Tag: Senator Rand Paul

More refugee crooks (Somalis) in Kentucky; Rand Paul where are you?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The only US Senator I’ve ever seen question the Refugee Resettlement Program of the US State Department is Senator Rand Paul.  He recently got in trouble with the mainstream media types when he said, ‘they [contractors] bring’em in and put them on welfare,’ here.  Those Iraqi refugee terrorists found in Bowling Green first got his attention, here.

Note to the Senator’s staff:  this is one more account of grateful (not!) refugees in Kentucky to add to your list!

Thanks to unofficial reporter ‘pungentpeppers’ for the link.

AP at Kentucky.com:

He got only 6 months!

Abdalla Hajisufi, a good father, ripped off every welfare program he could find!

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Somali man was sentenced Tuesday to six months in prison and six months of house arrest for leading an illegal prescription drug distribution ring and selling the stimulant khat while using a check-cashing scheme to launder more than $6 million from a Louisville storefront.

U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II in Louisville also ordered 43-year-old Abdalla Hajisufi to repay the state $119,000 for underreporting his income while claiming eligibility for food stamps.

Heyburn sentenced Hajisufi’s son, 20-year-old Mohamad Hajisufi, a native of Kenya and a University of Louisville student, to a year of probation for playing a minor role in the plot.

The two pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to distribute the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone between November 2011 and March 2012 to customers at their business, the Hana Store.

Son Mohamad Hajisufi got probation. Likely back in college on your dime!

Abdalla Hajisufi also pleaded guilty to managing and owning an unlicensed money transmitting business operating out of the Hana Store. Hajisufi admitted to cashing payroll checks from employees of a temporary employment agency, and deducting a small fee for the transaction, without complying with the licensing and registration requirements of Kentucky state laws.

The FBI said Hajisufi cashed nearly 107,000 payroll checks totaling more than $6.6 million from July 2006 through December 2010 at the Hana Store.

Ripped off every welfare program he could find before leaving the country!

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Snyder said Abdalla Hajisufi ran a drug dealing operation, an illegal business and spent time “ripping off every available welfare program” before being indicted and fleeing the country in 2012.

[…..]

The father and son were fugitives from the FBI until their arrest on January when they attempted to re-enter the United States on a flight from Europe at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The two fled the country after being charged in May 2012 and missed their scheduled arraignment a month later.

Defense:  Cut him slack, he is a poor refugee who took good care of his wife and seven kids (with the help of criminal activity and the ‘infidel’ taxpayers!)

Abdalla Hajisufi’s attorney, Mark Chandler, asked Heyburn for some leniency in sentencing. Chandler described his client as a Somali native who fled to snake-infested Kenyan refugee camps before arriving in the United States. Since then, Chandler said, Hajisufi has maintained steady employment and taken care of his wife and seven children.

They were also selling Khat (a favorite illegal drug of Somalis).  Read the whole article.

See also, refugee welfare cheat sentenced in Maine yesterday.

Rand Paul speaks out again on refugees; Huffington Post reporter shows bias?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..or is she just plain uninformed?

Immigration reporter Elise Foley seems to sneer at Senator Paul and may have purposefully left a few facts out of this article on Paul at HuffPo yesterday— ‘They Bring ‘Em In,’ Sign Them Up For Welfare.

Huffington Post immigration reporter Elise Foley

Perhaps we should direct Ms. Foley (and her editors!) to our new Fact Sheet here at RRW!

Paul is exactly correct in paragraph one:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Wednesday that the U.S. should be skeptical of accepting refugees, from Iraq in particular, because they take welfare and could plan attacks on American soil.

No where in this article does Ms. Foley report that two Iraqi refugees were arrested and have been found guilty of terrorist activities in Paul’s home town of Bowling Green, Kentucky.  So she leaves this terror threat concept hanging out there, like there is no evidence this could happen.

She continued, in paragraph two, with a glaring error (one I feel sure Paul did not make and if he did should have been given the opportunity to correct).  And, yes, Ms. Foley we did have refugees attack us here (have you forgotten about the Tsarnaevs in Boston?).  But, that isn’t the error I’m focused on here.  It’s not 95 people of 70,000 on food stamps, it is 95% of 70,000.*  By leaving it uncorrected she clearly is happy to make Paul look ridiculous because who would quibble with 95 refugees out of 70,000 getting help with food.

Foley continued quoting Paul:

“We have had refugees attack us here. Ninety-five [percent!–ed] of our 70,000 Iraqi refugees are on food stamps, majority are in government housing, 46 percent are unemployed,” he said on “The Simon Conway Show” — incidentally a day before World Refugee Day [reporter snark!—ed]. “It’s one thing to have a big heart and invite people to our country, and if you do it in a small fashion, the churches and the people take care of them, that’s one thing. But like in my town in particular, they bring ’em in and there is someone whose job and expertise is to sign them up for welfare as soon as they get here.”

Paul has it exactly right, a taxpayer funded refugee resettlement contractor in Bowling Green gets the refugees signed up for welfare benefits and then this idea, that Paul throws out of churches and people taking care of refugees (privately!), is the solution to our entire refugee mess!  It has been my view from day one that if refugee families were PRIVATELY sponsored by churches or civic organizations (no contractors!) for a year or two we wouldn’t have the huge drain on the federal treasury; tensions between refugees and the community would be lessened; and we would have a better chance that refugees would ASSIMILATE!

Paul questioned previously why we should be taking Iraqis to America in the first place since we gave them a democratically elected government and their internal Islamic (Sunni v. Shia) squabbles are not our problem.  But, here Ms. Foley wants the reader to believe that Iraq is still our problem because we went to war there.  There is the legitimate Christian persecution issue, but we (US State Department or even the Catholic Bishops) are not going out of their way to rescue Iraqi Christians anyway.

The U.S. has a long tradition of accepting refugees and has resettled more than 3 million since 1975, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Since 2007, the country has admitted nearly 85,000 Iraqi refugees, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, with more people fleeing the country due to escalated violence stemming from the Iraq War.  [Or stemming from their Islamic internal conflicts—ed]

***Update*** State Department said yesterday that 30,000-40,000 Iraqi refugee applications are pending, here.

Senator Paul’s amendment to beef up security measures in the Gang of Eight bill was defeated:

Paul proposed an amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate, which he called “Trust but Verify,” that would increase the already intensive screening of those refugees and asylum-seekers.

Opponents of the amendment, which failed 37 to 61, argued that among other things, it painted foreign students, refugees and asylum-seekers as potential terrorists. The amendment would also hold up a path to citizenship in the “gang of eight” immigration bill until Congress had voted that the border was adequately secure.

Paul did the unthinkable according to Ms. Foley!  He used the word refugees in proximity to the word terrorist!  So, Ms. Foley what about the Iraqi refugees sentenced to prison in KY or the Tsarnaev carnage in Boston?  We have nothing to fear from refugees that would warrant a little extra screening?

In a statement ahead of the vote on his amendment, Paul referred to refugees in one sentence, and then terrorists in the next. 

“Individuals here under asylum or refugee status must register in a program providing increased screening and a means to make sure that the federal government has an idea where people in these programs reside,” he said. “We should remember that most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on visa overstays.”

Paul also said, if Iraqi refugees aren’t finding work, maybe they should just go back to Iraq!  Funny thing is, disgusted with America after finding life is tough here, some have gone back to Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East, but the State Department isn’t telling you that!

More here.

* Readers, this statistic 95% of Iraqi refugees are receiving food stamps comes from the 2009 ORR Annual Report to Congress.  The figure may have improved since then, but we don’t know because every day the ORR is breaking the law by not supplying Congress with the reports for 2010, 2011 and 2012.  There are only two possible reasons for failing to submit those reports—incompetent management or they don’t want Congress and the public to know how horrible the stats are for refugee employment and welfare use (or how much largesse the contractors are receiving!).

Maybe Senator Paul should look into the missing reports problem.  Hint!  Contact Ken Tota, Deputy Director ORR, 202-401-4858.

Bowling Green, KY a growing Muslim community, the result of refugee resettlement

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Someone needs to tell Senator Rand Paul what is happening in his home town.

A mosque in Bowling Green. Saudi money?

Here is a gushy, politically correct, story (entitled: Growing Diversity) on the huge Muslim population in Bowling Green, but not one word about those Iraqi refugee terrorists convicted there last year.

From the Bowling Green Daily News (hat tip: Robin).    By the way, the Bosnian migration was a Bill Clinton project.  He wanted to help his meatpacking friends get some cheap refugee laborers.  I’m guessing he sold out America in exchange for some campaign cash from meatpacking giants.

But, you can bet that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was perfectly fine with it, or Kentucky wouldn’t be as high as it is on the list of states “welcoming” refugees.  The Bush State Department contributed also to the demographic change we see today.

Daily News:

When Sulejman Hasanovic moved to Bowling Green 15 years ago from Bosnia, he recalls the few Muslims who lived in the community at the time meeting in homes to worship.

Now, Bowling Green has two mosques and an estimated 7,000 Muslims, who make up about 10 percent of the city’s population. They have emigrated from as many as 23 countries, including Burma, Iraq and Russia.

Even with such a presence, Hasanovic still meets people who aren’t aware of Bowling Green’s Muslim population.

“It’s a big shock for them. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re here,’ ” he said. “But after 15 years, I think people are getting used to us here.”

Thank USCRI!  That is the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants one of the primary resettlement contractors working in Bowling Green.  And, coincidentally that contractor is run by the woman, Lavinia Limon, who was Bill Clinton’s director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement during the initial Bosnian importation.  Back to the story:

A growing Muslim population

As they have in Bowling Green, Muslims have become part of the national fabric, with about 2.5 million living in the U.S., said Lawrence Snyder, associate religious studies professor at WKU. Bowling Green has one of the highest percentages of Muslims in the state, and it’s rare for a city of its size to have two mosques.

“For the most part, they have been welcomed without much backlash,” Snyder said. “I think that says a lot about the nature of our community.”

The large growth of Bowling Green’s Muslim community occurred in a relatively short amount of time because the city is seen as a good place for refugees to resettle and a lot of those refugees happen to be Muslim, Snyder said.

“In some ways it’s just kind of a quirk of history,” he said.

What the heck—a quirk of history! 

Snyder wants you to believe these Muslim refugees “found their way” to Bowling Green ’cause from a continent away they heard Bowling Green was lovely.  Bowling Green was targeted by the US State Department and its resettlement contractors.  The US State Department planned this demographic change! Maybe someday we will know why!

The rise of Muslim immigrants is not limited to Bowling Green, but is a trend across the nation as well.

Compared to 20 years ago, a smaller percentage of new U.S. green card recipients are coming from Europe and the Americas and a growing number are coming from Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, according to a report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

In 2012, Muslims made up about 10 percent of new legal immigrants to the U.S., compared to 5 percent in 1992, according to the report.    [This is the study we told you about here.—ed]

To learn more about what “diversity” has brought to Bowling Green, we have an entire lengthy archive on this Kentucky city.  I think we first became aware of problems in Bowling Green in April 2008 when a Bosnian teen would-be robber was shot and killed by a homeowner.  The homeowner was exonerated.

The photo is from this blog which has photos from other mosques in Kentucky as well.

I’m AnnC@refugeewatcher on twitter. Please tweet this and also follow me!

Senator Rand Paul: ‘Immigration reform’ must include improved security measures

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Paul: Refugee program deserves more scrutiny!

After reading the opening paragraphs of Paul’s op-ed in the Washington Times today, one might think Kentucky Senator Rand Paul has been reading RRW!  All of the cases he cites have been reported on these pages!

A recent Quinnipiac poll in Iowa puts Paul only 4 points behind Hillary while Rubio gets trounced by her 48% to 37%. Politico

Fazliddin Kurbanov is from Uzbekistan, a Central Asian country that borders Afghanistan. This month, Mr. Kurbanov was arrested in Boise, Idaho, charged with teaching people how to build bombs that could be used to target public transportation. He is accused of conspiring with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which the United States recognizes as a terrorist organization. Mr. Kurbanov was here legally, admitted as a refugee in 2009.

Last year, in Aurora, Colo., Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested and charged with providing material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, which the United States recognizes as a terrorist organization. Like Mr. Kurbanov, Mr. Muhtorov is from Uzbekistan and was also here legally as a refugee.

In 2011, in my hometown of Bowling Green, Ky., Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi were arrested and accused of supporting efforts to kill American troops in Iraq. Both men are from Iraq. Both were also here legally as refugees.

The Bowling Green Daily News reported that these Iraqi refugees “slipped through the vetting process that allowed both of them political asylum in the United States.” Apparently, Mr. Kurbanov and Mr. Muhtorov “slipped through” as well.

Read on.  Then this:

I condemn government inefficiency and incompetence often. The targets for criticism are endless. In the repeating patterns from these refugee and visa cases, however, we see potentially dangerous scenarios in which we cannot afford any excuses.

[….]

These questions are crucial as Congress continues to debate immigration reform, in which vital national security concerns must be addressed. Our visa and refugee programs deserve far more monitoring and scrutiny, and there is something desperately wrong with a “vetting process” that makes so many repeated mistakes.

Instead of fixing the problems, the so-called ‘comprehensive immigration reform bill’ (S.744) weakens security measures already in place but doing poorly!   Most efforts to strengthen security failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee mark-up largely due to heavy lobbying by refugee resettlement contractors who object to anything that slows the flow of refugees into the US (and slows the flow of taxpayer dollars into their coffers!).

Paul concludes by laying down a marker for Harry Reid.  The question then becomes is this a recommendation by Paul or a demand; and will he follow through by holding up the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill *when it reaches the Senate floor?

“I respectfully request that the Senate consider the following two conditions as part of the comprehensive immigration-reform debate: One, the Senate needs a thorough examination of the facts in Massachusetts to see if legislation is necessary to prevent a similar situation in the future. Two, national security protections must be rolled into comprehensive immigration reform to make sure the federal government does everything it can to prevent immigrants with malicious intent from using our immigration system to gain entry into the United States in order to commit future acts of terror.”

The Politico Iowa poll story is here.

*Senator Paul, if you are reading this, please stay away from Grover Norquist!

I’m AnnC@refugeewatcher on twitter. Please tweet this and also follow me!

This should be a banner year for refugee resettlement in America

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Iraqis top the list!

At the State Department hearing this past Wednesday in Washington, representatives from contractors US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church World Service and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society all praised the US State Department for the expeditious arrival (so far) of refugees in FY2013.

So, just now as I checked the Palestinian arrivals at WRAPS, I see that, for only being a little over half way into the fiscal year, we have brought a larger number of refugees than usually arrive by this time.  So far, as of April 30th, we have brought in 39,778 refugees.  We could easily hit 80,000 at that rate which would be higher than previous years.

Waad Ramadan Alwan. His fingerprints were on an IED in Iraq, but he got into the US as a refugee!

Here are the top 5 nationalities of refugees resettled so far:

Iraqis:  11,066  (The State Dept. knows how many of these are Muslims and how many are Christians! See Muslim share of immigrant population growing, here)

Burmese:  9,336

Bhutanese (really Nepal): 5,067

Somalis:  4,387   (This number is so high because they re-opened family reunification for Somalis.  It had been closed  beginning in 2008 due to high levels of fraud detected.  At this rate, 2013 will come close to the highest Bush years.)

Cubans:  2,199  (could Florida’s wealthy Cubans be pushing Senator Marco Rubio?)

Hurry! Someone tell Senator Rand Paul!  Just now as I searched for a photo of  one of Bowling Green, Kentucky’s Iraqi refugee terrorists, I came across a story only a few weeks old where Paul is asking, why the heck are we bringing so many Iraqis?  Maybe Senator Paul doesn’t know that S.744 (The Gang of Eight plus Grover bill) will make it easier and provide more money for refugees and asylum seekers to get into the US!  He could do something about that!—strip all refugee/asylum provisions from the bill and hold separate hearings on the program!

If you are a new reader here, scroll back through the previous few days for stories on Somali, Chechen, and Uzbek refugee terrorists in the US (and Palestinian immigrant terrorists too!).