Maine governor working to stem the flow of welfare to migrants/asylum seekers

We have written about this Maine problem with the flood of migrants into the state—some are resettled refugees, but others are asylum seekers who have flocked there to enjoy the generosity of Maine’s social service programs while waiting out the legal asylum process.  (See my discussion of asylum in an earlier post this morning.)
Here is the latest news, from LifeZette (subheading:  Immigrants immediately eligible for welfare, displacing seniors and the needy):

Maine’s Somali community is adding more diversity to the state — and huge new costs, according to a top state official.

Mayhew
Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew was on the Laura Ingraham show. Flood of migrants impacting Maine elderly.

Maine’s huge number of refugees and asylum-seekers are heavy welfare users and are putting significant economic strain on the state, Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew.

Speaking on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Mayhew rejected an argument by a local media outlet that the state’s Somali community could be Maine’s savior.

“Overall, we have seen an increased burden to the infrastructure and the welfare programs in the face of other significant competing priorities for this state, especially related to our rapidly aging population, our elderly,” she said.

Maine has been a popular destination for refugees in recent years, mostly from Somalia and other African countries. Lewiston and Portland have taken the most, with Lewiston’s mayor recently speaking out about the fiscal impact on his city.

[….]

Maine Gov. Paul LePage has led a drive to reform social welfare programs for refugees and citizens alike. Since taking office, food stamp use is down by 58,000 people. Fewer people are on Medicaid, as well, Mayhew said.

Here is a great idea for your state!

Mayhew noted that a new work requirement for food stamps for able-bodied people between the ages of 18 and 49 with no children — which included an option of volunteering just one hour a day — knocked many off the program for failure to comply.

[….]

Mayhew said LePage has fought against granting welfare benefits to illegal immigrants who have applied for asylum.

More here.
Is your state giving welfare benefits to asylum seekers?  At the federal level that is prohibited.
We have a huge archive on Maine, click here to learn more.  See especially a 2009 post we wrote about how Somalis initially found Maine’s generous welfare system and headed in droves to Lewiston.

Sharyl Attkisson does Lewiston, Maine; Trump says no Syrians

Watch investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s debut of her new show—Full Measure. (Hat tip: Joanne).  This is the “tease” for the show.  You will have to click here to watch the whole episode.

Immigration took center stage in the show’s debut. Host Attkisson explored why Lewiston, Maine has become an unlikely refuge for Somali asylum-seekers, “Full Measure” correspondent Scott Thuman examined life in European refugee camps, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump explained why he wouldn’t welcome any Syrian refugees to America.

 
 
In the program, please note the discussion about refugees vs. asylum seekers.  Remember the Somalis in the program were brought here by the UN/US State Department, but many of the others in the story are asylum seekers.  Those are migrants who got here on their own (no screening) perhaps illegally (across our borders) or came in on a temporary visa and then they apply for asylum.  The US does not allow them to work so they go to states like Maine where they are permitted to receive welfare as non-citizens who have not yet been designated refugees (aka asylees) after proving they would be persecuted if they went home.
The word is out all over Africa—go to Maine!
As I said in my previous post.  All of the media attention on refugees now will help (we hope) wake up Americans to the very real likelihood that their towns will soon be populated with third worlders (as Lewiston, ME has for over a decade).  Folks, you will have to start speaking up if you want to see our American culture survive (and your town’s resources not depleted). Your town could easily become the next Lewiston….
See our complete (and lengthy) archive on Lewiston, Maine by clicking here.

Maine: African refugees charged in brutal murder

Except apparently it was so brutal that the case (and the autopsy) has been sealed from the media for at least a week! Or, why else would it have been sealed?

Diversity is strength alert!

The story is here at World Net Daily:

Authorities in Portland, Maine, have arrested three Somali-American men in connection with the brutal killing of a man inside his apartment, then moved quickly to seal the case from public view.

Police arrested Abil Teshome, 23, Mohamud Mohamed, 36, and Osman Sheikh, 31, on Thursday. All three are charged with the murder of 49-year-old health-care worker Freddy Akoa.

Mohamed-Mohamud
Mohamed Mohamud, one of three suspects charged in the killing of Freddy Akoa in Portland, Maine. Credit/Portland Press Herald http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/14/three-men-charged-in-cumberland-avenue-murder-ordered-held-without-bail/

Police have provided almost no information on the killing, not the cause of death, not the type of weapon used, nor any possible motive for the killing. They even refused to release prison mugshots of the suspects. The Associated Press and local TV stations failed to identify the three suspects by their country of origin or race.

[….]

The killing “wasn’t random in nature,” said Police Chief Michael Sauschuck, indicating the alleged killers knew their victim.

The U.S. State Department, in cooperation with the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, has sent 1,379 Somali refugees to Maine since 2002, with 1,010 of them going to Portland, according to the State Department’s refugee database. Records prior to 2002 are not kept online, but the U.N. has been sending Somali refugees to the United States since the early 1990s with the full support of the U.S. Congress, despite the fact that hundreds of them have turned out to be jihadists or criminals.

There is much much more from reporter Leo Hohmann who tells us about how the case is sealed for at least a week from media review.
By the way, my first thought, when I saw the original news yesterday, was that the case involved rival gangs fighting over drugs, but the victim, Freddy Akoa, another immigrant (most likely a Christian, but we don’t know that yet), was by all accounts a successful middle-aged man (with a loving family) working in the health care industry.
Readers often want to know how we know if someone got into the US as a refugee.  For some ethnic groups we don’t know, but virtually all of the Somalis in the US and those in Maine are here as refugees or the children of refugees.  Some may have come illegally, but the Refugee Admissions Program of the UN/US State Department is responsible for the vast majority of Somalis in your towns and cities.  By the way, the accused have not been publicly identified as Somalis yet, but the names of at least two of them are common Somali names.
Hohmann also reports on the bill introduced recently by Rep. Brian Babin of Texas which seeks to suspend the refugee program until questions about the cost and impact on national security have been examined.
Continue reading here.

Maine the welfare state!

We have written a lot about how Somalis got to Maine with the help of Catholic Charities, the primary resettlement agency in the state. Here is a post from 2009 about how Somalis were attracted to Maine welfare.  For years that post was one of our top most-read posts.
The primary resettlement agency in Maine is Catholic Charities.  However, we don’t know if the accused arrived in Maine with the help of a resettlement contractor or were secondary migrants who were resettled somewhere else in America and then moved to Maine to live in one of the Somali enclaves there—in Portland or Lewiston.
Learn about one of the leading figures in Portland promoting more African resettlement for Maine, here.
See our very extensive archive on Maine by clicking here.  There are more murder and crime stories in the archive.
In addition to refugee resettlement, Maine has become a desired state for asylum seekers to head to as it is one of the few states that gives welfare to those seeking asylum who have not yet been granted permission to stay.

Lewiston, ME: As Somali population grows, police chief looks to hire Somali cops

While I was away, I missed posting this story from World Net Daily.  It is not just about the police chief’s new officer recruitment, but is a good summary of how Lewiston became the Little Mogadishu of New England.

Protesters chant outside city hall in Lewiston, Maine, after delivering petitions asking for the resignation of the city's mayor because of comments he made about Somali refugees,Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Protesters chant outside city hall in Lewiston, Maine, after delivering petitions asking for the resignation of the city’s mayor because of comments he made about Somali refugees,Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) http://news.yahoo.com/maine-mayor-somalis-leave-culture-door-135314654.html

If you would like to catch up on the happenings in Lewiston, including the case of the Somali kid who burned down an apartment building, see our huge archive, here, on the little city being colonized.
I’ve only snipped a small segment of the story by Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily, so be sure to read the whole thing:

“One place in Lewiston where that growing diversity is not evident is the city’s 82-member police force, but Chief Michael Bussiere aims to change that amid an intense national debate over race and policing,” Reuters reports.

The Lewiston-Auburn area now has a Somali population of 7,000, which accounts for nearly 10 percent of its total population. They arrived in the U.S. either as refugees or were born in the U.S. as children of refugees.

About a quarter of Bussiere’s officers will become eligible to retire in the next few years, so he figures to have quite a few openings.

“We have to think about who is living here now and who’s going to live here 10 years from now,” he told Reuters reporter Scott Malone.

“We need a department that is reflective of the demographics of the community it serves.”

Lewiston, a city of 36,000 people that spent decades struggling through job losses from mill closings and a shrinking population, may seem an unlikely place for such a rebirth given that Maine is among the whitest U.S. states, Malone reports.

But, according to U.S. Census data, 8.7 percent of Lewiston’s population identifies as black or African-American, a rate higher than any other city in the state and more than seven times the 1.2 percent state average.

And the Somali population is exploding not just in Lewiston. It has spread to nearby Auburn and Portland.

Many Somalis originally came as refugees to larger cities, Atlanta in particular, but then moved to Maine after hearing that it had a wider array of subsidized housing available and also was easier to get on the welfare rolls. This is called “secondary migration” when a refugee is assigned to one city but then moves elsewhere after arrival in the U.S.

Read it all, here.  And, again, see our archive on Lewiston.  There is probably enough there to write a book!
About the photo:  These Somali refugees sure do have the protest (community organizing) thing down pat, don’t they!

Maine: As Somali population grows, some angry Mainer takes extreme action; direct frustration at Catholic Charities instead

Let me be clear at the outset.  We do not condone vandalism or criminal activity of any sort, but this case does demonstrate that some are going to extreme means to try to halt the continued expansion of the Muslim population in America when elected officials in Washington aren’t listening.

As the UN and the US State Department continue to send refugees to rural areas (seed your communities), the tension will only increase.

The headline in the Portland Press Herald yesterday is: Anti-Muslim graffiti spray-painted on Portland Halaal Market:

Police label the incident a hate crime and seek the public’s help in identifying the perpetrator, a white male wearing a black-hooded sweatshirt who was caught on surveillance video defacing the building.

Portland Halal Market serves as a hub for the Somali community.

The Portland Halaal Market on St. John Street was spray-painted Sunday morning with graffiti offensive to Muslims, and police and the market’s owner are calling it a hate crime.

Police, who said the incident occurred at 5 a.m., were on the scene at 269 St. John St. later Sunday morning reviewing videotape from a security camera and talking to Mahdi Ahmed, owner of the market.

The graffiti, spray-painted in red capital letters on the windows and brick on the side of the building, referred to Allah and included a sexual epithet. Allah was misspelled as “Alah.”

“This is a hate crime,” Ahmed said.

[….]

The market opened in 2002 and serves the Somali community and others. It sells halal foods that are allowed under Islamic dietary guidelines.

[….]

The store also serves as a hub for the Somali community.

[….]

Jalali [a Muslim author at the Univ. of Southern Maine] estimated that the Muslim population in Maine is about 6,000. There are seven or eight mosques, he said, half of them in the Portland area.

“Long live the West”

Jalali said the last anti-Muslim incident in Portland that he could recall was in 2011. In that case, someone spray-painted “Go home,” “Long live the West” and other words on a wall at the Maine Muslim Community Center on Anderson Street, the city’s largest mosque.

One thing frustrated Mainers can do is to demand that no more refugees be resettled in the state.  You won’t be able to stop the influx of Somalis (or refugees generally) from other states, but you might be able to put a dent in the flow directly from Africa.

Stephen Letourneau is CEO of the $25 million a year operation—Catholic Charities of Maine—and is responsible for the refugee/asylum influx to Maine.

Don’t blame the refugees!

This is the agency directly responsible for the colonization of Maine towns (especially Portland and Lewiston):

USCCB (US Conference of Catholic Bishops)
ME-USCCB-01: Catholic Charities Maine
Address:
80 Sherman Street
Portland, ME 04101
Phone:
207-210-1501

I wasn’t planning to get too deeply into this branch of Catholic Charities, but wow, check out their most recent Form 990 here, they had a revenue stream of over $25 million and more than half comes from taxpayers in some form or another (page 9).  They had over $9 million in “Medicaid fees” alone!  What the heck is that?

For new readers, see our extensive archive on Maine, here.  Be sure to see one of our top posts of all time—Maine the welfare magnet.

Catholic Charities encouraged the first Somalis to come to Maine.

Don’t vandalize buildings!  Tell Catholic Charities and your elected officials that you don’t want any more third worlders!  You can’t afford it!

And, get behind your governor’s attempts to take away the welfare magnet!