Tag: Massachusetts

Is the “remittance culture” driving the “children” to America?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

“Why work when money just pours in from Western Union regularly?”

Update August 12th:  More on remittance culture in Breitbart article about illegal Hondurans in US.

A few years ago when I was researching a story on “temporary protected status” I came across a comment by George Bush, or someone in his State Department, saying that they had to extend TPS for Salvadorans because the money they sent home kept the country afloat.

That money being sent out of the US by immigrants is known as remittances.  Indeed, we have lots of posts here over the years about remittances to Somalia and the problems with it.

MD Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez in front of Salvadoran Money transfer business. Photo credit: Greg Dohler/The Gazette http://potomacteapartyreport.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/maryland-delegate-money-is-a-principal-driver-of-the-foreign-governments-interest-in-immigration-reform/

But, I hadn’t noticed much written about whether the three major countries (Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador) sending their ‘unaccompanied alien children’ to America were turning a blind eye and actually condoning the illegal migration because they know money (a lot of it taxpayer dollars!) would soon flow southward.

In fact when Rush Limbaugh was making fun of Obama and saying why was he so willing to steal the best and the brightest of Central American youths and thus rob those countries of a future, I wondered then why the leaders of those countries weren’t angry at the loss of their children.  Is it because the lure of easy money now is greater than any concern for the future of their countries?

So I looked around and found this really good article by Seth Daniel at the Chelsea Record (Massachusetts) entitled: Influx Has Everything to Do with Remittance Culture.

The gist of it is that the “children” will send money ‘home’ and that the flood of easy money ultimately destroys those poor countries, and it destroys local economies in the US as well.

After a lead-in about men coming to America to support their families and finding things tough, Daniel says this:

But make no mistake, they did and still do send money.

The Record reported last year that in 2012, nearly $250 million cash left the communities of Chelsea, Revere, East Boston and Everett in the form of remittances (money sent back to one’s home country). Some $2 billion left the state of Massachusetts alone in 2012. That’s a fortune, and most of it went to Central America – specifically El Salvador and Guatemala. The paper is still waiting to get those same numbers for 2013 from the state, but early reports are that even more was remitted.

Consulates from those countries told the Record in that very same report last year that their countries are deeply dependent upon money sent to family members from American relatives. It has become an important part of life in their countries.

And so what about those countries?

If you talk to assimilated natives of those particular countries – and really any country with a large remittance culture – they will tell you (maybe only secretly) that sending so much money home has ruined the society. People who keep residences in their home countries will tell you that they cannot find anyone to hire in order to maintain those properties. So many formerly hard-working people prefer to just wait for the weekly remittance from America. Why work when money just pours in from Western Union regularly?

This isn’t only in Central America, again. It’s the status quo wherever large sums of remittance money make up a significant portion of a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Then there’s the problem with what happens to a poor economy when so much money starts rolling in without anything being produced or anybody earning said money. Prices skyrocket for food and housing. Land prices go through the roof. Heavy taxes are imposed. Everything all the sudden costs way more than it did, and the money that rolls in suddenly isn’t enough. The more money that is sent, the shorter it stretches.

Then the frantic phone calls begin to come – the money you sent isn’t enough. We need more.

What once cost $1 is now $10.

Destroying the local economy in Massachusetts

Daniel continues:

….right now we have hundreds of thousands of young adults and older teens pouring over the border to get to America by whatever means necessary. They are certainly fleeing violence, but there is also an aspect of them fleeing in order to get a job and send more money home.

That was expressly said by two women who spoke last week at the Collaborative – one of which who said she needed to send money home to her mother as soon as possible. Naturally, $1 doesn’t go as far as it used to and people need to eat.

The remittance culture needs to be addressed within this debate, but no one wants to talk about it. Just like Broadway Chelsea seems to be ground zero for the unaccompanied minor debate, it is also ground zero for cash leaving the country. Millions upon millions of dollars leave the community via Broadway Chelsea every year. Just a million of that money would transform the outlook of business on Broadway. That’s why this system cripples the community – puts local business out of business because any and all disposable income is being sent instead of spent.

Read it all.  And please spread it around, it deserves greater attention then it’s gotten at this local news outlet.

Of course the NGO drivers of the illegal migration don’t give a damn about such matters—it is all about more Democrat voters, sinking our social service system, and changing America forever.

Our complete archive on ‘unaccompanied minors’ goes back several years, click here for all of those posts.

Massachusetts (again!) Ghanaian pooping ‘bush boy’ bites off roommate’s thumb

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Diversity is strength alert!

For a little levity, because we need it sometimes…..

From the Berkshire Eagle  (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’).  I’m imaging the reporter writing this with a straight face:

PITTSFIELD — A Pittsfield man was found guilty of a felony for nearly biting off part of his roommate’s thumb last winter during an altercation over bathroom etiquette.

RRW Geography Lesson—Bush boy from Ghana goes wild!

Michael Mensah, 57, was convicted on Thursday of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury. He was acquitted of a felony charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

It took a jury of three men and three women less than an hour to reach a verdict.

On the afternoon of Feb. 11, Pittsfield Police responded to a Summer Street residence for a report of a domestic incident and were greeted at the door by a naked man with part of his thumb hanging by a tendon. Mensah, his roommate, was found in his room lying on his bed complaining of pain to his back, neck and head. His shirt was covered in blood and the bathroom “clearly showed signs of a bloody fight.”

Both men were taken to Berkshire Medical Center for their injuries.

On Thursday in the Jury of Six session in Central Berkshire District Court, Stephen Quam, 61, testified that part of his right thumb had to be removed.

He said doctors told him because it had been bitten off there was no way to reattach it.

He showed the jury his thumb, which appeared to be missing the first phalanx, including the nail.

In court both men had very different versions of what took place that day, although they agree that the argument was about the use of the bathroom.

According to Quam, who is also from Ghana, he went in to shave his head with a pair of clippers while Mensah was using the toilet. Mensah also is a Ghanian national. [Not US citizens, yet you lucky Mass. taxpayers paid for this trial replete with costly interpreters!—ed]

He said he made a comment to his roommate about not telling him he was going to defecate.

“The room began to smell,” he said through an interpreter. 

This enraged Mensah who attacked him, pushing him into the bathtub, choking and punching him before biting his thumb, which had ended up in Mensah’s mouth.

“Part of my thumb came off,” he testified.

During the attack Quam was injured when the clippers he was using landed on his foot, he said.

Quam testified that he never struck his roommate that day.

Mensah told the jury he was using the toilet when Quam came in uninvited and began to shave his head. He said he had to “poop” and did so. Quam then came up to him, began thumping him on the head with his fingers and called him a “bush boy.”

The interpreter explained this was a very derogatory phrase in Ghana.

Migration Policy Institute. 17% of those brains leaving Ghana were in the US by 2001.

When Mensah was finished using the bathroom he tried to leave the room, but was pushed by Quam and fell into the bathtub. He said Quam choked him with one hand and punched him with the other. He eventually bit Quam’s thumb to get him to stop beating him, he said.

Believe it or not, there is a little more!  Here…

So what I wanted to know is, where did all these Ghanians come from?  Or more specifically how did they get here?

I learned that “welcoming” Massachusetts is loaded with them.

This is how I found out all about the migration history of ‘bush boys’ (really, more than I wanted to know) here at the Migration Policy Institute.  Can you believe it!  Ghana is worried about a BRAIN DRAIN!

 The Ghanaian population in the United States has grown rapidly over the last decade and a half, particularly between 1990 and 2000, when the population jumped from 20,889 to 65,570, or 210 percent. Family reunification, refugee resettlement, and the strong economy of the 1990s are the factors driving this increase. Many believe these figures to be undercounts, and nonofficial estimates reach as high as 300,000.

Of course that means there are a whole bunch of illegals here besides the “refugees” (just waiting for the Obama amnesty!).

 

Springfield, Mass: Somali family of 12 gets new housing

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, I guess this is what Jeb Bush meant when he said immigrants are more fertile!  #ActOfLove?

 

The family has “grown exponentially!”

This is an update of earlier stories about one more case that caused the Mayor of Springfield to beg for a moratorium  on refugees resettled to the immigrant-overloaded city.

The landlord (of course) gets all the blame for the bugs and squalor authorities discovered earlier this year.

Here is the latest from MassLive (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

SPRINGFIELD – A large family of Somali refugees have a new home in the city after being driven from an apartment on Union Street in May by roaches, bedbugs, darkness and overcrowding. [Darkness because they didn’t pay the electric bill!—ed]


The family, which includes 12 children, was living at 515 Union St. when one of the older children called police in May because their electricity had been shut off for days. City housing officials were notified and found “heavy infestations” of roaches and bedbugs, plus noting the house was far too small to accommodate the family, which had grown exponentially since they moved in.

The issue also revived the controversy in the city over managing the influx of Somali refugees since 2003. Mayor Domenic J. Sarno has repeatedly called for a moratorium on new placements, arguing the families tax the city’s housing and school systems and don’t receive the proper long-term supports.

The city condemned the apartment; property manager David Sims was hauled into Springfield Housing Court and the family was temporarily relocated to a hotel shelter in Greenfield. However, lawyers for Sims and the family reached an agreement on Tuesday to move the family to a duplex at 185-187 Northampton Ave., which has been cleared by city inspectors, according to Lisa DeSousa, a lawyer for the city.

Family members Haji Mamo, his wife, Habiba Said and sister-in-law Sitey Said were in court Tuesday, and sorted out the agreement with the help of a Somali interpreter in a closed-door meeting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/06/14/jeb-bush-u-s-economy-needs-immigrants-because-theyre-more-fertile/

The family also filed a demand for nearly $133,000 in monetary claims with the housing court. The complaint contends they should get abatements for rent, nearly $10,000 in “homeless damages,” and treble damages near $83,000 because of the conditions of the Union Street apartment.

Daniel D. Kelly, a lawyer for Sims, denies the allegations in the complaint including that Sims willfully ignored code violations and deliberately impaired the health and well-being of family members.

“It was a combination of problems that came about very quickly.

[….]

Sims said the family was much smaller when he originally rented the apartment to them.

We will be watching what happens with their new house!

Also, for more reading pleasure, we have been following Springfield for several years, click here, for that archive.

Endnote:  It’s interesting to watch the “pockets of resistance” grow in cities that were originally “welcoming” and now are becoming overloaded with needy migrants (legal and illegal).  It is a matter of numbers—a few migrants needing services kind of go under the radar until a tipping point is reached for the taxpayers. Cases like this one break into the news causing citizens to finally say, ‘whoa!’ what is going on here?  But, at that point it is usually too late for the community because the contractors are bringing in the relatives of the first seed population and anyone who complains is immediately labeled a xenophobic, racist, bigoted boob! and the complainers scurry for cover.  I don’t know how this will all end.

Feds moving illegal aliens (unaccompanied minors) in secrecy; Sheriffs to meet at border

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You know they had to be doing it and doing it for months—moving the illegal border-crossers throughout America—in secrecy.  After Murietta, CA and Lawrenceville, VA they aren’t about to be making announced visits to your town.

If your community finds out in advance about large groups to be housed by the federal government, then locals become motivated to protest.  It didn’t take even one protest (just the threat of one) to turn the Dept. of Homeland Security and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) away from a proposed location in Westminster, MD last week.  However, it’s the individual deliveries that are going to be hard to spot.

Bristol County Massachusetts Sheriff joining other Sheriffs on the border tomorrow! “We are all border Sheriffs now!”

 

These two stories making the news—secrecy in Nebraska and in Massachusetts— involve not buses arriving en masse, but chartered flights of illegal aliens where the illegal “children” are being distributed to families and “sponsors” throughout certain areas.   I think you can be sure this is happening almost everywhere.

Nebraska

Wall Street Journal (hat tip: Cathy):

In a sign of the far-reaching impact of the U.S. immigration crisis and its political fallout, Nebraska’s governor says 200 children who entered the country illegally were sent to his state this week without warning and that federal officials are refusing to identify them or their locations.

Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican, said federal officials also wouldn’t answer questions about public school attendance by the children and the potential costs to taxpayers.

“Governors and mayors have the right to know when the federal government is transporting a large group of individuals, in this case illegal immigrants, into your state,” Mr. Heineman told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Saturday. “We need to know who they are, and so far, they are saying they’re not going to give us that information.”

By the way, the federal resettlement contractors*** have been busy “welcoming” the regular refugees to Nebraska for years.

For all you Marylanders there is a mention of Presidential wannabe, Gov. Martin O’Malley, supporting the “children.”  No surprise!

….Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat weighing a presidential bid in 2016. “We are not a country that should turn children away and send them back to certain death,” he said on Friday.

Massachusetts

From the Boston Herald (hat tip: Joanne):

Illegal immigrants are being secretly flown to Massachusetts and kept in local lockups in an under-the-radar operation that has alarmed lawmen who are raising health and security concerns amid recent spikes in detainees coming up from Texas during the latest border crisis.

“We’re all becoming border sheriffs now with these people being carted all over the country,” said Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson.

“The blame goes all the way up. It’s a travesty and people ought to be upset,” Hodgson said. “This is un-American and has raised the stakes to the public health and public safety threat.”

Hodgson said buses from his facility were recently used to transport six planeloads of illegals sent up from San Antonio to Hanscom Field in Bedford en route to the Plymouth County
Correctional Facility.

The sheriff said he’s also heard of 100 immigrant children recently arriving in his county. But he couldn’t say if they are part of the deluge of 50,000 unaccompanied kids crossing the nation’s southern border.

Sheriffs to meet at the border tomorrow!

He said he’s heading to the Texas border Tuesday with other sheriffs from around the country to meet with ranchers and immigration officials to address the porous border crisis.

After weeks of denying an increase in flights to the Bay State, federal immigration officials finally admitted this weekend that four planes filled with detainees captured at the southern border have been flown to Hanscom and Logan International Airport since April as part of a “large-scale nationwide response” to the crisis.

Bug them all for information!

Some of your local elected officials are going to get word that the illegal aliens (aka refugees) are headed your way, so please keep talking with them, and keep asking your state refugee coordinators for information (even if they are stone-walling you).  They were supposed to have a conference call with the mothership (Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS) late last week to plan for locations.  Call the contractors too, they will know!

Click here for all of our coverage of the invasion of ‘unaccompanied minors.’   As one of my commenters noted yesterday—who could have known that this “obscure program” (refugee resettlement) could end up being at the very heart of our great Nation’s loss of sovereignty and our security perhaps for all time.

***The contractors

Lynn, Mass. again! “Children” straining school system as adult aliens register

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to give more background on the problems in Lynn, Massachusetts this morning.  See our previous post here.  But, I did want you to see this story before it’s too old, and I noticed on TV news programs over the last few days that communities receiving ‘unaccompanied alien minors’ are starting to stress about how they can handle the numbers and the health issues.

Here is Ryan Lovelace at National Review Online (hat tip ‘pungentpeppers’):

One of the questionable “children” registering for school in Lynn.

Adult illegal immigrants posing as unaccompanied alien children appear to be attempting to enroll at public high schools, city officials in Lynn, Mass., tell National Review Online.

“Some of them have had gray hair and they’re telling you that they’re 17 years old and they have no documentation,” Jamie Cerulli, the Lynn mayor’s chief of staff, tells NRO. “If my children went to the public schools, I’d be very uncomfortable with all of these unaccompanied minors [that] are placed in the ninth grade.”

Admission of all foreign students — illegal immigrants, refugees, and foreign nationals — has increased by more than 500 students since the 2010–2011 school year, Catherine Latham, the city’s superintendent of schools, tells NRO. Last school year, nearly 250 students arrived from Guatemala, including 126 enrolled in the ninth grade.

[….]

The majority of unaccompanied Guatemalan children arriving in the city hail from the city of San Marcos, Latham says, and are drawn by Lynn’s large Guatemalan population.

See all our coverage of ‘unaccompanied minors’ streaming across our southern border, here.

And remember!  It is not too late to call your state refugee coordinator and ask how many are coming to your state and when.   They will know (they may not tell you!), but ask!