Who said politicians can’t learn? Here we apparently have Senator Lindsey ‘Amnesty’ Graham attempting to fix S.744 (the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill) which as we reported addresses our refugee and asylum program right along with the kitchen sink, in response to the Tsarnaev family’s asylum fraud.
What do ya’ think, Chuckie? AP Photo
Everyone is asking, how persecuted were the Chechens if they were traveling back and forth to Russia? Indeed!
Remember there is absolutely no need to make changes to the Refugee Resettlement Program within this “comprehensive” bill. Don’t misunderstand what I am saying, the program needs a complete Congressional review, but it should be a review SEPARATE FROM the Gang’s bill.
Since the Gang (which includes Graham) does make it easier for more refugees to enter the US for flimsier reasons (if they belong to a particular ‘special’ group or are a certain nationality), Graham’s proposed amendments are of interest. Thanks so much to reader John for wading into this and alerting us.
The purpose is: To provide for termination of asylum or refugee status in cases of country return.
Then below are the guts of it. Refugee industry advocates will go nuts! It basically says, if you go ‘home’ (with certain exceptions), you will have your refugee status TERMINATED! Which means that right now a very large group of “refugees” and “asylees” would presumably get the heave-ho! (Of course, assuming we had an administration with any guts to do it!).
… any alien who is granted asylum or refugee status under this Act or the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.), who, without good cause as determined by the Secretary, subsequently returns to the country of such alien’s nationality or, in the case of an alien having no nationality, returns to any country in which such alien last habitually resided, and who applied for such status because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution in that country on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, shall have his or her status terminated.
Of course there are exceptions. They can seek a waiver from the Secretary of State (big potential loophole there). And, now I am rolling on the floor laughing—it does not apply to Cubans! We don’t want to p*** off Rubio—NO! NO! NO!
I’ll tell you about another of Graham’s amendments tomorrow.
Robel Phillipos is charged with lying to federal investigators after he and others went to Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s room after Phillipos recognized his friend on the videos released by the FBI in the days following the marathon terrorist attack. He did not call the police to report that he recognized the bombing suspect as his buddy. A shouted question from a reporter yesterday as to why he didn’t alert authorities is heard at the end of this interview with his lawyers (as they walked away).
Mom outside court house. Phillipos lawyer is on the right. Photo Boston Globe
Robel Phillipos, the 19-year old classmate of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev who was charged with lying to federal investigators, gained release from custody with the help of a number of supportive affidavits from Boston-area academics and humanitarians close to his mother, according to a copy of his bond request obtained by the Daily Caller.
Mom is Ethiopian refugee who has important Boston “humanitarian” friends:
Phillipos’ mother Genet Bekele — an Ethiopian refugee who holds a master’s degree in social work from Boston University and worked for a refugee resettlement agency and as the director of the emergency shelter at the nonprofit battered women’s shelter Transition House — provided an affidavit in support of her son.
Transition House executive director Risa Mednick also provided an affidavit supporting Phillipos, claiming that she knew Phillipos’ mother when they both worked at Transition House and on the Cambridge Domestic Violence Task Force. Mednick claimed that Phillipos had a “surprisingly nuanced understanding of how social issues impact families and youth.”
Wellesley College art professor Salem Mekuria also provided an affidavit defending Phillipos.
“Robel’s mother is one of the most humanitarian and generous beings I know. Having experienced hardship as a refugee after escaping from an oppressive military regime, she has been working tirelessly to help others with similar experiences,” Mekuria said in an affidavit.
Martha Goldberg, a sponsored programs administrator at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, also defended Phillipos and stated that many employees of the International Institute of Boston knew the young man.
“I met Genet fifteen years ago as a coworker at the International Institute of Boston. I knew all about Robel as she would talk about him and many of the other staff members knew him. We were all proud of him because he was a really sweet, smart kid,” Goldberg testified in her affidavit. [Smart?—ed]
For my critics! I do have sympathy for Mom!
Readers, if you are having trouble finding the International Institute of Boston that’s because it is now “doing business as” the International Institute of New England. It is another of the 300 plus subcontractors resettling refugees and providing services to “new Americans.” I believe they are still a subcontractor of USCRI (remember them here yesterday).
Some of these contractors (top nine who have a monopoly) and subcontractors have changed their names over the years, why? I assume it’s because somehow they got in trouble with federal grant money, but who knows, it could be innocent name changes. Here in 2009, I reported that USCRI itself changed its name. In any case it makes it harder for the average taxpaying citizen to keep up with them!
All of our posts on the Boston Marathon Bombing are archived here.
Update May 5th, Phillipos wants to be released tomorrow—good boy (dumb maybe) but son of a refugee so therefore he is good, right?
It’s all over the news today (you don’t need me to tell you!) about the three friends of Dzhokar Tsarnaev and how they have been arrested for trying to hide evidence. We have been told repeatedly by the media that their involvement was AFTER the bombing, but we really don’t know that yet.
Here is a profileof the Ethiopian young man who first spotted his friend Dzhokar on the video footage released by the FBI in the days following the terrorist attack.
We don’t know if the 19-year-old was himself a refugee from Ethiopia, but his mother very likely was since she “works with refugees” now.
If he is a Muslim, as the other two arrested today are, we haven’t been told that yet (that I know of). A reliable source tells me that we resettle mostly Ethiopian Christians and only about 20% Muslims. BTW, the US State Department keeps all the stats on the religions of refugees they admit to the US, they just won’t give you that information.
Robel Phillipos, charged with lying to authorities investigating the Boston Marathon bombings, was the first friend to recognize Dzhokar Tsarnaev’s photo on TV news and alert the two other university students accused of aiding the suspect, according to the FBI affidavit released Wednesday.
Phillipos, Tsarnaev and Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov attended the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. Phillipos, 19, of Cambridge, was studying marketing, but the university said Wednesday he is not currently enrolled.
With Tsarnaev, he was a 2011 graduate of the prestigious Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, the city schools’ superintendent’s office said.
Phillipos, a U.S. citizen, lives with his mother, who is from Ethiopia and works with refugees, WHDH-TV reported. Their Cambridge apartment is next to the gas station where the Tsarnaev brothers carjacked a vehicle before getting into the shootout with police in which 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed.
Does anyone other than me find it ironic that all of this is happening in the very heart of Liberal, politically-correct America, Cambridge, Mass?
Of all of the cities in the U.S. one would think that Boston (Kennedy country!) would be immune from Muslim terrorist attacks because the people there are so “welcoming” to immigrants. Why would those same immigrants, given so much in Massachusetts, lie and kill people?
If you are interested (or some enterprising reporter is interested in investigating further), here is a list of all the “welcoming” refugee and immigrant groups serving “new Americans” in the Boston area (and largely funded by you—the taxpayer).
For new readers: We have written a bunch over the years on Ethiopian refugees, type ‘Ethiopian’ into our search function for more. I just did that, and what a coincidence this post heads the list—Virginia Imam stirring up Ethiopian Muslims with Jihad Talk.
O’Reilly: Why are we supporting questionable foreign folks?
(LOL! He doesn’t know the half of it!)
I’m an ‘occasional’ fan of O’Reilly, and happened to catch part of his show last night when he used Alan Colmes as a punching bag about the Boston Bomber family’s reported $100,000 dip into the pockets of American taxpayers.
If O’Reilly continues to investigate the refugee/asylum system, I will be his number one fan!
Bill O’Reilly kicked off his show tonight expressing outrage with the mother of Boston bombing suspects the Tsarnaev brothers for accusing the United States of a conspiracy to frame and kill her children, when her family has been taking more than $100,000 in welfare benefits for years. O’Reilly and Monica Crowley expressed outrage at the lack of welfare oversight, and when Alan Colmes challenged their claims, O’Reilly told Colmes to “shut up.”
O’Reilly called the mother “disgraceful” for her comments, and asked exactly why “we the people [are] supporting questionable foreign folks.”He wanted to know why President Obama and Governor Deval Patrick aren’t expressing outrage with the fact that the Tsarnaevs were getting welfare assistance, decrying the lack of outrage as “business as usual” for an immigration policy and a welfare system that turns a blind eye in situations like these.
Why did we let them in and how persecuted could they have been if they were, and are, traveling back and forth?
Funny that the Mediaitereport just focused on the welfare use, but to me O’Reilly’s outrage about their “vacations” to the land of persecution struck a cord.
Readers, we have seen it over and over again. We give refuge to people who claim persecution and then we see them go ‘home’ for visits and to do business. We have written at RRW about Bosnians going ‘home’ because they still own property, Mesketian Turks have houses to sell back ‘home’ and we can only speculate that they too must go back to Russia for occasional business, but the most outrageous are the Somalis. (Muslims all!)
We are resettling Somalis by the hundreds each month RIGHT NOW, yet many we have fed, housed, clothed and educated go back for various reasons—primarily “business” or to visit the family. Who can afford a plane ticket to Africa? But, we can’t forget that dozens of ‘youths’ went back to learn the fine art of Jihad, here in 2008!
BTW, the family reunification program for Somalis recently re-opened after being closed for years because of widespread fraud—those getting in as ‘family’ were found (through random DNA testing) not to be related at all. The State Department admitted that tens of thousands of Somalis are in the US illegally!
The Gang of Eight billwill make it easier for so-called asylum seekers and refugees to be admitted to the USbecause it makes whole groups of people eligible while under the present system they are still supposed to prove they personally fear persecution!
Bomber Mom, Zubeidat, poster girl for LEGAL immigrants on welfare?
Your tax dollars!
If you are not following the British press on the Boston Bombers, you might not be getting the full flavor of the Tsarnaev’s scams on you (the American taxpayer) in addition to learning more details about their murderous rampage in the name of Islam. The Boston Heraldhas the story here. But, here the UK Daily Mailhas it laid out in a more interesting format. Read the very thorough accounting of what the Tsarnaevs milked the US and the State of Massachusetts for! Hat tip: Don Irvine on twitter.
I’m so sorry for the victims of the Tsarnaev terrorists, but honestly this horror has finally focused the public’s attention on our out-of-control system for asylum seekers. Help make sure this program is reformed and get it (refugee and asylum sections) dumped from the Gang of Eight’s “comprehensive reform” bill now before the US Senate. The bill will make it easier for more refugees and asylum seekers to get into the country, get permanent residency and ultimately citizenship.
The family of the Boston bombing suspects has received more than $100,000 in welfare benefits over the last decade, according to the Boston Herald.
Details of the benefits – which included cash, food stamps and housing assistance – are contained within more than 500 documents that were handed over from Massachusetts welfare officials to a committee of state lawmakers on Monday.
The documents have not been released publicly, but a person who has reviewed them told the Herald that the ‘breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning.’
Apparently Mass. Rep. David Linsky pressured the state agencies to release the information over the head of Governor (and Obama pal) Deval Patrick saying the citizens have a right to know.
DEMOCRAT Mass. Rep. David Linsky: taxpayers have a right to know! Yes! and all citizens (in every state) should be demanding the same right to know about the extent of all refugee welfare use (not just in the case of terrorists)!
‘I can assure members of the public that this committee will actively review every single piece of information we can find because clearly the public has a substantial right to know what benefits, if any, this family or individuals accused of some horrific crimes were receiving,’ said Linsky, the committee’s chairman.
[….]
Welfare officials have been forced to divulge details of the aid that was paid out to the family of the bombing suspects.
Mass. Gov. Patrick Deval [Deval Patrick—ed] told state agencies last week that they should not discuss the details of what government assistance Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had received, citing privacy concerns.
Welfare information is not available for public release unless the person in question provides their consent, but it is available to lawmakers.
Massachusetts State Rep. David Linsky called on the state’s Department of Transitional Assistance to provide him with the information.
Linksy issued an ultimatum on Thursday to welfare officials, giving them 24 hours to provide the information.
The letter from Rep. Linsky was provided to the Boston Herald.
‘My office is working to fully comply with your request,’ DTA interim commissioner Stacey Monahan wrote in his report to Rep. Linsky, saying they were only providing a summary ‘given the great interest in this matter.’
In addition to the aid paid out to Tamerlan and his wife, both alleged bombers had benefited from welfare since their parents Anzor and Zubeidat Tsarnaev collected foodstamps and TAFDC – from 2002 to 2004 and again in 2009 to 2011.
Go to the full articlefor all the gory details. However, keep in mind that they were granted LEGAL status in the US. So, the next time you are tempted to say, “I’m o.k. with LEGAL immigration, it’s illegal I have a problem with!”, don’t say it, just zip it! because it shows how uninformed you are!
The Daily Mailwraps up:
Since the Tsarnaevs are Chechen immigrants, some wondered why they received aid. But the state agency explained that they were considered eligible for the public assistance.
‘The Tsarnaev parents were eligible to receive benefits as legal, non-citizen residents who were granted asylum statusand met the basic eligibility criteria for DTA, including household income levels, presence of dependent children and other factors,’ the DTA interim commissioner Stacey Monahan said in a letter addressed to David Linsky, Chairman of the House Post Audit and Oversight Committee.
Contact your Members of Congress and US Senators and tell them it’s time to hold hearings on the refugee and asylum programs authorized under the Kennedy/Biden/Carter Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980. And, by all means strip out changes made to those programs in the Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill now!
Still waiting! We are all still waiting breathlessly for the details on the Tsarnaev’s original application for asylum, and the application for family reunification—if you see details on those docs before me, please let me know!
This is our tenth post on the refugees who became the Boston Bombers. Go hereto see our archive.
O’Reilly: Why are we supporting questionable foreign folks?
