Category: Other Immigration

Feds raid three Indiana stores operated by men with ties to Yemen

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a little variation on the usual food stamp fraud schemes we write about.  This one involves racketeering and tax fraud.  (Hey, Allahsoldier, no Somalis in this story!)

From the Indychannel News:

INDIANAPOLIS — Authorities raided three stores and three homes in central Indiana Thursday afternoon in an investigation that began more than six months ago, police said.

The raid involved allegations of corrupt business influence, racketeering and tax fraud, Indianapolis police Lt. Jeff Duhamell said.

[….]

Deputy Marion County Prosecutor Larry Brodeur said the stores are operated by men with ties to the Middle East, and that money generated through sales of phones and counterfeit designer goods was wired back to Yemen.

“Whenever money is being transferred to a country like Yemen, which does appear to sponsor terrorist activity, certainly that thought (of possibly funding terrorist activity) is there,” he said.

Yup, sure is.

Is anyone checking on that E-2 Treaty Investor visa as the channel through which these scammers are getting into the country?

Religious leaders go (far) left as flocks go right

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is another article that addresses the growing schism in many American faith communities.   No where is the divide so great and obvious as it is on the issue of immigration.

Author James R. Edwards Jr. of the Center for Immigration Studies published at Right Side News begins:

Research demonstrates that elites and the rank-and-file in many segments of society (e.g., business, religion, organized labor) are split over immigration issues. Elites tend to manifest post-American, cosmopolitan ideologies, while their grassroots members preserve deep-seated patriotic beliefs and attitudes, including with regard to immigration.

This phenomenon has become more pronounced in recent times in religious groups.

Read it all.   How it will end is anyone’s guess.   Incidentally along with this piece read Angelo Codevilla’s excellent analysis at American Spectator from earlier this summer of the ruling class vs. the country class.   It is, in my view, exactly the same phenomenon—some church leaders are in the ruling class.  Codevilla will help you see more clearly how the political landscape in the country has shifted as the country class rears its head.

One more thought:  I continue to be perplexed as to how the religious leaders promoting more immigration (more refugees and more illegal aliens) to supply cheap labor for business (see yesterday’s post for just one example), can justify being the handmaidens of big corporations.  Would someone please explain the rationale!

Wouldn’t the Christian thing to do be to work to improve the lives of people where they live rather then uproot them from their respective cultures and place them in meatpacking jobs, or, to live in American slums with no job?

Obama’s Auntie Zeituni Onyango tells her story

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Via Gateway Pundit, here is the latest news about Obama’s illegal-immigrant aunt from an exclusive interview at WBZ in Boston.

“If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen.” Those are the words from 58-year-old Zeituni Onyango of Kenya in a recent exclusive interview with WBZ-TV.

Onyango is the aunt of President Barack Obama. She lived in the United States illegally for years, receiving public assistance in Boston.

Aunt Zeituni, as she has come to be known, first surfaced in the public light in 2008, in the final days of the Presidential election. Then-candidate Obama said that he was not against the possible deportation of his aunt. “If she has violated laws, then those laws have to be obeyed,” he told CBS’s Katie Couric. “We are a nation of laws.”

Onyango had violated the law, and she knew it.

“I knew I had overstayed” she told WBZ-TV’s Jonathan Elias when the two sat down one-on-one.

Here’s where your tax money is going:

For two years Onyango said she lived in a homeless shelter, before she was assigned public housing despite thousands of legal residents also awaiting assistance. “I didn’t take any advantage of the system. The system took advantage of me.”

“I didn’t ask for it; they gave it to me. Ask your system. I didn’t create it or vote for it. Go and ask your system,” she said unapologetically.

And she’s right. The system provided her assistance despite her status as an illegal immigrant.

Here’s something notable. Obama’s father’s family seems to be both Muslim and non-Muslim as far as I can find out. The WBZ article continues:

Onyango hired a top immigration lawyer from Cleveland to help fight her case. We asked how she afforded that lawyer, when she claimed poverty.

“When you believe in Jesus Christ and almighty God, my help comes from heaven,” she responded.

As with Obama, one can’t help asking what she really believes. She seems like a sharp woman, but not necessarily an honest or straightforward one. But I never can help laughing at the idea that Obama has an ounce of compassion when he lets not only his Auntie but his brother George and various other relatives live in poverty without even a word of regret or encouragement.

There’s more at the above link including a video of the interview.

Our previous posts about Auntie Zeituni are here.

Update, 9/24: Here is part 2 of the interview.

France and Germany roiled over plans for Roma

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Moving south from Sweden, where elections today will determine whether Sweden’s open door policy toward immigrants and refugees will continue, to France and Germany where a dispute has grown between the two countries about what to do with the Roma (also known as gypsies).

From the New York Times:

BERLIN — European tempers over the treatment of Roma immigrants flared again on Friday, as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the Germans were preparing to follow France’s lead and expel migrant Roma, while German officials denied they had said any such thing.

The altercation marked a significant widening of the diplomatic repercussions spreading across Europe after France in July began deporting Roma to their homes in Romania and Bulgaria.

Read on.

Is this just one more example of the growing rise in ethnic nationalism?

Look for the Roma to appear soon on the list as refugees being resettled in the US.  Afterall, there are lots of precidents.  How is this attempt by France to keep France for the French any different than the Bhutanese wanting Bhutan for the Bhutanese?   When Bhutan expelled the Nepalese and sent them back to Nepal, we scurried in (critical of Bhutan) and promised to take 60,000!  (See the latest post here at RRW on how many have arrived.)   One could say Burma has done the same—expelled those it believes not to be truly Burmese.  Now we take their minorities.   So, will the Roma be next?  Just wondering.

Immigrants treated as slaves in Florida

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, they came here under a LEGAL program.   This is one more reason why ALL legal immigration programs must be scrutinized right along with all of the illegal immigration everyone focuses on.

From AFP News:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A Florida couple pleaded guilty to conspiring to hold 39 Filipino employees against their will working in country clubs and hotels, the US Justice Department said Friday.

Sophia Manuel, 41, and Alfonso Baldonado Jr., 45, were owners of a labor contracting service based in the Florida city of Boca Raton. [I would like to know the immigration status of Manuel and Baldonado–ed]

Manuel and Baldonado “conspired to obtain a cheap, compliant and readily available labor pool, by making false promises to entice the victims to incur debts,” read a Department of Justice statement, quoting court documents.

“The defendants then compelled the victims’ labor and services through threats to have the workers arrested and deported, knowing the workers faced serious economic harm and possible incarceration for nonpayment of debts in the Philippines.”

Imagine this, the alleged slave owner lied on his H2B visa application.

Manuel also pleaded guilty to lying in an application filed with the US Labor Department to obtain foreign labor certifications and visas under the federal H2B guest worker program.

We reported a very similar story back in June 2009 in Kansas.  I put some of the blame on these hotel owners as well. 

And, weren’t there some big wig hotel owners working with Republicans Grover Norquist and Tamar Jacoby (along with Leftwing Open Borders advocates) to plan a strategy to get more immigrant labor into the US.  Yes, there were, here.

Even my US Senator, Democrat Barbara Mikulski (up for reelection this November), busied herself in 2006 and got the H2B visas increased to supply labor supposedly needed by big business in Maryland, here.