Someone reminded me that in all of the yakking about the power of the President when it comes to determining which refugees (how many and from where) entering the US, the US State Department in 2008 halted all family reunification (the so-called P-3 program) from Somalia and a few other African countries. Why?
Random DNA testing found widespread FRAUD. The so-called family members were lying about who was family! They were making up “ghost children.” Over 20,000 African ‘refugees’ are believed to have entered the US fraudulently in a period beginning in October 2003 and ending when the fraud was uncovered in 2008. They claimed family relationships that were found to be false.
We first saw the news at the Wall Street Journal in 2008, here. Then we followed the drama as the refugee contractors (among others) tried to stop the State Department from requiring DNA tests for all family reunification.
Here is a post I wrote in 2015with several important links to follow to understand what happened leading up to the FOUR YEAR moratorium on Somalis being able to apply for their ‘family’ members to join them in your home towns!
For ambitious readers, click here for one of my earliest posts in 2008 with updates.
Be sure to read the fact sheet published by the DOS at the time (you will see it in its entirety here).
In recent years, applications to the P-3 program have been overwhelmingly African – primarily Somalis, Ethiopians and Liberians – accounting for some 95% of the P-3 applications.
Then this:
The rate of fraud discovered varies among nationalities and from country to country, and is difficult to establish definitively as many individuals refused to submit DNA samples. We were, however, only able to confirm all claimed biological relationships in fewer than 20% of cases (family units). The remainder contained at least one negative result (fraudulent relationship) or refused to be tested.
This is what I said based on the numbers:
95% of immigrants using this program are from Africa. 36,000 alone came in the years since 2003 and as high (or higher!) than 80% of those are most likely here illegally.
As far as we know none of the fraudulent entrants were identified and removed.
The President through his Department of State does have the power to selectively block certain ethnic groups from entering the US.
I followed the issue closely and I never saw the mainstream media question the Administration’s right to stop these groups of so-called ‘refugees.’
Invasion of Europe news….
Sweden is my guess for the first European country to completely implode with the burden of needy Middle Eastern and African refugees (it has been my choice for years). Although, I admit, Germany (larger and wealthier) is working hard to catch up with Sweden. Refugees in Sweden, from 2015 story at Gateway Pundit. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/10/swedish-migration-board-protects-refugee-conceals-identity-after-rape-of-3-year-old/ Pay attention to this ‘family reunification’ issue because it is going to impact your American town—you will see it in a year or two in the newly selected resettlement sites.***
Just as your town realizes you can’t handle the numbers coming, you will be called mean-spirited and worse if you try to deny the ‘family’ members the ‘right’ to join those who arrived in the first wave.
Here is the story this morning at Speisa (New Gigantic Migration Shock):
SWEDEN — “It’s a level we’ve never seen before,” said the Moderates’ migration policy spokesperson Johan Forssell when he told Aftonbladet that over 300,000 cases of family reunifications are expected by 2019. The record figures come from the Migration Board’s forecast, according to Aftonbladet.
The huge migration wave last year could be repeated and almost doubled when over 300,000 family members are expected to arrive up to the year 2019.
When Aftonbladet talks with Johan Forssell, he says it is a large volume to handle.
It’s a level we’ve never seen before. Until 2019, it is about 317,000 cases. This will have a major impact on the issues of housing, jobs, schools, health care. It underlines that we need to have long-term and sustainable immigration policies, says Forsell.
More here.
For more on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ click here. And, for my huge archive on Sweden, go here.
***These are the locations we have identified so far that have been targeted by the US Dept. of State as new resettlement sites. We hear there are 47 of them (the remainder are still secret).
This is the largest number in one year perhaps since the program began in 1980. They must get these offices open because a) Obama has proposed astronomical numbers for FY17, b) because once opened, offices are hard to close, and c) they want to get as many open and running before a possible Donald Trump Administration takes office in January.
Once the first batches are resettled the contractors go to work bringing in the family members. They will vilify you if you try to stop the “reunification.”
In an otherwise whining piece about how the feds are too slow to admit family members of refugees, at least this Frontline‘news’ story admits that thousands of Somalis entered the US fraudulently resulting in a 4-year closure (in 2008) of the so-called P-3 family reunification program of the US State Department. Somali refugees in Dadaab, a massive UN camp in Kenya. Truth be told, there is no way to thoroughly screen the refugees we accept from the UN any better here, than those we are accepting from UN camps in the Middle East. Photo: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/12/somalia-kenya-murder
You should read the whole long article, but here (below) is the segment on Somali fraud (btw, none of those who got in here by lying were ever deported).
For our thousands of new readers: We covered the discovery and aftermath extensively, here. The fraud was originally reported at the Wall Street Journal in August of 2008.
Thenine major federal resettlement contractorsfought tooth and nail to keep the State Department from requiring DNA testing. Frontlineon DNA testing:
Even if those restrictions are loosened, refugees applying for family reunification will face another hurdle to clear: DNA testing.
The inspiration for this requirement was born in East Africa, where more than 1 million Somalians have been displaced from their country by civil war and famine. In the mid-2000s, the U.S. was providing refuge to about 10,000 Somalians a year*** — many of whom went on to apply to the family reunification program to bring over relatives.
Immigration officials suspected that some were inventing “ghost children,” and filling out applications for children not related to them. There had even been some reports of brokers who sold the ghost children’s slots for profit, according to a U.S. Department of State official who spoke to FRONTLINE but asked not to be named.
So in early 2008, the State Department launched a pilot program to determine the extent of fraud by testing relationships using DNA.
In the initial pilot of 476 applicants in Nairobi, Kenya, only 16 percent were genetically related to every person they said was in their family. Another 39 percent tested false for at least one family member. In the remaining 45 percent of cases, applicants either refused to participate or didn’t show up for the test.
Officials interpreted these results as proof of widespread fraud. The P-3 program was suspended, and did not reopen for more than four years.
This stunned refugees around the world, many of whom had spent years waiting for P-3 applications to be approved. Most were told to apply for an alternate visa, but it was even more restrictive than P-3 and soon had a multi-year waiting list.
There is much more, read on.
*** We admitted 8,858 this past fiscal year, (9,000 the year before that!):
As the UNHCR is sending Somalis back to Somalia from its Kenyan camps we admitted 8,858 Somalis to the US in FY2015, here (many from the Kenyan camps!). Somalis are the third largest ethnic group admitted to the US this past year.
Go here to see how many Somalis entered the US through the Refugee Admissions Program since its inception. Notice some of the biggest years are in the George W. Bush Administration.
Why are we still admitting Somali refugees after three decades?
Normally we are critical of the US State Department for its open-door policy to large segments of the Muslim world, but it seems they are now holding up some questionable visa applications of Somalis who can’t prove who they are.
Perhaps they have learned a lesson.
State Department is holding up the visa for a Somali man in Kenya who can’t prove who he is. ‘Wife’ Amina Awnur has Rep. Keith Ellison going to bat for her.
Of course keep this in perspective and your enthusiasm in check—we admitted over 100,000 Somalisto the US over the last few decades and in 2008 we learned that the US State Department had admitted tens of thousands of Somalis to the US who had fraudulently claimed a family relationshipto someone who got in ahead of them. Family reunification for Somalis was closed for years, but the fraudulent “family members” got to stay!
Not one peep in this latest news about the fraud that shut down family reunification for Somalis for YEARS!
And, before you read the latest news about how the State Department is holding up some visas for Somalis, much to the consternation of Rep. Keith Ellison and the two Senators from Minnesota who want to get more Somali voters, keep this in mind: We are bringing in Somalis at near record levels (almost as high as the Bush Administration!).
7,608 new Somali refugees were resettled in the US in FY2013, click here.
Hundreds of Somalis are struggling to get their families reunited in the United States.
Amina Awnur is in Willmar. Her husband is in limbo.
For four years, Awnur has been trying to get U.S. authorities to allow her husband to come to Minnesota from Kenya. He has repeatedly gone to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi with documents, but officials tell him they need more. [The reporter should make it clear that family re-unification for Somalis, the so-called P-3 program, was only re-opened in 2013. So she may have applied four years ago, but applications like hers weren’t going anywhere.—ed]
“I am really frustrated and very tired, because it has taken so long,” she said through an interpreter. [What, no English after being in the US for over 8 years!—ed]
The 30-year-old Somali-born woman, who now is a U.S. citizen, is among hundreds of refugees whose family members are hung up in Africa, struggling to prove to the State Department that they are who they say they are.
Waiting sometimes for years to have their visas approved, they are children, parents, siblings and spouses displaced by the continuing upheaval in Somalia. Stuck in Kenya, they have been unable to provide satisfactory paperwork establishing their identity, according to immigration lawyers in the Twin Cities. [DNA testing is available for blood relatives, that should easily prove who they are.—ed]
“It’s a huge problem,” says Leslie Karam, whose firm recently filed a lawsuit against a State Department official in Nairobi on behalf of a Minnesota man who is trying to get his wife out of Kenya. “The U.S. consulate in Nairobi has indicated their administrative processing can take several months,” the lawsuit says. “It has been almost two years.”
Again, this reference (below) to 1,000 visas being given to Somalis only pertains to those applying for family reunification. We let in 7,608 Somalis in FY2013 who we sure hope were all able to prove who they are!
She [State Dept. Spokeswoman] said that Somalis are treated the same as applicants from other countries, and more than 1,000 visas were issued to Somalis in the 2013 federal fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30.
“At the same time, we must ensure that applicants do not pose a security risk to the United States and otherwise are eligible for a visa” she said in an e-mail. “Applicants sometimes require additional screening to determine whether they are eligible.”
Toward the end of the piece we learn a little about the star of the story—Amina Awnur. How much do you want to bet this is a case of immigration marriage fraud?
Awnur came to Minnesota in 2005 with her mother, three brothers and one sister. Two sisters were killed in the civil war.
She works as a meat cutter on the production line of a Jennie-O Turkey Store processing plant, and sends her husband money to help pay his $200-a-month rent in Nairobi. She became a U.S. citizen in 2011.
In 2008, she said, she flew to Kenya and married Hassan Noor, 31, whom she’d met in Kenya in 2002. She returned to Minnesota and applied for a visa for him in January 2009. Her application was approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in March 2010. [but, not by the State Department—ed]
There is probably a very good reason the State Department is holding up Noor’s visa!
An afterthought: This postis one of our most visited posts of all time and it explains how Catholics, Lutherans and Evangelicals brought the Somalis to Minnesota (and are still bringing them) as contractors to the US State Department. The initial big attraction was Minnesota’s generous welfare system (and meatpacker employers).
Kefelgn Alemu Worku has been found guilty in US court in Denver and will likely serve 15 years in prison for lying.
Kefelgn Alemu Worku
Thanks to Creeping Sharia for tipping us off to this latest news.
I searched our thousands of posts and voila, I knew I recognized the name, we first reported on Worku here in 2012. It is really worth visiting that post to see how complex a fraud was perpetrated on the US State Department. Worku didn’t just claim (in isolation) to be someone else, but “kids” in America (not his kids) actually helped perpetrate the scam and allowed him to assume the identity of their ailing father. He came to the US through ‘family’ reunification.
Here is the news of the conviction yesterday at East Africa News (emphasis is mine):
A United States court has convicted an Ethiopian immigrant, who is suspected of having committed war crimes in his home country, on charges of immigration fraud and identity theft.
Prosecutors told the court that the accused, Kefelgn Alemu Worku, had lied about his past and stolen someone else’s identity before immigrating to Colorado in 2004 as a refugee.Worku admitted that he had used a false name to gain entry and citizenship in the United Statesbut denied allegations that he had tortured and killed political prisoners while working as a prison guard in Ethiopia in the 1970’s.
The accused was arrested in May 2011 after Ethiopian Immigrants, Samuel Ketema, 53, and his brother, Kiflu, 58, identified and confronted him at a cafe in Aurora, Colorado. Kiflu claims he witnessed Worku torturing and killing several prisoners – including one of Kiflu’s best friends – while serving a prison sentence in Ethiopia.
So we taxpayers absorbed the expenses of his resettlement, his use of social services, his legal case and now we get to take care of him in prison for the next 15 years!
Worku now faces up to 15 years in prison following his conviction. Dozens of Ethiopian immigrants who thronged the court during the trial seemed satisfied with the verdict.
The charges brought against Worku in Denver were for immigration violations and not the war crimes that he is accused of having committed nearly four decades ago. Ethiopia already tried him for those crimes in absentia and sentenced him to hanging.
I guess what this really means is that in lieu of deportation and hanging, we get to pay for him in prison for 15 years, then what? Will he be released into America to collect his senior citizen benefits because he is a US citizen? But, wait! is he a US citizen if he used another person’s identity?
