal who slipped through the system and was found in Roanoke.

Roanoke’s refugees sure keep the place hopping!