Category: Who is going where

Expert responds to Nashville news about more refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you in two posts last week (here and here) that Nashville, TN would soon have more refugees in a city already experiencing severe problems with the ‘joys’ of multicultural immigration.

National expert on Refugee Resettlement, Don Barnett,  himself a resident of Tennessee, weighed in yesterday in the Tennessean on this latest inititative in an opinion piece entitled, “Refugee resettlement making someone rich.”  

After citing facts about refugee resettlement and the amount of welfare useage among refugees, he says what we have said here too, that non-profit church groups collecting taxpayer funds are driving refugee resettlement.

This program would end tomorrow if the refugee resettlement agencies such as Catholic Charities were required to use their own resources to keep it going. At one time refugee resettlement was the work of organizations practicing true sacrificial charity. Unfortunately, the resettlement agencies have morphed into profit-driven federal contractors.

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Naturally, they and their parent organizations have a huge incentive to advocate for resettlement to the U.S. as a solution to the world’s refugee problem.

Mr. Barnett has been researching and writing on this topic for nearly two decades.

Fort Wayne can just say “no”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update  2/22/08:  Here is the latest from Ft. Wayne today.   

We’ve been writing on and off FOR MONTHS about Fort Wayne, Indiana’s problem with way too many refugees for the county health department to handle.   I was therefore surprised to get a news alert tonight about yet another plea from the stretched city for funds from the federal government.  Read about how Ft. Wayne is getting advice but no money so far.

 The county has not tapped into any new funding streams, but a federal agency devoted to helping re-settle refugees in this country has people in the city this week advising local officials on what help may be out there.

Ft. Wayne has had problems with large numbers of refugees arriving wth TB and the city is anticipating another 800 refugees this year.

We’ve said it before, and we will say it again.  The city could just say “NO”—no new refugees until funding is found.

We have a whole archive of Ft. Wayne posts here.

Bosnian Muslim refugees begin to change America

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to statistics not available to the general public, the United States admitted 103,107 Bosnian Muslims into the country through the Refugee Resettlement program in 10 years from 1993-2003.  Now, we are seeing the results of that Clinton Administration decision bearing fruit as a controversy arises along with a minaret on the St. Louis skyline.

Jerry Gordon of the American Congress for Truth has the story and photos here. 

Why a giant minaret in South St. Louis? There’s only one reason: cultural Jihad.

Funny business in Erie, PA refugee agency

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Months ago we mentioned Erie, PA to you.    According to Audrey Singer in a report at the Brookings Institute, as of 2000 it was one of the top 10 small cities in the US to receive refugees.   In fact, it was number 3 on her top 10 list.  Refugees made up at that time 74% of the foreign born population in Erie.

The International Institute of Erie, a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), is responsible for bringing thousands of refugees from all over the world to Erie.  Originating in 1919 and existing under various umbrellas since that time, the Institute affiliated with USCRI less than 10 years ago and now receives the bulk of its funding as “pass through” federal grants from USCRI.

However, apparently their financial position is bleak and earlier this month USCRI blamed its new director for somehow mishandling the funds.

The executive director of the International Institute of Erie was fired for misusing institute money, sources close to the matter said.

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Daniel S. O’Brien was led from the institute’s offices on Jan. 25. He had worked at the agency, which finds homes, jobs and health services for refugees, for just six months.

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“The issue with Danny was egregious,” said Peter Limon, the director of field offices at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, the Washington, D.C.-based aid agency that manages the institute. “He violated some very serious company policies.”

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Limon would not say how much money was involved or what happened to it.

Note that it is Peter Limon involved here, I guess USCRI must be a family run outfit.  See Lavinia Limon here.

No charges have been filed.

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O’Brien blamed the matter on “accounting differences.” He, too, declined to offer specifics.

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“I want to leave things positive for the institute,” he said. “They’ve had enough bad press already.”

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O’Brien joined the institute after a long career with the Boy Scouts of America. He often was at odds with Limon and others at the U.S. Committee.

I’d like to know what the other “bad press” has been for the Institute and why Mr. O’Brien, whose reputation is being hurt, is so willing to protect apparent past bad management.

I went back to the Institute’s most recent Form 990 and was interested to find an “Independent Audit” attached where auditors reported in a letter to the Board of Directors in March 2007, well before Mr. O’Brien was employed there, that it is doubtful  the organization could continue to exist.   The Institute reported a loss of $64,784 in its Form 990 for fiscal year ending in June 2006.

Hmmm!  I wonder if there is more to this story.

Check out also the recent posts on the International Institute of CT here.

Muslim Iraqis to Albany, where are the Christians?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is another of those refugee template stories, this time from the Albany Times-Union.   The difference between the Iraqi refugee stories and the refugees-in-camps stories is that the reporter always puts in a little extra effort to say how dangerous Iraq is thanks to us. 

To set the scene, the reporter begins his heartwarming story by describing a nice little family gathering where widowed mother serves her sons a meal of Baghdad style pita wraps as they chat in Arabic in the safety of their nice little apartment in the capital of the great state of NY–Albany.    What is wrong with this picture?

Jenan Salman had prepared a favorite dish for her sons, Bakr Najm, 27, Omar Najm, 22, and Othman Najm, 17. They were sharing it with 35-year-old Yaser Almahdawi, also an Iraqi refugee, one who lives nearby and has become like one of the family.

Here is what I want to know?  Why are we bringing fighting aged young Muslim men to America?  Why are our men of the same age fighting and dying for freedom in Iraq while their men gobble down taxpayer funded pitas in the nice little apartment in upstate New York?

Here comes Lavinia Limon of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (the mothership to the CT volag I’ve been writing about) to explain the terrible circumstances these young men left behind.

“We are seeing in Iraqi refugees a heightened level of trauma compared to other refugees,” said USCRI president Lavinia Limon. “Most refugees come here from some war situation, but in the case of Iraq their young people have seen things that will never leave them. Some have seen family, neighbors blown apart.

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“There are still millions of Iraqis over there in dire circumstances, many living under direct death threats and it’s getting progressively worse.”

It’s getting progressively worse!  Where is she getting that information?  Or, is that just what the mainstream reporters want to hear? 

Then Almahdawi jumps in because he speaks perfect English (he was an interpreter) to tell us more.

Almahdawi said neither he nor Salman and her sons did anything that would mark them for death by the Iraq government, but all of them said they would not feel safe if they returned to Baghdad.

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“It is dangerous there, too many gangs in the streets,” said Almahdawi, the interpreter, who left behind four brothers and three sisters.

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The violence is steeped in centuries of unrest between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Salman and her family are Sunnis, and Almahdawi said he isn’t affiliated with either.

Yeh, well so do our young fighting men and women feel “unsafe” there too.   These refugees have already said they are not targets.  Fearful of gangs?  Well, I hate to break it to you but you will find those in Albany as well.

So, we have learned that the Salman family are Sunni’s who weren’t personally in any danger, were not personally persecuted.  The interpreter doesn’t say he was a target and won’t even say whether he is Sunni or Shia, or what he is.  

How come every story I see these days about the Iraqi refugees never has any truly persecuted Christian refugees in them?  Where are the Christians?

And, by the way, here is Lavinia Limon’s testimony to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus at the end of last year, not a word about persecuted Christians, or any other persecuted minority either.