Burmese refugees jittery about USCIS fraud investigation

It appears that the USCIS is doing something rarely done and that is attempting to find holes in the system that have allowed the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program to chug along for decades with rarely an examination of the fraud that we hear is rampant at processing centers throughout the world.
The suspicion of fraud in the huge Burmese flow to America, processed mostly through the Muslim country of Malaysia, does not surprise me (I’ve talked to sources who know about fraud first hand!).

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Why aren’t we entitled to balanced reporting from Voice of America?

Since FY07 we admitted 166,539 refugees from Burma. The vast majority are Christians and many obediently go to work in meatpacking towns across the country.
Although it should be noted that we have started to bring in more Muslim Rohingya. In Obama’s last two years in office we admitted 3,809, and 3,127 Muslims (some processed through Malaysia) to bring the total to 19,607 since FY07.
Texas, by far, is the number one placement destination.
Here is reporter Victoria Macchi penning a story obviously tilted toward ‘ain’t Trump’s people awful’! 
Voice of America! Shouldn’t we expect more from a media outlet that works FOR the US government!

US Investigation Rattles Resettled Burmese Refugees

WASHINGTON —
When letters from the U.S. government last month summoned more than 1,000 Burmese refugees in the United States for official interviews, chatter spread across the immigrant community: Were the letters real? Did the refugees have to attend? What was the government trying to glean from meeting with refugees who were already in the country, in some cases for years?

The letters — sent by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that conducts interviews with refugees overseas and vets immigration applications — were real.

Some of the refugees opted to go to the interviews, depending on where they were in the residency or citizenship process. Failing to comply could jeopardize pending immigration applications, according to the letters.

The ultimate goal of the investigation into possible identity fraud — specifically, two refugees entering under the same name — that may go back nearly a decade remains unclear a month later. USCIS will not say whether criminal charges have been or will be filed, and refugee advocates have not reported any such actions.

[….]

Jill Niswander, director of communications and fund development at EMBARC Iowa, a refugee support organization in Des Moines, Iowa, said the USCIS interview requests rattled the Burmese community.

This next bit is when Ms Macchi really shows her bias, and, in so doing, causes me to dismiss VOA as a balanced news source. But, I guess what more can you expect from ‘journalists’ educated at Columbia Univ.  They just can’t help themselves!

The investigation into potential identity fraud cases isn’t the first time the U.S. has investigated its refugee vetting process. It’s rare, and narrow in scope when it does happen. Yet, an internet search of fraud and refugee-vetting turned up a mix of stories, many of which tout the risk of refugees to the country. The subject is a favorite among ultra-conservative, pseudo news sites and xenophobic blogs.

In one, the U.S. temporarily suspended refugee arrivals from East Africa in 2008 after some refugees failed DNA testing to confirm blood relations they claimed in their paperwork.

Somali fraud!
She downplays the incredible degree of fraud uncovered by the State Department in 2008 (in one of the only fraud investigations I know of!) which was first revealed by Miriam Jordan at The Wall Street Journal (not this “xenophobic blog”).  The State Department estimated that at least 20,000 Somalis entered the US fraudulently through family reunification and the whole P-3 program for Somalis and other Africans was closed for more than four years! Ms. Macchi says “temporarily suspended!”  See here.
The fact that there was very little coverage of the Somali cheaters (except at “ultra-conservative, pseudo news sites and xenophobic blogs”) is because the mainstream media and probably VOA never mentioned it because it didn’t fit their narrative!
Not one of the Somali liars was removed from the country that I know of!
Ms. Macchi goes on…..

Though the problem originated on the ground in Malaysia, when refugees were registered with the U.N. system, it remains unclear how the errors occurred — whether there was a system for buying refugee identity cards, or errors in data entry in the rush to register refugees, or if refugees assumed the identities of other refugees in an attempt to get out of a country that was threatening them.

So, aren’t those all legitimate reasons to see if fraud is occurring, and isn’t it about time we uncover the truth! 

My guess is that the fraud is occurring either with the UNHCR or through the International Rescue Committee (one of the nine federal resettlement contractors) that works for the US State Department in Malaysia, see here.
Someone doing the paperwork is being bought off I suspect. Whatever it is, American citizens (paying for it all!) have a right to know!
There is more, but the darn article was jumping around my screen so much I couldn’t stand it another minute.

Refugee lobby in high dudgeon over Trump refugee numbers slump

Their paying client numbers are very low right now and could hit an all-time low if this trend continues.
I started this post simply wanting to let readers know what the normal sequence is in a given year as the feds move toward the next fiscal year, but then I noticed the press release from the Refugee Council USA-–the lobbying arm of the refugee industry.
I wanted to get the jump on them as we approach the 6-month mark in the refugee admission year of FY18 by telling you what the time table for their action will be.  (Fiscal years begin on October 1 and extend to September 30th, so April first marks the 6 month mark.) So, I’ll do that, then tell you about the press release.

Mary and Eleanor
Ms. Giovagnoli is now the director of the Refugee Council USA the lobbying arm of the refugee industry and on the left is Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First at an earlier event.

And, I said here yesterday, admission numbers are way below where they would normally be at this time of year (that isn’t to say they won’t rebound in the second half of the year because some of that depends on how much cash Congress put in the recent gigantic omnibus).
Abstract prep
At about this time in a normal year, the subcontractors are busy as beavers in hundreds of US towns and cities putting together their ‘Abstracts’ in secrecy.  That is the plan for your community with how many refugees your local agency desires.
Scoping meeting sham
In a normal year the US State Department holds a scoping meeting in about May to basically see how many refugees the contractors want in the upcoming year and where they might come from.  (The State Dept. did not hold such a meeting last year that we know of, and I’m betting the newbies in there don’t even know about it.)
Ostensibly the scoping meeting is to gauge your views too, but in a number of years where we participated and many of you, my readers, sent in comments, it was pretty clear that the State Department did not want to hear about objections to the program.  If anyone is interested in what we said, there are dozens and dozens of posts filed here about what happened in 2012-2016 with those “scoping meetings.”  (See category drop-down for State Department Testimony.)
It would be nice (and fair!) if the State Department reinstated scoping meetings and made them available to all Americans.  Heck, it would be great if they went on the road and held hearings!
Presidential determination for coming year
The Abstract prep and the scoping meetings were (are) lead-ups to August when the President’s people supposedly meet with Congressional committees in the House and Senate to discuss the coming year.  There are supposed to be Congressional hearings (before the submission of the ceiling) at this point, but that never happens.
The President then sends a ‘determination’ letter (and report) to Congress for the new fiscal year which begins October 1.  The President decides what the CEILING will be for the coming fiscal year—how many refugees and from where.  This is a CEILING, A CAP, and is not a goal although the contractors want it to be a goal or target.
I told you yesterday about the myriad stories in the media about “plummeting” numbers.
And, also yesterday, the lobbying arm of the refugee industry—Refugee Council USA sent out a press release to whack the Trump Administration and beg for this year’s 45,000.
Right now, for new readers, the CEILING is 45,000, but at the present rate of entry we will get no where near that (thus the press blast yesterday from RCUSA).

Washington, D.C. – Midway through Fiscal Year 2018, the Trump administration has admitted only a quarter of the 45,000 refugees it pledged to take in, making it highly unlikely that the United States will meets its anticipated admissions goal. Instead, the administration appears to be on track to admit roughly 22,000 refugees, far below any admissions number since the modern refugee program began in 1980. Today, Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) gathered experts to discuss the immediate and long-term implications of this failure.

More here. Mary, Eleanor and others participated.

Trump and Pompeo
Mike Pompeo at the State Department is still a wildcard!

Get ready for the big FY19 push to start at any time 
Although they are still in panic-mode and pushing for the 45,000, this is about the time of year the yammering begins for next year’s numbers.  The contractors shoot really high.
Watch them ask for 100,000 or more (to make up for lost time and lost revenue for them).
Last year, because of Trump’s campaign promises they were pushing for a paltry 75,000.  What will it be this year?  We will be watching!
The Refugee Council USA has an Activist Toolkit that you might benefit from seeing. Click here. It might give you some ideas!

I sure hope that none of this is being paid for with our tax dollars! Congress are you paying attention?

And lastly, I got a chuckle seeing this sample letter (from the toolkit) that refugees are encouraged to send to newspapers:
 
RCUSA sample letter
 
 
 

TB cases take big jump in big Apple

Health officials claim they don’t know why….
….but then go on to point out that most cases are among immigrants!  Too funny if it weren’t such a deadly serious business.
 

tuberculosis-cartoon
Is this the scariest cartoon!

 
From the New York Post (Hat tip: Judy):

The number of tuberculosis cases in New York City suddenly jumped by 10 percent last year — the largest increase since 1992, according to the Health Department.

TB is a highly infectious bacterial disease that largely attacks the lungs, but can also infect and spread to other organs, including the kidneys, spine or brain.

[….]

In an alert to medical professionals Monday, the Health Department offered no explanation for the surge.

[….]

Sixty-three percent of TB cases occurred among males.

TB disproportionately affects foreign-born New Yorkers — accounting for 86 percent of all cases in the city.

Many of the infected city residents came from China, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India or Mexico.

 
For much more on the re-emergence of Tuberculosis in the US, see my ‘health issues‘ category by clicking here.

Parents arrested in teen abuse case; father was an Iraqi interpreter for US

There are dozens of reports in publications around the world about the case of a missing San Antonio teen, Maarib al-Hishmawi, now found alive and well in the care of an unnamed organization that protected her.
She went into hiding because she didn’t want to go through with an arranged marriage (this is the United States!) and she reported she suffered physical abuse by her parents because of her refusal to essentially be sold to a man she didn’t know for $20,000. (Did I mention that this is the United States!).
 

Maarib screenshot
Photo from:  http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2018/03/26/Iraqi-girl-tortured-with-Hot-Oil-in-US-for-refusing-forced-marriage.html

 
I read several stories on the case and note that some, including the Washington Post, skirted the subject of just how this family came to live in the US in the first place.
At other reports, including here at the Daily Caller, we learn that Maarib’s father was an interpreter and thus is likely to have been admitted on a Special Immigrant Visa.
Faithful reader know that I have been writing about the huge number of Afghans and Iraqis (with extended families) which have been arriving in the US for the last ten years and the pace has actually been increasing, especially from Afghanistan, during the Trump Administration. (This family obviously arrived during the Obama Admin.)
See my recent posts on SIVs here and here.
Here is the Daily Caller, but if you simply search for ‘Maarib al-Hishmawi’ you will see the story has gone viral.

Authorities arrested a Muslim couple from Iraq March 23 in San Antonio, Texas, for beating and torturing their daughter after she refused a forced marriage.

Sixteen-year-old Maarib Al Hishmawi ran away from Taft High School at the end of January and remained missing until authorities announced they found her as of March 24, according to the San Antonio Express-News. When authorities finally located Maarib, she told them she fled because her parents beat her with broomsticks, poured hot cooking oil on her, and choked her “almost to the point of unconsciousness.” These actions were due to Maarib’s refusal of consent to a forced marriage with an older man.

Iraqi girl parents
Parents arrested last Friday

“This young lady … was subjected to some pretty bad abuse because she didn’t want to be married to this person,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told The Washington Post.

Maarib’s parents, Abdulah Fahmi Al Hishmawi and Hamdiyah Sabah Al Hishmawi, arranged in mid-2017 to marry their daughter to an older man once he agreed to pay the family $20,000, investigators said.

[….]

Abdulah became increasingly agitated during the investigation, blaming a lack of police effort for his daughter’s continued disappearance and even suggested she was kidnapped and taken back to the Middle East. Authorities found Maarib, however, in mid-March in another city. They declined to name the group who sheltered her during that time.

[….]

Abdulah immigrated to the U.S. in 2016 from Iraq with his six children after having worked for the U.S. forces as an interpreter, he said. Maarib’s family held two year visas for the U.S. but did not go into detail about what kind of visas they were, Officials told San Antonio Express-News.  [I don’t know what the reference to two years is, perhaps they have to renew it at that time.  I’ll see if I can find out.—ed]

More here.
I should mention that SIV families come under the care of the usual gang of US State Department resettlement contractors and are treated as refugees. So, assuming they were resettled in San Antonio, resettlement agencies headquartered there would know them. I guess these parents missed the cultural orientation sessions they were supposedly given.
I expect to see women’s rights activists and the NOW gang out in force condemning arranged marriages!
Find resettlement agencies working where you live by clicking here.  They can place refugees within a hundred miles of those offices.

Another Uzbek refugee on trial on terror charges

I’m getting sick of these Uzbek refugees who should never have been admitted to the US under questionable circumstances in the first place—both George W. Bush and Obama were doing it!
Uzbekistan is a Muslim country, supposedly moderate, so the refugees we got are apparently the trouble makers the moderate government wanted removed.  Our Presidents said, sure we’ll take care of it for you.
This isn’t going to be a thorough post of Uzbek terrorists because I want to move on this morning, however I see just last month an Uzbek Islamic terrorist pleaded guilty to killing five in a Sweden truck attack.
Ten days ago we reported on Uzbek convicted terrorist Fazliddin Kurbanov who was found guilty of trying to kill a California prison warden (tried to behead him!).***

Trump and Turnbull
Trump agreed to take Australia’s rejected refugees, why?  https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2018/03/05/more-of-australias-rejected-asylum-seekers-leave-for-us/

 
My Uzbek archive is here.
Someone should write a book! See if you can get the Dept. of State and the CIA to cough up the real story on why we brought so many Uzbek fake ‘refugees’ to the US and distributed them around the country.

BTW, one of my major complaints with the US Refugee Admissions Program is that we aren’t picking the most needy people to be our refugees, we often use the program for extracurricular foreign policy objectives.  

Trump is doing it with the “dumb” Australia deal.  Bush did it with Uzbeks and Meskhetians. Before him Clinton did it with Albanians. Obama continued the Uzbek flow, and was doing it with Central Americans among others.
jamshid-muhtorov-bakhtiyor-jumaev (1)
Here is some news on Bahktiyor Jumaev and his alleged former Islamic jihadist roommate Jamshid Muhtorov—refugees who should never have been here!
From Breitbart:
(hat tip: Chris)

The trial for a refugee from Uzbekistan charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization by wiring money to the “Islamic Jihad Union” (IJU) began in Denver, Colorado, on Thursday.

Prosecutors claim Bahktiyor Jumaev developed a closeness with fellow Uzbek Jamshid Muhtorov when the pair shared an apartment and that the two men discussed joining the IJU through phone calls and emails by using code words such as “wedding” to describe jihad.

“It’s a crime to send money or property to a terrorist organization,” said prosecutor Gregory Holloway at a courthouse in Denver. “That’s why we’re here.”

[….]

In January, Jumaev’s lawyers asked a judge not to allow the prosecution to show jurors a video showing the beheading of FBI agents found on Muhtorov’s computer.

“There is no evidence that Mr. Jumaev viewed any or most of the Muhtorov electronic evidence, particularly the most violent ones,” the motion read.

Muhtorov was first arrested before boarding a flight in Chicago back in 2012 and is currently being tried separately. He has already served five years in jail without trial, and a decision last year to release him on bail was eventually reversed by a federal judge.

The men are two of a number Uzbek migrants charged with terrorism-related offenses in the past year. Last August, 22-year-old Uzbek-American Abror Habibo pled guilty to charges of agreeing to fund terrorist activity, after buying another man a plane ticket to Syria in order to join the Islamic State.

Uzbek migrant Sayfullo Saipov also faces charges of terrorist after carrying out a truck attack that killed eight people and injured at least a dozen others in the city’s deadliest attack since 9/11.

***Breitbart forgot to mention Fazliddin Kurbanov. The pair in Colorado were sending money supposedly, Kurbanov was actually planning bombings and tried to kill the prison warden.
And, don’t you wonder why Jamshid Muhtorov hasn’t gone to trial yet?