Category: Other Immigration

Office of Refugee Resettlement entangled in TX lawsuit

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I meant to report this to our readers some weeks ago when I first heard about it,  but there is so much going on it slipped by me at the time.    In a nutshell, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) contracts for unacompanied illegal immigrant minors to be cared for in a facility in TX.   Some of those minors have filed a suit alleging abuse by employees of the facility and local police officers.  

Eight immigrant youths from the Hector Garza Treatment Center, a facility for unaccompanied minors, have filed a lawsuit against a number of agencies, including the Houston-based Cornell Companies, a private company that runs the treatment center.

Cornell Companies entered in a contract with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement in September to use the Garza facility to house and treat immigrant minors who are determined to be mentally ill. According to Watson [attorney who filed the lawsuit], most of the children traveling across the border suffer from some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

If there is abuse those responsible must be found out and punished. 

However, this issue is not a simple one, there have been stories that illegal immigrants coming across the Mexican border purposely separate from their children so that the children are assured residency in the US even if the parents are caught and returned to their home country.   I find it interesting that ORR runs these facilities since these are young illegal aliens not refugees.

Read the whole article here.

NC Congresswoman puts forward plan to fight terrorism in the US

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Much praise goes to Congresswoman Sue Myrick, co-founder of the House anti-terrorism caucus, for her ten point plan released yesterday to combat Islamic terrorism creeping into the United States.   However I was disappointed to see that she missed the most important element in what I think is the greatest threat, often called the “quiet” jihad — Muslim immigration.  Here are her ten points (Hat tip:  Islam In Action):

Investigate all military chaplains endorsed by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was imprisoned for funding a terrorist organization.

Investigate all prison chaplains endorsed by Alamoudi.

Investigate the selection process of Arabic translators working for the Pentagon and FBI.

Examine the nonprofit status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Make it an act of sedition or solicitation of treason to preach or publish materials that call for the deaths of Americans.

Audit sovereign wealth funds in the United States.

Cancel scholarship student visa program with Saudi Arabia until they reform their text books, which she claims preach hatred and violence against non-Muslims.

Restrict religious visas for imams who come from countries that don’t allow reciprocal visits by non-Muslim clergy.

Cancel contracts to train Saudi police and security in U.S. counterterrorism tactics.

Block the sale of sensitive military munitions to Saudi Arabia.

Now she only needs to add No. 11, reform legal immigration policy by curtailing immigration of Muslims to the US.  No politically correct mumbo-jumbo from me this morning!

Suspicious death of immigrant in Texas linked to Palestinian refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update April 20, 2008:   Jerry Gordon over at the ACT blog has done more work on this story here.

What did I say the other day, we are turning into the immigrant crime blog.   Here is a story from Texas (Hat tip: Infinicat) about a Lebanese man’s body being found in a lake, hands and legs bound and tape across his eyes.  Austin police believe it was a suicide.    Can you see it now, Riad Hamad bound and hobbling, eyes covered, to waters edge and throwing himself in!

Austin police said Thursday that they are leaning toward a ruling of suicide in the death of a middle school teacher and activist whose body was found Wednesday in Lady Bird Lake with his hands and legs bound and tape over his eyes.

There must be a lot more to this story.

She (Debbie Russell of the ACLU) said in the e-mail that Hamad had recently been under investigation by the FBI — federal officials confirmed the investigation — and described him as “NOT a terrorist but a peaceworker.” Hamad was serving as an official for the Austin chapter of the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund.

I checked to see if the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund was listed on the Guidestar website for non-profit groups and couldn’t find them.   In fact their website doesn’t mention their status as a 501(c)3 charitable organization.   I don’t think you can just put up a website, solicit funds for your cause (Palestinian “refugees” in this case), send it abroad and not tell the IRS what you are doing.

 He was described as a nice guy by friends and family.

The family’s statement described him as a “peace activist who worked tirelessly on behalf of those less fortunate than him and was loved and admired by many members of the local, as well as international community.”

 Kind of funny though, don’t you think, that he was fired by a Junior College and then hired as a Middle School teacher.

Hamad had taught at Austin Community College but was fired in June 1998 after officials said he violated the school’s nondiscrimination policy by making “sexist and off-colored jokes” in class, school officials said.

Judy has written before how Palestinians have been kept in camps for over a half century and none of their Arab brothers take them in (aren’t Muslims supposed to be charitiable to fellow Muslims).   We hear all the noise from the United Nations about how important it is to resettle refugees who have been in camps for 20 years in other parts of the world. 

Heck on the Iraqi displaced persons, the UN and the NGO’s are screaming bloody murder about how hundreds of thousands of Iraqis must be resettled after only a couple of years.

 Why isn’t the UN getting busy resettling the Palestinians to say Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Egypt, etc?

It is increasingly obvious that the Palestinians are kept in camps to put political pressure on Israel and allow the likes of Riad Hamad to continue raising money for the “children”.

NOTE:   See “crimes” category to your left for other posts on crimes involving refugees and immigrants.

Eleven groups in DC area join forces to fight illegal immigration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update April 26,2008:  See this NBC news clip about this new coalition here.

Although this isn’t about refugees per se it involves immigration in Maryland where we live, so it interests me. 

Tomorrow eleven groups, including Help Save Maryland, from the Washington, Maryland, Virginia region will announce the formation of a coalition to combat illegal immigration. 

On Thursday, 11 groups from Maryland, Virginia and Washington will hold a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington to announce the formation of the Capital Area Alliance Against Illegal Immigration. The alliance will include organizations such as Help Save Maryland and Save the Old Dominion that have pushed for legislation and advocacy against illegal immigration around the region.

The alliance is a sign of the growing network these groups are forming in the wake of several high profile battles over immigration issues around the metropolitan area.

Read this detailed article from the Montgomery County Gazette to learn about those high profile battles and others the new coalition will face.

Google Earth now helps you find refugees worldwide

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to a couple of readers, bluelitespecial and Brian, we have learned that Google Earth has partnered with the United Nations to bring you information on refugees and camps around the world.

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has released, with help from Google Earth Outreach, new Google Earth content which documents UN projects involving Refugee camps. The announcement was made today in Geneva where the UN world headquarters are located. Google Earth Outreach Director Rebecca Moore was on hand for the announcement as were several notables of the United Nations.

Cool huh?   Now, lets suggest that the US State Department and the Dept. of Homeland Security partner with Google Earth and track all the groups of refugees and H-2B visa workers that are roaming America.  Maybe eventually they could track those aliens coming across the borders.

I was thinking of the Somalis who in some cases will not sign leases for more than 6 months (Tysons Food and other meatpackers could help get the data), and then maybe that company in Alabama which lost 100 workers last winter.   And, of course just this past week over 100 supposed H2-B Visa welders who came up missing from construction work in Emporia, KS.

Come to think of it, I bet the government could pull this off pretty easily if they wanted to because a private citizen is already doing something along these lines.  Check out the map at the Illegal Alien Activity Tracking System.

We could call it the “supposedly legal alien activity tracking system!”