Tag: Seattle

Seattle Somalis protest against a refugee agency over Mohammed cartoon

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Looks like it’s Somali Sunday here at RRW.  Sure hope it won’t turn into Somali week!

Hassan Diis (left) and Ubah Warsame at the latest in a series of demonstrations at ReWA Friday demanding a teacher be fired. More protests are planned for next week. (Photo by Alex Garland)

It is not some bad ol’ edgy newspaper or rightwing blogger feeling the heat, but in what has to be juicy irony a long-time refugee agency that is a mecca of multicultural love and understanding in Seattle is facing the heat from Somali protestors.

The protestors who stood outside of Refugee Women’s Alliance on Friday were angry that one of its staff members had the naivete’ to think that here in America showing a Mohammed cartoon in a discussion about freedom of speech and religion is perfectly acceptable.

One of the cartoons that offends the Somalis—those refugees we are welcoming to America at the rate of 9,000 a year now.

Guess not!  The teacher, who is from India, may be fired (but, in the meantime, she has left the country!).

From Seattle Globalist (hat tip: Pungentpeppers):

Controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed hit home in Seattle recently, culminating in a protest outside of southend refugee service provider on Friday.

A group of Somali Americans gathered outside the Refugee Women’s Alliance (ReWA) on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way to demand the resignation of a teacher who showed the cartoons to her teenage students on the day after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

“We’re not gonna be silent when it’s something that’s not right,” said Hassan Aden, who was one of between 15 to 20 people who attended the protest. “We’re trying to show that we’re not happy with what she did.”

The teacher, Deepa Bhandaru, recently earned her Ph.D from the UW Political Science department, and works for ReWA teaching a free class on world affairs for youth, where she showed the cartoons during a lesson on free speech and religious pluralism.

There is more!  Continue reading here.

The cartoon and another story on the demonstration can be found here.

Be sure to have a look at the most recent Form990 for Refugee Women’s Alliance just one of the hundreds of contractors and subcontractors living off the taxpayers to help the ‘stranger’.    In 2013 its total income (p. 9) was $5.5 million and $4.4 million came from government grants. It reaped another $600,000 from child care income (some of that was probably subsidized by taxpayers too)!

What is wrong with this picture—we pay to feed, clothe, house and educate them and get a kick in the teeth as a reward!

See our two previous posts just today (here and here) on Somalis—gosh we would be so bored without them!

Seattle isn’t just about Seahawks—it is one of the top cities that “welcomed” Somalis over the last two decades.  Scroll down this handy list of all the refugee resettlement contractors.  On page 36 you will see who is responsible in Washington State.

Addendum:  Just remembered our December post about Somalis demanding more housing in Seattle, here.

Seattle housing crisis: Pay attention refugee “welcoming” cities

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Is yours one of 180 cities to which the US State Department is sending refugees?  If it is, you are either experiencing this problem already or will be soon—not enough low income housing to go around.

The city of Seattle had proposed a plan to gradually increase rents (they are probably going broke supporting all these immigrants), but the plan has been shelved for now because of the push-back from tenants.

Seattle is the third most desirable city for Somali refugees behind number one Minneapolis and number two Columbus, Ohio.

 

Look who the protesters are! Surprise (not)! Photo: http://www.kplu.org/post/protesters-disrupt-seattle-housing-authority-hearing-chants-rent-hikes-no

 

 

From the Seattle Times (hat tip: ‘Pungentpeppers’).  Emphasis is mine:

In response to widespread opposition, the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) has shelved its controversial plan to raise rents for thousands of its tenants.

There will be no rent policy change until 2016, and the SHA might scrap the plan altogether.

“We have decided to put consideration of the Stepping Forward proposal on hold,” SHA Executive Director Andrew Lofton wrote Monday in a letter to Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.

The SHA board of commissioners was initially set to vote on the plan by the end of 2014. No longer.

“In early 2015 we will work with our board of commissioners to establish a process and time frame for a new policy recommendation,” Lofton wrote. “We are unlikely to put forth a rent policy proposal before 2016.”

Stepping Forward would have used apartment size rather than household income to set rents for SHA-assisted households with at least one adult capable of working. The rents would have increased over time. The plan would have paired the rent increases with job counseling for tenants.

In proposing Stepping Forward earlier this year, Lofton argued the plan would help the SHA serve more people, cope with impending budget cuts and push tenants to become self-sufficient.

The SHA has about 9,000 households on its waiting list for public housing and recently had 24,000 households apply for 2,000 available rent vouchers, he said.  [Gee, don’t you wonder how many of these are needy Americans?—ed]

But many SHA tenants, advocates for low-income housing and elected officials came out against the plan, predicting that some households would be unable to keep up with the rent increases and would wind up homeless.

Tenants demonstrated against Stepping Forward at a number of SHA meetings and at City Hall. Murray opposed the plan, saying it would have a disproportionate impact on immigrants, refugees, families of color and female heads of household.

A 32-year old father of SEVEN wants to keep his cheap rent:

Abdisalan Abdulle, 32, a father of seven who lives in the SHA’s Yesler Terrace housing complex, had mixed feelings about the news.

“They’re backing it up for one year, but 2016 is going to come,” said Abdulle, who took part in demonstrations against the plan. “I hope they get rid of it for good.”

There is more news on the plans’ demise here (watch the video).  And, this is a story about protests back in September that we missed.

Calling David Lubell:  Tell us why this is so good for the city (for the taxpayers and the non-immigrant poor people) of Seattle.

 

US Attorney Virginia: Somali refugee women charged with funding Somali Islamic terror group

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I was surprised to see this story.  I thought all of the cases of Islamic terror fundraising for al-Shabaab by Somalis we brought to America through refugee resettlement (at your expense) had gone to trial and those convicted were safely tucked away in prison (at your expense).  Oh, and adding insult to injury, it is surely your welfare dollars they are sending to Africa.

Surprise!  Here is yet another case!   One of the women is from Seattle, Washington and the other from Reston, Virginia.  The story I first saw is this one from the Seattle Times via AP (thus the focus on Seattle’s alleged terrorist).

Dhirane appeared in District Court in Seattle on Tuesday. http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/kent-woman-suspected-funding-terrorist-group/ngmYG/

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Washington state woman and four other people have been charged with funneling money to the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab in Somalia.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria announced the charges Wednesday. The two women, one from Kent, Wash., and the other from Reston, Va., are charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorist network. The U.S. designated al-Shabab as a terrorist group in 2008.

Prosecutors say 44-year-old Hinda Osman Dhirane of Kent and 34-year-old Muna Osman Jama of Reston were arrested in their homes. Dhirane faces an initial appearance Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Seattle.

Three others overseas have also been charged. One is in custody in the Netherlands; the other two are fugitives in Kenya and Somalia.

Prosecutors say the women raised money for al-Shabab using code words like “orphans” to refer to al-Shabab fighters.

According to the Department of Justice, Dhirane and Jama Jama are leaders of an al-Shabaab fundraising conspiracy operating in the U.S., Kenya, the Netherlands, Somalia and elsewhere.  Jama was allegedly responsible for sending money to Kenya through overseas defendant Fardowsa Jama Mohamed, while Dhirane was primarily responsible for sending money to Somalia through another overseas defendant, Barira Hassan Abdullahi, according to the charges.

The Seattle area boasts the second-largest Somali population in the U.S., behind Minneapolis-St. Paul. Over the years, the FBI and federal prosecutors have attempted to make in-roads into the community.  [I don’t think “boasts” is the right word here, do you?—ed]

There is more, read on.

For energetic readers, click here for all of our previous posts (going back years) on the topic of ‘Somali terror funding.’

LOL!  Watch for CAIR to come out of the woodwork!

Seattle: Somali refugee killed in city’s “International District”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Diversity is strength alert!

Mohamed Osman shot dead in Seattle’s International District

It is never the Somalis who are the problem!  This time it’s what else?  Too many guns!  And, the police are to blame as well!

From q13Fox.news:

SEATTLE — Police are investigating a deadly shooting overnight in the International District. The gunman is still on the loose.

Friends say the latest victim was 27-year-old Mohamed Osman, a Somali native, who moved to Seattle a few years ago.

Fourth person killed in the neighborhood this week!

Osman is the fourth person to be killed in a shooting in Seattle this week. Although the incidents do not appear to be related, many people are worried.

“It`s very scary when you live in the neighborhood that it happens in, and it can happen any time,” says Lisa Tsui, who lives in the International District.

Put a Somali on the police force and that’ll fix it!

But he says guns aren’t the only problem. He thinks the police need to do a better job, reaching out to the different ethnic groups in the city. He says this latest shooting could have avoided if police had paid more attention to the problems brewing in Seattle’s Somali community.

“The Seattle police department doesn`t have anyone with a Somali background representing the community,” he says.

Seattle is a “preferred resettlement site” for the US State Department and its contractors.   And, by the way, we have admitted another 4,508 Somalis to the US this year (added to the over 100,000 admitted so far).

Seattle Mayor: refugees and immigrants need more taxpayer supplied services

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Get that Wyoming!  There is not enough federal money flowing to refugee resettlement hotspots, so Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is calling on the city’s taxpayers to pony-up more cash.

Seattle Mayor Murray: the City needs to find more money for our refugee overload.

And, the best part of this article in the Seattle Times comes near the end!

Calling the city’s efforts to help immigrants and refugees “understaffed and underfunded,” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said Wednesday he’ll expand city services, with a goal of strengthening help for those communities.

Murray called on the City Council to approve $409,000 in new funding to double the size of the small Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and begin work on an action plan that includes expanded access to English-language programs, support for immigrant-owned small businesses, improved relations with the Seattle Police Department and enhanced citizenship programs.

Local ethnic community organizers salivating for more $$$!

Murray said that Washington is the eighth-largest refugee-resettlement state in the nation and that almost 1 in 5 residents were born in another country.

And he said that while many think of refugees and immigrants as living primarily in Southeast Seattle, as many as 25 percent of residents in Northgate and Maple Leaf speak a language other than English.

The morning news conference was attended by many representatives of immigrant communities who said they welcomed increased city attention and resources.

Best part of a very informative article!  Immigrant entrepreneur myth busted!  This made me laugh out loud:

Aaliyah Gupta, interim director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, said the city knows that immigrant businesses close at a high rate but doesn’t know all the reasons why.

She said that between 2007 and 2013, 3,950 small businesses opened in Rainier Valley, while over the same period 2,390 closed. Many of those were owned by immigrants, she said.

David Lubell and his “Welcoming America” cohorts have been out peddling this notion that refugees/immigrants open more businesses than Americans do, but LOL!, I guess he is not reporting how many are closing!   The reality here for Ms. Gupta is that refugees get special deals from the federal government (via the contractors) when financing new businesses and simply can’t sustain the trinket shops etc. that they open.   The survivors are the convenience store owners tapping into the lucrative food stamp fraud racket.

Lubell is a contractor for the Office of Refugee Resettlement and he was hired to get your minds right about refugees!

The article ends with a discussion about getting the large number of single, poor, Muslim women together with women police officers to establish trust and cooperation.  Guess there is a problem that we are not being told. Of course, the ‘M’ word is not mentioned.