North American Bosniaks distance themselves from the alleged ISIS supporters. http://www.stlbosnians.com/statement-about-six-individuals-of-bosnian-descent-accused-of-terrorist-activity/
This is an update of the story that broke here a week ago.
New readers may wish to visit that post for a little background on how the Clinton Administration brought in thousands of Bosnian Muslims when they helped break up Yugoslavia.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — An immigrant couple from Bosnia pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges of funneling money and military supplies to extremist groups in Iraq and Syria.
[….]
Each of the six suspects is now in federal custody after the Tuesday arrest in Germany of Jasminka Ramic, 42.
[….]
Bosnian community leaders in St. Louis, which has the largest population among U.S. cities of refugees from the former Yugoslavia, say the arrests of the Hodzics and a third local resident, 37-year-old Armin Harcevic, tarnishes a community whose members have worked tirelessly to embrace their adopted homeland. Most of the estimated 70,000 Bosnians in St. Louis are Muslim and arrived after the war that broke out in the early 1990s.
Click here for some previous posts we have written on Bosnian refugees here in America. We also have a bunch of posts on all sorts of refugee problems in St. Louis, here. See especially this postabout how a refugee contractor wants to further ‘diversify’ St. Louis by 2020.
So it isn’t just our Somali refugees thumbing their noses at the country that gave them a home, now it’s Bosnians in Missouri, Illinois and New York.
Before we report the news, just a reminder that it was the Clinton Administration that admitted tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims to the US in the wake of his phony-baloney war. Many initially went to Iowa to work for Clinton’s pals in the meat packing industry including Tyson Foods! We learned about the Clinton gift of cheap labor to BIG MEAT here (in an agricultural publication) in 2008.
As Clinton’s Bosnians make the news…refugee contractor Lavinia Limon as she appeared in 1996 when she oversaw the resettlement of tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims to the US.
Here is the Washington Times on the news that broke yesterday (hat tip: ‘Pungentpeppers’):
ST. LOUIS (AP) – Six Bosnian immigrants have been accused of sending money and equipment to terrorists oversees, including fighters with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida in Iraq, the U.S. attorney’s office announced Friday.
An indictment unsealed Friday in St. Louis said the defendants donated money themselves and in some cases collected funds from others in the U.S. and sent the donations overseas. It says two of the defendants used some of the money to buy U.S. military uniforms, firearms accessories, tactical gear and other equipment, which was shipped to people in Turkey and Saudi Arabia who forwarded the supplies to terrorists.
The supplies and money eventually made their way to fighters in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, according to the indictment. Money also was sent to support family members of people fighting in Iraq and elsewhere, the indictment says. All of the defendants knew where the money and supplies were going, the indictment says.
The indictment alleges the conspiracy began no later than May 2013 and that the defendants used email, phones and social media websites including Facebook to communicate using coded words, such as “brothers,” ”lions” and “Bosnian brothers.”
All six people who are charged are natives of Bosnia who were living in the U.S. legally. Three are naturalized citizens; the other three had either refugee or legal resident status, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. [By the way, when I began writing this blog more than 7 years ago, that ‘r’ word would never be mentioned, they would only be immigrants if even that word was used, times are changing!—ed]
The indictment names Ramiz Zijad Hodzic, 40, his wife, Sedina Unkic Hodzic, 35, and Armin Harcevic, 37, all of St. Louis County; Nihad Rosic, 26 of Utica, New York; Mediha Medy Salkicevic, 34, of Schiller Park, Illinois; and Jasminka Ramic, 42 of Rockford, Illinois. [Utica is the UN-designated Town that Loves Refugees—ed]
All face charges of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists and with providing material support to terrorists. Rosic and Ramiz Hodzic are also charged with conspiring to kill and maim people in a foreign country.
More on how St. Louis has become the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia itself!
The International Institute helped make it happen. That is the same refugee contractor that recently made a vow to create in St. Louis the largest ethnic diversified city in the nation by 2020. We told you about thathere.
According to the International Institute of St. Louis, which sponsored the largest early wave of immigrants, about 50,000 people of Bosnian descent – either immigrants or their American-born children – have settled in the St. Louis area.
About the photo and just a little tying-up of loose ends:
The International Institute is a subcontractor of one of the big nine federal refugee contractors—US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)—which is 99% funded by you, the US taxpayer. Its CEO is Lavinia Limon who (surprise!) headed up Bill Clinton’s federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) during the big Bosnian flow into the US. Her former VP at USCRI, Eskinder Negash, has, until his recent resignation, headed the ORR!—-a demonstration of the federal contractor revolving door at its finest!
We have a very large archive growing on St. Louis, click here to learn more.
So can we expect Eric Holder to head on out to St. Louis now to comfort the family of the murdered man?
Tributes laid at the scene of the murder.
The murder victim’s family believes that 32-year-old Zemir Begic was targeted by the black thugs because of his ethnicity. It is possible. Just checking our archives and I see we have reported other refugees murdered in St. Louis in recent years. Go here, for those posts.
African Americans don’t always take kindly to the arrival of refugees dropped off in their neighborhoods. Isn’t diversity grand!
And, who knew that St. Louis had 70,000 Bosnians living in the vicinity? Clinton brought them to the US to work for his meat packing buddies, remember this post?
Here is the story that was the subject of much discussion today on Fox News and on talk radio.
Police in St Louis have made a third arrest in connection to Sunday’s deadly hammer attack on a Bosnian immigrant, charging a 17-year-old as an adult in the slaying.
The arrests of the youths – among them two black teens and one Hispanic– in the death of 32-year-old Zemir Begic came as city officials struggled to tamp down speculations that the killing of the Bosnian man may have been motivated by race or somehow related to the ongoing unrest in Ferguson.
‘There is no evidence that this was a crime occasioned by the race or ethnicity of the victim,’ St Louis Mayor Francis Slay said in a statement Monday.
[….]
Zemir Begic, 32, a South City resident of Bosnian descent, was driving home with his newlywed wife at around 1.15am when police say a group of teenagers approached his car and began vandalizing it.
Begic emerged from his vehicle to try and stop them, at which point the teenagers allegedly attacked him with hammers, striking him in the head, face and abdomen.
The motorist was taken to an area hospital, where he died from his injuries a short time later. His wife escaped unharmed after her husband reportedly shielded her from the attackers with his body.
His family must have been part of Clinton’s gift of cheap labor to Tyson Food, other meatpackers
The family emigrated from Bosnia to the United States in 1996 and settled in Utica, New York, before moving to Waterloo, Iowa, said Begic’s sister from her home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
‘He loved America,’ she said.
‘We come from Bosnia because we were getting killed and our homes and families were getting destroyed. Never in my life did I think he would get murdered.’
Begic had lived in Arizona as well before moving to St Louis, and had married his wife only months before his murder.
With a population estimated to be around 70,000, St Louis has the largest community of Bosnians outside of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
There is an additional article here which says the Bosnian community has taken to the streets in protest.
We have quite a few posts on Bosnian, mostly Muslim, refugees in the US, click here to learn more.
Endnote: My posting has been light and sporadic lately because I am working on another project which will be finished by Christmas.
Ho hum! Another refugee lied to get into the US, wasn’t properly screened. What else is new?
Editors note: Readers I have not forgotten that I have to give you more information on how to send in comments to the US State Department on the “size and scope” of the US refugee program for fiscal year 2015. I promise to get to it soon. You have until May 29 to send in comments.
Your friendly refugee next door! Diversity is strength—right?
From CBS Minnesota (Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’ and Robin):
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota man was charged Wednesday with immigration fraud for allegedly lying on his immigration documents by concealing war crimes he committed during the Bosnian war in the 1990s.
Zdenko Jakisa, 45, appeared in U.S. District Court in Minnesota on one count of possessing unlawfully obtained documents. He was ordered detained, and another hearing was set for Monday. He will be appointed a public defender, according to court documents.
Authorities say that when he was filling out refugee and legal permanent resident applications, he didn’t disclose that he had served in the armed forces of the Croatian Defense Council in Bosnia-Herzegovina and had gone to prison.
[….]
According to a June 6, 2012, article in the Forest Lake Press, Jakisa and his wife applied to come to the U.S. in 1998 through the U.S. Embassy in Croatia. They were approved through a lottery system and sponsored by Catholic Charities and a local church.
[….]
Jakisa has a lengthy criminal record in Minnesota, including multiple convictions for driving while impaired, disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process.
I would bet anything that some of the people who “sponsored” him knew very quickly that he was a bad apple. Did they remain silent? Did Catholic Charities alert anyone in the State Department at some earlier date?
Another Bosnian refugee made the news recently as well, but it’s a sad case of a Bosnian gay man living in Philadelphia who was found brutally murdered in nearby Chester, PA.
We have many posts on Bosnianshere at RRW. One of our favorites is the one from 2008 when we learned it was Bill Clinton who was responsible for bringing tens of thousands of Bosnians to America to work in meat packing.
Erie has received 4,989 refugees since 2001, Springfield, MA ‘only’ 1,712. Why aren’t the citizens of Erie squawking?
Since we are on the subject of Bosnians (see previous post on the Des Moines sex abuse case) and since a reader (pungentpeppers) alerted us to the news last week from the “preferred” resettlement city Erie, PA, I’m posting this tragic story as a lead-in to a discussion of the Limon family business of resettling refugees in Erie. Why Erie?
Here is the sad story from last week (via the UK Daily Mail). Why is it that some of the most interesting stories don’t make much news in the US, but instead one can pick them up in the UK press? Let me be clear, this sort of thing can happen to any family, the ethnicity of the family has nothing to do with a kid gone wrong, but it does give us an opportunity to discuss Erie!
Bosnian refugee family’s SUV was driven by unlicensed 15-year-old. AP Photo
Little Emir Zilkic died in a car crash on Tuesday after his 15-year-old sister lost control of the family SUV after taking it without permission.
Eight-year-old Emir was riding with his two older siblings, the unlicensed driver and a 14-year-old girl, near their home in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night.
The teenage driver had sneaked away with the large 4-by-4 and was taking her younger siblings and two friends to McDonald’s when the car came off the road just four blocks from the family home.
Witnesses said the vehicle was speeding when it started rolling, and then flipped through the air.
At least three of the children were thrown out of the car as it flew through the air, but two were pinned underneath as it landed, Erie County Police said
Emir Zilkic was pronounced dead at the scene just after 9.30pm. The 15-year-old driver, their 14-year-old sister and two other children, a boy aged ten and a girl, 14, were taken to hospital.
The girl behind the wheel suffered a back injury and her sister a broken arm and internal bleeding, their mother Alma Zilkic told GoErie.
‘They say she was speeding, like 80 miles per hour, and lost control. And (Emir’s) gone,’ she told the paper.
The family, who hail from Bosnia, has lived in Erie for 14 years and Mrs Zilkic said the accident has hit them hard.
She added that she does not blame her daughter for the accident, as the Erie police continue the investigation of the scene of the crash.
So, why was Erie targeted as a preferred community for Refugee Resettlement?
Readers may recall Erie made the pages of RRW just ten days ago when neighbors cleaned up the yard of a Somali refugee woman who apparently has no husband (or no husband willing to do yard work), here.
All in the family!
We mentioned in that recent post that a few years back, the International Institute of Erie had some funny money problemsand the resettlement agency director was unceremoniously led from the office by Peter Limon (apparently Lavinia’s brother!). An audit at the time indicated the organization was in deep financial do-do and unlikely to survive. But, they have survived and are pouring the refugees into Erie to this day.
Go to the staff page, here, and scroll down from Lavinia to Peter. If you are just arriving here at RRW for the first time, Lavinia is President of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), one of the nine major federal contractors. The Erie office is a subcontractor. Lavinia has actively used the revolving door as she moved from contractor to ORR Director for Clinton (handing out your money) and then back to contractor (receiving your money). USCRI receives 94% of its funding from you, the taxpayer. You pay her over $200,000 annual salary and benefits too!
According to a comment at Friends of Refugees,here, a former employee of USCRI said they had a saying:
Peter Limon is Lavinia Limon’s brother. It’s a family operation all right. I’m a former employee. As we used to say, “When life gives you Limones, …keep your head down and don’t ask questions…or else…”
By even large city standards, Erie is being swamped with refugees from approximately 33 countries (see below), and what I want to know is where the heck do they work, or do they work at all in a mid-sized US city with no major meat packing company (that I know of!)? In fiscal year 2013 (to the end of July), Erie had received 471 refugees, in 2012 it was 773, 2011 (783) and in 2010 it was 654.
Now, I’ve brought you all this way to tell you I have no answers. I don’t know why Erie was targeted for resettlement (still is) and I don’t know why complaints haven’t reached our desk. Maybe a reader can give us the answers, until then we must assume that everything is copacetic in “welcoming” Erie! Or, no one is brave enough to speak up!
For some comparison the top five resettlement cities (since 2001) for Pennsylvania are:
Philadelphia: 6,782
Pittsburgh: 3,283
Erie: 4,989
Lancaster: 2,495
Harrisburg: 1,310
Here is the diversity USCRI has brought to Erie over the years. Refugees from the following countries:
Afghanistan
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Bhutan
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Burma
Burundi
Central African Republic
Croatia
Cuba
Dem. Rep. Congo
Egypt
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Iran
Iraq
Kyrgyzstan
Lebanon
Liberia
Moldova
Nepal
Russia
Rwanda
Serbia
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Togo
Uganda
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
