Tag: Minneapolis Somalis

Minnesota Muslims “waking up” and expect to make gains in voting today

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

From NPR:

Muslims Hope To ‘Wake Up’ At The Ballot Box This Year

On a recent Saturday afternoon in an office in St. Paul, Minn., a flurry of calls went out to Native American and Latinos voters reminding them to vote Nov. 6. And there was a new group added to the list: Muslims.

Until last year, ISAIAH, a multi-racial coalition of faith communities in Minnesota, was mostly made up of churches. Now, 24 mosques have joined the voter turnout effort. The group is focused on getting communities of color to vote this year in reaction to what it describes as politics of fear and a rise of white nationalism.

 

Ellison and Imam Asad Zaman
Pals! Imam Asad Zaman (left) with Rep. Keith Ellison.  Will Ellison be Minnesota’s next Attorney General after today?

 

With Muslims and immigrants used as boogeymen in political rhetoric, Imam Asad Zaman, executive director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, said, getting his community to the ballot box is vital. Zaman is leading the local Muslim effort to get out the vote and has been a leader on political engagement in the community for more than 15 years.

And there are more Muslims now running for office, hoping to be part of a “blue wave.” In Minnesota, nine Muslims are on the ballot for state, federal and local offices.

“Many candidates running for office are using Islamophobia as a means to get to political power. That is absolutely un-American,” Zaman said. “The community is under assault. Fortunately, most of us are beginning to wake up.”

The community is under assault. Fortunately, most of us are beginning to wake up.

(Imam Asad Zaman)

He points out that in Minnesota there are 50,000 registered Muslim voters. Though Muslims make up a small voting bloc — they’re about one percent of the nation’s population — those votes can matter in close elections. Many feel a renewed sense of urgency to choose leaders that will represent them.

[….]

About two-thirds of Muslim voters identify as Democrats according to the Pew Research Center and about 13 percent as Republican.

Muslim populations growing in key battleground states

“What’s interesting is that they are clustered in key areas including battleground states such as Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and especially in urban areas,” Alzayat says. “So, for example you have about 120,000 registered Muslim voters in the state of Michigan. You have about 120,000 registered in Florida. You have about 100,000 registered in Virginia and those numbers really matter because in close elections … just a few votes can make a difference let alone tens of thousands, if not 100,000.”

It is a long ‘glowing’ story, read more here.

I have a huge Minnesota archive, go here if you have some time to read!

African population booming in Minnesota; sending millions of dollars back to Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those feel-good stories about how Minnesota is such a wonderful state with its ever-expanding African migrant population.  If you are a Minnesotan it’s probably a good thing to read.

Somali women MN
Minnesota women protesting the sentencing of two Somali women on terror funding charges. None of these glowing economic studies include the cost to taxpayers for the criminal justice system. Photo: http://www.komonews.com/news/national/2-Minnesota-women-sentenced-in-Somali-terror-case-207813961.html

However, I caution readers on the numbers.  The TwinCities Pioneer Press reports that there are about 85,000 Somalis in the whole US and that just isn’t so…the number is much larger.  We painstakingly researched the numbers for just those entering the US through the refugee program and came up with over 100,000 in the last 25 years and that doesn’t include a couple generations now of producing children.  See this early post.
You will see mention in the story that when census takers come around, the Africans are less than truthful about how many are living at the location.
From TwinCities Pioneer Press:

Of the 50 states, Minnesota has the ninth-largest population of African immigrants. About 60 percent come from East African nations such as Somalia and Ethiopia, and 25 percent from West African nations such as Nigeria and Liberia. The rest come from elsewhere in Africa.

[….]

Of more than 85,700 Somalis officially known to reside in the U.S., nearly a third are thought to reside in Minnesota.

[….]

Corrie, a professor at Concordia University in St. Paul, believes the state’s African population produces $14 million in philanthropy within Minnesota each year, on top of $150 million in annual remittances to countries in Africa.

I don’t know why this is considered a good thing—sending money out of America that will never benefit our economy!
Some of the ‘smart’ people on our side should get to work doing studies that will show the real picture including how much welfare is consumed by the immigrants, how costly is their medical care and education, the cost to the criminal justice system, and include an analysis of where the money goes!
I’m starting to think that glowing reports about how immigrants benefit the local economy include the money flowing into a state like Minnesota from the federal tax payer via welfare programs.  Someone needs to find out!
By the way, I don’t see any mention in the Pioneer Press story about the fact that half of the state’s Somalis live in poverty, here.
 

Minnesota Somalis: 'We would rather be in Somalia'

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Or, at least in a country that follows shariah law!
That is the gist of the comments a film maker received from several young Somali men and women interviewed on the streets of “Little Mogadishu” (aka Minneapolis) recently.
Here is World Net Daily late yesterday:

On Friday a camera crew with the David Horowitz Freedom Center released a video posted to Robert Spencer’s blog, Jihad Watch, in which documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz interviews Somali men and women on the streets of Cedar Riverside.

Young Somalis who grew up and were educated in America (on your dime!) still believe it is o.k. to kill people, like Pamela Geller, who do not agree with the teachings of the Koran and exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech.

Their answers to questions about Islamic law, American law and issues of peace and freedom were revealing.

Continue reading here. They discuss their hatred for Pamela Geller in addition to extolling the virtues of following Islamic law—shariah—which of course would permit them to kill her.   Then this near the end:

The interviewer asked one final question: If they had a choice, would the Somalis rather live in America or back in Somalia?

“I’d rather to live a Muslim country with my people,” the young man with the Brooklyn Nets cap said without hesitation. “I’m not Americanized. I just speak fluent (English) and I’m articulate, and I can articulate what I’m trying to say. That’s about it. But as far as that my culture and my preferences and everything, it’s still Somali, you know what I mean?”

“I would rather live in Somalia,” said the man in the sunglasses.

“For me, I think Somalia,” said the woman in the pink hijab.

For new readers:

Check out some of our earlier posts.  See this one from 2011‘Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis’ which describes the decades’ old ‘work’ of federal refugee resettlement contractors:  Lutheran Social Service of MN, Catholic Charities and World Relief (now called ‘Arrive Ministries’) that continue to resettle Somalis in Minnesota (over 10,000 in the last ten years alone).
And, don’t miss Lutheran Social Service of MN—-doing well by doing good! (here and here).

Fun with numbers! How many Somali refugees have come to your city in FY 2015, so far?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Minneapolis Somali women angry with sentencing in 2013 terror-funding case. More fun on the way! http://www.komonews.com/news/national/2-Minnesota-women-sentenced-in-Somali-terror-case-207813961.html

In the previous post we gave readers the tiny Syrian resettlement numbers (so far!), but check out the Somali numbers—2,801 new Somalis have arrived in America in just the first three months of Fiscal Year 2015!   At this pace they will surely be approaching the high George Bush Somali “welcoming” years!

Once again, see the very cool data base maintained by the US State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.  (I use the fiscal year, but you might find it more understandable to use the calendar year option).

Somalis were resettled in about 115 cities large and small, but here are the top ten with the numbers in parenthesis.  Again, these numbers are for three months (October, November and December 2014, the first three months of Fiscal Year 2015).  And, it is possible that all December data has not yet been entered.

1.  Minneapolis, MN (148)

2.  Columbus, OH (127)

3.  Phoenix, AZ (123)

4.  Portland, OR (108)

5.  Buffalo, NY (103)

6.  Salt Lake, UT (100)

7.  Louisville, KY (92)

8.  Erie, PA (89)

9.  Nashville, TN (81)

10.  Three-way tie with (77) each

Seattle, WA

Houston, TX

St. Cloud, MN

(You might want to check my numbers, go to the data base, and see if I missed some top ten city and see if your city ‘welcomed’ Somalis!  By the way, Anchorage, Alaska got 30 more mosque worshipers).

New readers:  See ‘Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis?’ our top post of 2014 (even though it was written in 2011)—thank three ‘Christian Charities’ for flooding Minnesota with Somali Muslims.

Could non-citizen voters (Somalis?) swing close races? Yes, says WaPo

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Non-citizen Somali voters may have made the difference for funny-man Al Franken in 2008.

On Thursday we reported that some of Obama’s illegal alien “Dreamers” are voting.

And, I should mention that I’ve been asked several time recently if I thought illegal aliens or more importantly legal immigrants, like refugees, are voting before they have even gained citizenship and I’ve said:  Of course they are!  They simply check ‘yes’ to the citizenship question when they get a drivers license and they are good to go because no one ever cross-checks.

This Washington Post story (can we believe our eyes that this is in the WaPo?) confirms what we have only surmised (hat tip: Paul).  You can read the whole thing yourself but the section that interested me most was the one on the Minnesota Al Franken victory which we reported on extensively in 2008 (here is one of several posts we wrote at the time) may well have been decided with the help of Somali illegal voters.

From the Washington Post (although they don’t use the ‘S’ word!):

Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won election in 2008 with a victory margin of 312 votes. Votes cast by just 0.65 percent of Minnesota non-citizens could account for this margin.

Yup!