Mainer Cynthia Anderson recently published a book about how 6,000 plus Somali refugees are busy resuscitating a supposedly dying Maine city.
No surprise that the Star Tribune, in the heart of Little Mogadishu, MN, reviewed Anderson’s book. One quote in the review stands out and it makes my blood boil!
“I also think journalists, including me, sometimes don’t push for answers lest they appear insensitive or out of fear they’ll provide ammunition to haters.”
Just think about that, she is admitting she might have pulled some punches so as not to give us (haters! and Islamophobes!), critics of the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, any ammunition. WHAT THE H***!
If so-called journalists were HONEST, for one thing there would be no need for me to write this blog and secondly if they were HONEST then maybe government programs like this one might be reevaluated, reformed or trashed.
Review: ‘Home Now: How 6,000 Refugees Transformed an American Town,’ by Cynthia Anderson
“Home Now” by Cynthia Anderson; Public Affairs (318 pages, $28)
“A moving chronicle of who belongs in America.” Guess you can see the bias right there at Amazon.
At a campaign rally in Portland, Maine, President Donald Trump linked worsening crime in Maine to the influx of Somali refugees there. He blamed their large community in Minnesota for straining the state’s social safety net and bringing potential recruits for Islamic terrorist groups.
“You see it happening,” Trump said. “You read about it.”
The above is a reminder to all those wimpy Republican governorswho are ‘welcoming’ more Somalis, Iraqis, and Syrians to your states that the President wants to rein-in the program. Duh!
Long before Trump turned refugee resettlement into a national flash point, Cynthia Anderson was immersing herself in Lewiston, Maine, a small white town that came to host one of the largest populations of Somali-Americans in the country, for her timely, richly detailed book “Home Now.”
Anderson grew up in a village 45 miles away and recalled the area’s gradual decline leading up to 2001, when the first Somali refugees arrived in nearby Portland.
She reported on Lewiston’s transformation for more than a decade, moving from seeing Somali newcomers as passive victims traumatized by war to people with complex, resilient trajectories.
Anderson also writes about Fatuma Hussein, a community leader and advocate for Somali women who admires Maine’s civility and is optimistic about relations between natives and newcomers. She speaks out in opposition to Trump’s election, yet she is also forthright about the challenges of merging different cultures in Lewiston.
The town is not prepared to absorb the arrivals so quickly; the mayor draws headlines for saying Lewiston is “maxed out.”
Anderson deftly sums up the tension by noting that the new refugees were not ungrateful but nor were they just grateful.
[….]
Though the book paints a mostly rosy picture of how refugees can revitalize a community, Anderson is honest [?—how honest?—ed] about her qualms.
During debates over a state bill aimed at the Somali-American community to ban female genital mutilation (FGM), she admits to being conflicted. Anderson is initially opposed, and doesn’t want to see the Somali community hurt, but nor does she want harm to come to any Somali girls.
[What woman could possibly be conflicted about the brutal practice of slicing off a portion of a girl’s genitals?—ed]
Anderson also acknowledges that the refugee vetting process warrants examination, noting that records can be inadequate in war-torn countries.
She considers it fair to question how long refugees take to become self-sufficient, finding answers inconsistent and hard to find. [No kidding—this program is run in secrecy! The refugee contractors and the government don’t want anyone to find out how poorly the refugees are doing!—ed]
“I also think journalists, including me, sometimes don’t push for answers lest they appear insensitive or out of fear they’ll provide ammunition to haters,” she admits. “But not asking and not knowing provides fertile ground for rumors to flourish. It’s also patronizing; Lewiston’s newcomers can withstand the scrutiny.” [Note that she deftly suggests that those of us with concerns are trafficking in rumors!—ed]
Anderson raises these questions through her portrait of Jared Bristol, driven after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to become an activist against Islamic extremism. Bristol advocates for the FGM bill during a hearing that’s one of the only times Anderson sees Muslims and anti-Islamists in the same place.
Such activists, Anderson writes, “are wrong if they believe I absorbed nothing they and other anti-Islamists said or that my thinking didn’t shift, however incrementally.” [So what good is absorbing if she then pulls punches?—ed]
Scrutiny comes anew when a man dies of a fatal head injury after being attacked by several teens of African descent.
Nevertheless, and moving right along, the expert concludes:
….that Mainers feel that integrating refugees is worth the effort, even as it has taken time and money.
That is not what I’m hearing!!!
See my extensive, and I mean extensive archive on Lewiston here at RRW (there is more at ‘Frauds and Crooks.’)!
Gee, I wonder if Ms. Anderson used any of the material I’ve compiled over the years? Did she get the story about the Somali teen who burned down four apartment buildings in 2013 for example? Or the one about the ISIS fighter whose wife lived in Lewiston? Or the Somali health care scammers? And, as far back as 2009 Somali ‘youths’ were roaming the streets and attacking people.
Businesses, eager to prostrate themselves out of fear once confronted by an angry demanding refugee like Hamdia Ahmed, quickly make news by backing down when activists for Muslim immigrant rights cause a stir. The message to the public: be silent.
Social justice activist Hamdia Ahmed
Even as it is clear, when you do a little reading about Hamdia Ahmed,that she has a pattern of stirring up controversy, her latest stunt in Portland is now being spread widely through gullible national media outlets painting her as innocent as a dove while staring down racist Americans.
Thanks to MaineFirstMediafor the tip. (See their more detailed story.)
Hereis a story from Wednesday from the Portland Press-Herald which is pretty straight news, but when you read the newer articles at national news outlets you will see that her social justice advocacy and past history of creating controversy has been downplayed or not mentioned at all.
A Dunkin’ Donuts store owner met Wednesday with a Portland college student and activist who called out the business on social media after a store employee refused to serve her Somali-speaking family and then called police following an argument in the drive-thru lane.
Hamdia Ahmed, 20, said she felt that the employee discriminated against her and two relatives for speaking Somali as they waited to order coffee at the St. John Street Dunkin’ Donuts on Monday afternoon.
Ahmed said she and her relatives drove to the coffee shop around 12:30 p.m. and waited for a store employee to ask for their order. As the family chatted in Somali in the car, a woman’s voice crackled through the speaker and admonished them for yelling, Ahmed said.
“All of a sudden we heard a woman say, ‘stop yelling, stop yelling,’ ” Ahmed said “We’re like what’s happening. We’re just having a conversation. We were talking in Somali. She told us she’s not going to take our order and for us to leave and she was going to call the police.”
You know there must be more to the story. Chatting in Somali caused the clerk to refuse them service? Give me a break!
Ahmed, a refugee from Somalia who arrived in the United States more than a dozen years ago, has emerged in recent years as an outspoken anti-racism social justice activist and organizer.
After the argument in the drive-thru lane, Ahmed said she parked her car and went inside the store to speak with someone.
A store employee called Portland police, and after an officer spoke to Ahmed and store employees, the police issued Ahmed a no-trespass notice barring her from returning to the store for a year. The officer listed the cause of the no-trespass notice as “disturbance – yelling at staff.”
Ahmed made the news also this year as the first hijab-wearing contestant in the Miss Maine pageant. She said everyone there treated her just like every other American girl. So much for her latest stunt to prove that Americans are racists. https://therefugeecenter.org/hall-of-fame/the-story-of-hamdia-ahmed-the-first-miss-maine-pageant-contestant-to-wear-a-hijab/
I repeat: Ahmed and her family members must have been doing a lot more than chatting in Somali!
The company later issued a statement:
“Dunkin’ and our franchisees are committed to creating a positive customer service experience for all of our guests,” the company’s emailed statement said. “The franchisee who owns and operates the store has confirmed he has met with the guest, sincerely apologized to her for the poor experience and is working on providing additional customer service training to his store crew.”
“I appreciate their apology but what I really wanted to get out of the meeting is I want training for their workers,” Ahmed said. “Because they can’t treat people like that, and the police should have never been called.” [Would that be shariah-compliance training?—ed]
Ahmed, a University of Southern Maine student who has been an outspoken anti-racist activist in Portland who does not shy from public demonstrations and discussions about race, said she felt compelled to speak up and publicize her encounter through social media.
“I can’t just ignore stuff like this because that would mean I’m allowing it to happen,” she said.
Ahmed had a similar encounter in September at an Old Port Starbucks, where she said an employee laughed and rolled her eyes at her when she asked for the employee to check the alcohol content of a vanilla flavoring, News Center Maine (WCSH) reported. Ahmed, who is Muslim, abstains from alcohol.
Starbucks apologized to her after the encounter, a response she said was “adequate.”
If Ahmed thinks her Dunkin’ Donuts publicity stunt will somehow improve relations between immigrants and Mainers she is naive. But, then again, maybe that isn’t her goal at all.
This post is filed in my ‘Stealth Jihad’category for obvious reasons!
New readers might want to look through my hugeMaine archive.
Wow! This guy, (name sounds Somali, but couldn’t find a photo), not only ripped-off the food stamp program, but subsidized housing and medical care too!
Read all about it here at the Portland Press Herald. Normally I don’t want to post a whole article, but when I went to various news outlets for the story I noticed they all (but this one) seemed to leave out one or another of his frauds, almost as if they didn’t want to list all of them for some reason. So, this, below, is the article with the most complete list.
Besides the media’s usual penchant for not telling us the whole story including the immigration status and nationality of immigrant/refugee crooks, I am continually amazed at the audacity and ‘skill’ of many of the immigrant scammers—where do they learn to do this?
Federal prosecutors say Dafle Abdullahi Ali lived in public housing, received food stamps and got Medicaid benefits while earning $100,000 a year.
PORTLAND — A Portland man pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to making false statements to obtain Medicaid and food stamp benefits, and to theft of federal housing assistance funds.
Dafle Abdullahi Ali, 46, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 26 by Judge D. Brock Hornby. Ali faces up to five years in prison on the false statement charge, up to 10 years on the theft charge, and fines of up to $250,000 on each charge.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in 2008 and 2009 Ali was co-owner and director of finance of Home Health Care Solutions, a Portland company that provided home-based personal care services to elderly and disabled persons under the Maine Medicaid program. During that period, Ali also received MaineCare benefits and food stamps.
In February 2009, Ali signed a state form claiming he earned about $36,000 a year and had no savings, when he actually earned more than $100,000 and had $48,000 in bank accounts, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Between August 2006 and November 2008, Ali and his family lived in Portland public housing. He under-reported his income to the Portland Housing Authority and illegally received more than $22,000 in rent subsidies, the release said.
Ali also fraudulently received and stole about $46,585 in MaineCare, food stamps and federal Housing and Urban Development benefits, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Isolated case? I doubt it! We’ve had other such cases in Maine. Type ‘Maine’ into our search function to learn more. Read especially, ‘Somali migration to Maine, it’s the welfare magnet, stupid!’here. Some Somalis went to Maine on their own initiative, others were resettled there by Catholic Charities.
If anyone finds a photo of Dafle Abdullahi Aliplease send it my way so we can properly identify him.
