Tag: Afghanistan

NY: Afghan translator, family, arrested for welfare fraud, request interpreter!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Amirjan Hayatullah, Lailuma Meherdil, and Neshat Hayatullah
Photo: Albany County Sheriff’s Department

Here, first, is the simple, straightforward version of the story from WNYT Albany, NY.

Keep in mind that we have a special refugee program for translators (and others) from Afghanistan who supposedly helped the US called the Special Immigrant Visa.  We don’t know if this is how the family of alleged welfare cheats got into the US, but we do learn that Amirjan Hayatullah is still working for the US ARMY!

WNYT Channel 13:

 COHOES – Three people are arrested, accused of defrauding the Department of Social Services of $10,000. Even though police knew who they were looking for, tracking down the whereabouts of one of the suspects took a little extra work.

Lailuma Meherdil, 44, was arrested at her Cohoes home. Her husband, Amirjan Hayatullah, 47, was working in Louisiana employed by the United States Government as a translator on an army base, where police say he earned $150,000 a year.

The following week, police learned Hayatullah had returned home, but say they learned he threatened to kill his wife if she revealed his whereabouts.

Police found Hayatullah by secretly following the couple’s son, Neshat Hayatullah, to a hiding location in a wooded area on Manor Avenue.

The three suspects now face several charges.

Then get this! The interpreter wants a taxpayer-funded interpreter!

(I hope you “welcoming” local communities are budgeting the tens of thousands of dollars, just for translation services, one legal case like this one could cost your city or county!).

Our indispensable researcher ‘pungentpeppers’ learned that the Afghan interpreter for the US ARMY, is now requesting an interpreter for his dealings with our legal system!

From New York Citizen One:

 Amirjan Hayatullah was processed and transported to the Albany County Correctional Facility where he was held pending his arraignment in Albany County Court this morning. His arraignment before the Honorable Supreme Court Judge Thomas Breslin unfortunately had to be postponed when  Mr. Hayatullah requested an Afghanistan interpreter. His arraignment was rescheduled for today and he was arraigned on Grand Larceny Third Degree, and four counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree. At this time bail has not been set.

Next!  Wailing and moaning!  US dragging its feet granting visas to Afghan interpreters!

Afghanistan: Aid workers employed by refugee contractor IRC murdered by Taliban

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I wonder how long it takes some people (including Obama!) to get it—they don’t want us in the Middle East (once we have helped destabilize things) and the Middle East isn’t going to change as long as Islam is the dominant organizing force.  Yet, the new incoming President of the IRC says we must embrace political Islamism.   Are they just naive?

2002: Hamid Karzai receiving the IRC’s “FREEDOM” award from CEO George Rupp at New York gala

Here is the sad breaking news from AP:

 Insurgents shot and killed 12 civilians in two separate incidents over the weekend, including six aid workers employed on government projects, officials said Tuesday.

The bodies of six victims were found in the Gulran district of western Herat province, said Jamel Danish, media adviser for the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation.

Five were Afghan employees of the International Rescue Committee who had been kidnapped on Sunday, and the U.S-based group said it was temporarily suspending operations. It has worked in Afghanistan since 1988. The sixth victim worked for the ministry.

“The IRC is devastated and grief-stricken by the deaths of our colleagues who were all working to make a better Afghanistan,” IRC president George Rupp said in a statement.

President Hamid Karzai and the United Nations office in Afghanistan also condemned the killings, which the U.N. said could be classified as a war crime. The Taliban regularly target government employees.

Danish said the six were kidnapped by the Taliban and killed after negotiations to free them failed. His ministry with help from international groups seeks to improve the lives of Afghans in remote parts of the country.

We wrote critically about the IRC’s embrace of Karzai here, and questioned what the IRC is doing in Afghanistan anyway.

For new readers the International Rescue Committee is one of nine major federal contractors working to bring refugees to your towns.  The chief executive of this ‘non-profit’ pulls down more than $450,000 a year in salary and benefits thanks to the US taxpayer.

Afghan government supposedly trying to keep its people home

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Concerns about the welfare of asylum seekers as they flow out of one of the most violent countries in the world has the Afghan government taking action (we are told!).

Afghan asylum-seekers line up for food in Calais, France

Most impoverished countries want their people to illegally enter first world countries so that they can send remittances back home.  Heck, some countries’ economies (consider El Salvador) would crash if the migrants didn’t send home the moolah! So, we are expected to believe that the Kabul government wants the mostly young men to stay in Afghanistan and be unemployed.

And, then some Muslim countries want to send their Islamic foot soldiers into the West.  In this case, the IOM (using US $$$) probably gave the Afghan government loads of cash to do this “campaign,” but with no real expectation that it will succeed.   (I am so cynical!)

Here is the story from Radio Free Europe:

Afghan authorities have launched a campaign aimed at raising people’s awareness about the risks of taking illegal avenues to a new life abroad.

Afghanistan has earned a reputation as a source of illegal immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, prompting a backlash from some destination countries.

With nearly 2.6 million refugees in more than 80 countries, Afghanistan was the leading country of origin for refugees in 2012. And as the end-of-2014 withdrawal date for NATO troops nears, concerns have risen that the exodus of Afghans will only increase.

“Many Afghans who consider seeking asylum abroad have little knowledge of the dangers involved,” says Siddiq Hazratzai, a spokesperson for the Kabul office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The IOM is teaming up with Afghanistan’s Refugee and Repatriation Ministry, Labor and Social Affairs Ministry, and the United Nations Children’s Fund to carry out the three-month awareness campaign in all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

“The campaign aims at providing people with a wide range of relevant information, such as tightened immigration policies of host countries, the risks of falling victim to human traffickers, or treacherous routes to reach destination countries,” Hazratzai says.

State media is expected to play a major role in the campaign. Posters warning people of potential risks will be displayed in Kabul and other large cities.

In villages, authorities have asked influential imams and tribal elders to raise the issue with local residents during mosque sermons and private gatherings. 

Sure they will!  I bet those Imams are telling their flocks to get into the West and spread the word about Allah (al-Hijra).  What are these young men going to do in Afghanistan with no work anyway, just make trouble?

Afghanistan is the source of a quarter of the world’s “refugees.”

According to a recent report by the United Nations, one in four refugees in the world is from Afghanistan.

And get this!  Once again we are lead to believe that abjectly poor people can get this kind of money together to pay a human smuggler!   I don’t know too many working American young men who could “scrape together” this kind of money.  Someone, or some organization is supplying them with this cash!  Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past someone like George Soros or the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to supply the foot soldiers with the resources necessary to invade the West!

Potential asylum seekers have been known to pay up to $20,000 to smugglers who organize dangerous journeys to major refugee destinations — Europe, North America, and Australia.

Read it all.

Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan interpreters to be extended

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This little piece just came up in my alerts at Foreign Policy.  I don’t know if the bills were voted on yesterday to extend the program, but its one more thing to watch for.  Remember when I told you about the breakdown of who we would be bringing as “refugees” for 2013, here.  SIVs were expected to number 4,000.  Doesn’t that sound like an awful lot of people acting as interpreters?  I bet the definition gets stretched!

Foreign Policy posted this short news item:

U.S. lawmakers are set to vote on two different pieces of legislation Friday that could impact thousands of former and current Afghan interpreters who are seeking U.S. visas (Post).  The Afghan Allies Protection Act was passed in 2009 to help Afghans who were risking their lives by working for the U.S. mission, and are seen as legitimate targets by the Taliban and other militant groups, move to the United States once their work had concluded.  But only a small percentage of these visa requests -32 of more than 5,700 applications – has been approved.  A Senate bill would extend the program, set to expire next September, to 2015 and broaden coverage to include interpreters for coalition forces, media organizations, and non-governmental organizations.  A House proposal would also extend the program but would cut the number of available visas by two-thirds.

Here is an overview of the program run by the US State Department.  The SIVs are treated as refugees and are placed by a contractor in your community and are eligible for all forms of welfare, just like a refugee or asylee.

And, you thought the International Rescue Committee was just a bleeding heart NGO

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

IRC:  We love Hamid Karzai!

Karzai receives his award from now outgoing CEO George Rupp whose taxpayer-funded salary and benefits exceeded $450,000 a year!

 

Yesterday I told you about how the World Socialist Web Site feels about the second largest of our US Refugee Resettlement contractors (the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is the largest)—the International Rescue Committee that brings on average 10,000 or more refugees a year to your towns and cities.

But, not only that, they muck around in the business of countries all over the world while you pay their salaries and fund their New York galas.

Below (posted yesterday) is what the World Socialists dug out on their finances in an article critical of the organizations choice of David Miliband to head up the multi-million dollar do-gooder operation.  I think it’s called doing well by doing good!*

According to a report on the IRC from Root Cause, a non-profit research and consulting firm, published in the Independent, only 14 percent of its funding came from private sources. Government grants and contracts, in contrast, accounted for 44 percent, foreign government grants and contracts 27 percent and 11 percent from UN agency grants and contracts. As its president, Miliband will receive £263,000 a year (US$400,000) plus £30,000 (US$52,000) from related groups—five times the salary he received as an MP.  [And, about equal to Rupp’s!—ed]

Today a reader sent me this list of the recipients of the IRC’s prestigious “freedom” award given each year, we are told, at a swanky black-tie event in NYC.  Look who they honored in 2002—none other than Afghanistan’s creepy and corrupt President Hamid Karzai!    Earlier awards went to George Soros and John McCain which tells us a lot!

But, what makes that old news so interesting is that our reader directs us to this Reuters story today:

CIA Bribes Karzai: Millions In ‘Ghost Money’ Paid To Afghanistan President’s Office, New York Times Reports

April 29 (Reuters) – Tens of millions of U.S. dollars in cash were delivered by the CIA in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, the New York Times says, citing current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

The so-called “ghost money” was meant to buy influence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but instead fuelled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan, the newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying.

“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan”, one American official said, “was the United States.”

The CIA declined to comment on the report and the U.S. State Department did not immediately comment. The New York Times did not publish any comment from Karzai or his office.

“We called it ‘ghost money’,” Khalil Roman, who served as Karzai’s chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, told the New York Times. “It came in secret and it left in secret.”

So, either the IRC leaders are incredibly naive suck-ups, or, could they be the bag men?

Maybe that World Socialist Web Site is on to something when they suggest that the IRC’s “humanitarian” involvement in Afghanistan and elsewhere is just a pretty good cover:

The IRC’s charity status is used as a front behind which Washington pursues its strategic interests throughout the globe

Bottom line for us?  Why the hell should hardworking American taxpayers be paying for whatever they are doing—galas for the likes of Karzai, Soros and McCain, or CIA influence buying?

Is the IRC ‘working’ in your city?  Check out their US map here.   And, here is where they are working across the globe.

For new readers: there are presently nine major federal contractors and 300 or so subcontractors bringing refugees and working with asylum seekers in your towns.

One more thing!  I forgot to tell you!  The IRC is a pusher of the Gang of Eight amnesty bill.  Go here and see how they have even drafted the message they want their groupies to send to Congress!  Could it be because there is more money for them and the potential for more ‘clients’ to resettle if the bill becomes law.

*There is actually a song called The Old Dope Peddler which includes these lines:

It’s the old dope peddler

Doing well by doing good.

Kind of schmaltzy but appropriate when considering Karzai, don’t you think?  Listen!