Detroit: one more food stamp fraud bust

04/06/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The day just wouldn’t be complete without an immigrant food stamp fraud scam to report. Actually I had this one last night, but had forgotten about it until now.

Judging by their names, these convenience store owners and employees sound like Middle Easterners.

From the Detroit News:

Detroit —Food stamp fraud charges alleging the manipulation of more than $100,000 in welfare benefits were filed today against the owner and two employees of a Detroit party store by the state’s attorney general.

Sara Shango, 24, of Shelby Township, owner of Randy’s Market, 18054 Mount Elliott; her husband, Rouni Abdul-Ahad, 29; and employee Omar Sami, 20, of Troy were arraigned Monday in the city’s 36th District Court on a variety off fraud charges and criminal racketeering charges punishable by up to 20 years in prison. They were ordered to return April 15 for a preliminary examination on the charges. [Did you ever wonder how a couple of twenty-somethings came to own a store!—ed]

Tax dollars stolen (lots of them!):

The charges were the result of a joint investigation dating back to October 2009 by the Michigan State Police, U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General. The probe began when federal authorities noticed monthly food stamp transactions at Randy’s Market were more than 365 percent higher than the monthly average volume of comparable stores, according to a statement issued today by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.

“Today’s charges should send the message that we will not stand by while tax dollars are being stolen,” Schuette said in the statement released by his Lansing office.

Bankrupt Michigan loses $55 million a year on food stamp scams! Think about it! This bust was for a heist of $100,000. Imagine how many more crooks are out there to bring the total take up to that $55 million mark.

Schuette’s office said the Michigan Department of Human Services estimates about four percent of all food stamp transactions in the state are fraudulent, amounting to about $4.6 million in illegal transactions every month: about $55.2 million per year. Wayne County alone accounts for slightly less than a third of the state’s food stamp transactions, which translates to an estimated $16 million in food stamp fraud per year.

Tomorrow I think I’ll tell readers what to look for, and maybe you can help bust some of these scammers in your neighborhood!

If you are new to RRW, then type ‘food stamp fraud’ into our search function for dozens more posts like this one.

57% of immigrant households with children are on welfare

04/05/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This according to a study released today by the Center for Immigration Studies.

From the CIS press release:

Census Bureau data show that the share of immigrant-headed households (legal and illegal) with children (under age 18) using at least one welfare program continues to be very high. This is partly due to the large share of immigrants with low levels of education and their resulting low incomes. The welfare programs examined in this report are SSI (Supplemental Security Income for low income elderly and disabled), TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), WIC (Women, Infants, and Children food program), free/reduced school lunch, food stamps, Medicaid (health insurance for those with low incomes), public housing, and rent subsidies.

The report entitled: “Welfare Use by Immigrant Households with Children: A Look at Cash, Medicaid, Housing, and Food Programs,” is authored by Steven A. Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research.

Among the findings:

*Based on the latest data available, from 2009, 57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.

*Immigrant households with children tend to use food assistance programs and Medicaid at much higher rates than native households with children. Use of cash and housing programs tends to be similar to natives.

*A large share of the welfare used by immigrant households with children is received on behalf of U.S.-born citizen children. But even households with children that were comprised entirely of immigrants (i.e., all the children were born abroad) still had a welfare use rate of 56 percent.

*Households with children with the highest rates of welfare use are those headed by immigrants from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), and Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent). Those with the lowest use rates are from the United Kingdom (7 percent), India (19 percent), Canada (23 percent), and Korea (25 percent).

*The states where immigrant households with children have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62 percent); Texas, California, and New York (61 percent); Pennsylvania (59 percent); Minnesota, and Oregon (56 percent); and Colorado (55 percent).

*The Center estimates that 52 percent of households with children headed by legal immigrants used at least one welfare program in 2009, compared to 71 percent for illegal immigrant households with children. Illegal immigrants generally receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children.

*Illegal immigrant households with children primarily use only food assistance and Medicaid, making almost no use of cash or housing assistance. In contrast, legal immigrant households tend to have relatively high use rates for every type of program.

*High welfare use by immigrant households with children is partly explained by the low education level of many immigrants. Of households headed by an immigrant who has not graduated high school, 80 percent access the welfare system, compared to 25 percent for those headed by an immigrant who has at least a bachelor’s degree.

*The vast majority (95 percent) of immigrant households with children had at least one worker in 2009. But their low education levels and resulting low incomes mean that more than half of these working immigrant households with children still accessed the welfare system during 2009.

*Excluding refugees, 57 percent of immigrant households with children access welfare.

*For all households (those with and without children), the use rates were 37 percent for households headed by immigrants and 22 percent for those headed by natives.

*Most new legal immigrants are barred from using some welfare for the first five years. But this provision has only a modest impact on household use rates because most immigrants have been in the country longer than five years; the ban applies only to some programs; some states provide welfare to new immigrants on their own; by naturalizing, immigrants become eligible for all programs; and most important, the U.S.-born children of immigrants (including those of illegal immigrants) are American citizens, and are eligible for all programs at birth.

For more information and to read the study, go here.

Cloward-Piven strategy at work—use the poor to overload the welfare system and bring on the Revolution! Coincidentally, today Mrs. Piven (Cloward is dead and she is old) will be exhorting your college kids to take to the streets, here, to protest against greedy people.

Refugee resettlement: why are we doing it and how do we stop it?

04/04/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been writing this blog since the summer of 2007 when I first became aware of the fact that the Virginia Council of Churches was bringing mostly Muslim refugees to our rural county in western Maryland. At first all I wanted to understand was the governmental process that would allow an out-of-state “church” group to drop off refugees in lousy neighborhoods and then not take very good care of them. I’ve been working almost daily since then to bring news about the refugee program to you, the readers.

The comment I received yesterday from Rowana and posted here this morning is more detailed than usual but typical of the comments we receive. We also had a commenter named Gary who commented on this post yesterday as well. Gary said:

Is there a process in San Diego, or any other town or state, that requires local permission to be granted before George Soros, The State Department or the United Nations sends refugees? It seems that the entire government now acts without our permission or the permission of our elected representatives.

In addition to Rowana and Gary, Lion of Kabul (also yesterday) sent a news report from France about how Islam has taken over sections of some cities in that country.

I feel like screaming to all of you—STOP COMPLAINING AND GET TO WORK! I’m not talking about Rowana, Gary, and the Lion of Kabul, but all of you. At least those three have taken some action by writing.

Frankly, it is time (past time!) for a moratorium on all immigration. No one will say that, not even the major immigration restrictionist groups like NumbersUSA or FAIR. I will say it because our economy is crashing and that is partly (maybe largely) due to the importation of impoverished immigrants who come either legally or illegally. And, we must impose a moratorium on the thousands upon thousands of Muslims we are admitting who have no intention of becoming Americans.

Why is this happening? Why are we allowing America to be overrun?

As Gary noted, George Soros, the State Department (even under Republicans!) and the UN are all involved. The drivers of immigration are one-worlders and Socialists. They are also control freaks and have some notion that, if they can just run the world their way, they will even-out the differences between the rich and poor, erase ethnic tensions and we will live in one big happy sustainable world. To accomplish that mythical goal, they need to erase boundaries and destroy capitalism by overloading our welfare system (Cloward-Piven). They need the do-gooders for cover.

And, like parasites, Muslim extremists are tagging along with the Socialists and Marxists and will just wait their chance to impose Sharia law in the West once the Leftists have brought enough chaos to bring down governments.

This is not a conspiracy theory. We just saw it happen in Egypt—the do-gooder Left, the hard core Marxists and the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt. Unfortunately for the do-gooders and the Marxists, the Muslim Brotherhood is about to devour their Leftwing host. (Update: See Egypt Muslim Brotherhood and the modesty police, here)

The more important question is how do we stop it?

When I am tired, I think it’s too late. Then at other times, I pledge to myself to go down fighting for freedom and for our God-given country—America.

I urge all of you to stop dithering around with the Why-question and move on to the How-question.

As Gary asks, how do I stop the importation of poverty and a radical element to my city?

You have to work—plain and simple—work! You are up against a media that has long ago given up doing any real investigative work especially on a topic where the wrong word will bring the name callers down upon you, so you must do it. You must investigate and let the word “racist” roll right off your back. Then you have to figure out how to disseminate what you have learned, but with all the new social media you can do that too!

You have to work! Work involves digging into documents, learning how the various immigration programs work, learning who the political leaders are who are behind it in your city or county. You need to find out if certain business interests are pushing for more immigrants for cheap labor. You need to put pressure on your US Congressman and your two US Senators. You need to get to work on the state level as well, putting pressure on elected representatives and your governor.

Also if you are a member of one of the nationwide immigration control groups, put pressure on them too to start looking into one of our largest importers of Muslim immigrants—refugee resettlement.

Then you have to get the word out. I RECOMMEND THAT EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU FRUSTRATED BY IMMIGRATION-GENERATED POVERTY AND CRIME WRITE A BLOG TO PUBLISH YOUR FINDINGS. If I can do it, you can. Or, start a facebook page to get your information out past the old media filter. Write letters to the editor, get on radio talk shows, start or join local groups of like-minded people.

Just stop complaining and focus your work. We are all short of time, so stop with the forwarding of cutsy or outrageous e-mails to your friends, stop with the TV reality shows, and become an investigator, a reporter and a political activist who doesn’t mind being called a racist, bigot, xenophobe, Islamophobe, hatemonger, etc. etc. etc!

To Rowana, in about 5 minutes I found the following links for Ohio Refugee Resettlement here, here, here and here (scroll down to Ohio). You must start to pull the information together for your location and then get the word out to the public where you live. By the way, there is also something fishy (besides the terror connections) going on in Columbus with micro-loans to Somali businesses and someone there needs to dig into that and tell the public who is funding those micro-loans (probably international shariah finance outfits!).

By the way, Rowana, there are 10 or 11 major federal contractors and some 300 plus subcontractors so its hard to keep track of which ones are operating in your city. One of those links above lists some subcontractors. That is why I recommend a local investigative approach and news outlet (blog or website written by you).

One more thing, Rowana, you have a pretty good governor right now, why not get a little delegation together to go and tell him what you know about corruption in the Somali community in Columbus.

To Gary, by law the resettlement contractors are supposed to “consult” with local government. Some do and some don’t, but you can be sure the “consultation” is cursory and does not include you—-the citizen and taxpayer.

Get in touch with me if you are serious about working on exposing the flaws in our legal immigration system by e-mailing me here: Ann@vigilantfreedom.com

Whopping food stamp fraud bust involves Chinese grocer

04/03/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just so you don’t get the idea that all immigrant food stamp fraud involves Middle Easterners and Africans, here is news about one of the biggest heists I’ve seen so far and it involves a Chinese immigrant this time.

From King 5:

SEATTLE — The owner of a small Seattle herb store walked into a federal courtroom Wednesday morning and pleaded guilty to defrauding the food stamp program.

Elsa Kwong agreed to pay back more than $1.5 million that she improperly obtained from the federal food program. She also forfeited $140,000 cash and two expensive automobiles. [How many times have I heard the complaints about immigrants with expensive cars!]

Kwong was charged last fall after Seattle Police and the United States Department of Agriculture, which runs the food stamp program, raided two businesses at 12th Ave. South and South Jackson Street.

Charging documents showed Seattle Chinese Herb and Grocery had around $100,000 in inventory in its store, yet it submitted more than $1.5 million in food stamps to be redeemed by the USDA.

RedState posted a graph today showing the astronomical rise in the use of food stamps in just the last few years, here.

It’s not just the economy stupid—it’s the reality that the redistribution of wealth is happening through the buying and selling of food stamp benefits. For newbies, here is how it works—owner of benefit (immigrant or “poor” person) doesn’t want food and is paid cash at 50 cents on the dollar by the store manager/owner who then redeems the food stamp for the full one dollar from the US taxpayer. And, you thought you were just feeding the hungry!

Where is an investigative reporter when you need one?

Type food stamp fraud into our search function and see dozens more stories like this one!

CIS report to be released next week on immigrant welfare use

03/30/2011 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Your tax dollars:

Everything in the world is happening next week it seems! Here is one more thing to put on your calendars!

On April 5th, according to a press release yesterday, the Center for Immigration Studies will release the findings of a new report entitled,“Welfare Use by Immigrant Households with Children: A Look at Cash, Medicaid, Housing, and Food Programs.”

WASHINGTON (March 29, 2011) – A new Center for Immigration Studies report finds that, 13 years after welfare reform, the share of immigrant-headed households (legal and illegal) with a child (under age 18) using at least one welfare program continues to be very high. This is partly due to the large share of immigrants with low levels of education and their resulting low incomes – not their legal status or an unwillingness to work. The major welfare programs examined in this report include cash assistance, food assistance, Medicaid, and public and subsidized housing.

The findings also show wide variation in welfare use by country of origin, with immigrants from some countries making extensive use of such programs, while those from other countries have relatively low use rates. Welfare use also varies by state, with Arizona, Texas, California, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon and Colorado having some of the highest levels of welfare use among immigrant households.

The report, “Welfare Use by Immigrant Households with Children: A Look at Cash, Medicaid, Housing, and Food Programs,” is authored by Steven A. Camarota, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies. It will be released Tuesday, April 5, at 9:00 a.m. during a panel discussion at the National Press Club, 14th & F streets, N.W.

I’ll bet you a buck the study will not be encouraging, unless of course you are an advocate of the Cloward-Piven strategy to bring down capitalism by flooding the welfare system.

I know one bit of data that was probably not available—the Office or Refugee Resettlement still has not fulfilled its legal requirement to produce welfare data and other data on refugees for its annual report to Congress now three years late! As a matter of fact, I think one reason a report has not been submitted in three years is because the welfare usage and employment figures are probably so horrible that the refugee industry does not want Congress to know about it.

Take a few minutes and contact your US Congressman and US Senators and ask them to demand that the ORR submit those three (2008,2009,2010) reports to Congress!