Editors note:I’ve been away so hopefully will be able to catch up with the news in a bunch of short posts this morning.
“Somali pirate” greeted by Rep. Keith Ellison in forum to protect money transfer system to Africa. http://www.minnpost.com/community-sketchbook/2014/05/actor-barkhad-abdi-joins-ellison-protect-money-transfer-system-somali-c
The banks (and the feds) fear, of course, that the money being sent from Mom & Pop money transfer companies will end up in the hands of terrorists.
Rules designed to keep money out of the hands of terrorists could soon cut off support to millions of ordinary East Africans too. Last week, another financial institution — Merchants Bank of California — started closing accounts belonging to companies that collect money from African immigrants in the United States and send it to Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and other African countries.
The money-transmitter companies function like smaller versions of Western Union and MoneyGram, but they can send money to far-flung African villages that the big guys don’t serve. They rely on banks to make the international wire transfers necessary to get the money there. It’s part of a worldwide system of informal financial transactions between residents of impoverished countries and the friends and relatives living abroad who regularly send them money. The World Bank estimates that immigrants will send home $436 billion this year.
Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison is one of the chief advocates for keeping the money flowing to Somalia. And, the more refugees we resettle, the more money that flows out in remittances to the third world.
They, and the Islamic Society of Western Massachusetts (media campaign?), argue that they were responding to 12 years of bullying and that charges should be dropped. I guess that will be the job of the trial court—to find guilt or not.
Springfield, in the “peoples’ republic of Massachusetts,” has been trying to get its refugee overload problem under control for some time. See especially this postof several—Mayor wants moratorium on resettlement, says contractors are “dumping” refugees.
Here is the story re-posted from Masslive at Somaliland Informer (emphasis below is mine):
SPRINGFIELD — A trial date for two Somali immigrant sisters who say they were persistently bullied in the West Springfield school system was continued Wednesday until Aug. 12, as a lawyer for one of the sisters said prosecutors have refused to dismiss charges against them in connection with a fight in the high school cafeteria last year.
Hibo and and Najma Hussein, both seniors at West Springfield High School, were charged with unlawful disruption of an assembly. Najma Hussein also has been charged with assault and battery. A lawyer for Najma Hussein said the girls have been unfairly targeted.
“Our position is that the girls are the victims of this incident, not the instigators,” said Bruce E. Colton after a brief hearing in Springfield District Court, adding that he believes a surveillance video from the school will prove the defendants’ claims.
However, a police report states the alleged victim in the case reported that Najma Hussein punched her in the face and scratched her eye, and that the sisters have been involved in similar incidents at school multiple times.A third sister, Filsan Hussein, 18, also was charged in the case. Charges against her were dropped because she was a minor at the time the alleged fight occurred.
Now get this, look how old they are and if they had been in America since 2000, they would have been only 5 or 6 years old when they came here—plenty of time to have been assimilated through 12 years of schooling in the US. I am not convinced that they have been harassed for all those years.
Najma and Hibo Hussein are 19 and 20, respectively. The family, including 15 siblings and their parents, immigrated to the United States in 2000 after living in a refugee camp in Kenya, where hundreds of thousands of Somalis landed after civil war broke out in their country.
The Husseins are Muslim, and said classmates have labeled them “towel heads” and “terrorists” since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Lawyers for the family members have argued the girls have been systematically abused at school because of their religious and ethnic backgrounds. Attorney Mickey E. Harris, who is representing the family, said their collective experiences have soured them on the American Dream.
“The question becomes does it get better or are they better off in a Third World country,” Harris asked. [LOL! Don’t answer that!—ed]
The sisters’ cause has sparked public discussion and a protest organized by the Islamic Society of Western Massachusetts.
….says the Dutch are “inhumane” to Muslim ‘refugees.’
Invasion of Europe report!
Does anyone wonder why the Dutch don’t want him? http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2010/12/12-somalis-arrested-in-netherlands-in.html
As we have told readers on many previous occasions, the European Union (in order to discourage asylum shopping) has a rule that says an asylum claim must be filed in the first country a would-be ‘refugee’ reaches in Europe. If the migrant moves on to another country (looking for a better deal), he/she must be returned to that first country.
A German court has refused to send a Somali asylum seeker back to the Netherlands, saying he runs the risk of receiving ‘inhumane treatment’, the NRC said on Saturday.
The man had lost his appeal for asylum in the Netherlands and then went to Germany, the NRC said.
The authorities there wanted to return him under the Dublin agreement, which states refugee applications must be dealt with the EU country a refugee first sets foot in.
However, a court in Darmstadt refused to do so, saying that it is not certain that asylum seekers in the Netherlands are given basic provisions such as food and a place to stay.
Germany: Netherlands bad!
The court said that in the Netherlands refugees are not allowed to work nor are they given government support. ‘Human values cannot be qualified by asylum policy,’ the NRC quoted the court as saying.
The paper says it is extremely rare for a EU country to use this reasoning to refuse to deport an asylum seeker to another European country.
Refugees are provided with food and shelter while their claim for asylum is being processed. However, if their claim fails and they refuse to go home, they can be evicted from refugee centres and left to fend for themselves.
My answer to Germany—-keep him yourself then!
Click here for more in our ‘invasion of Europe’ series.
Thanks to several readers for sending me this news yesterday, sorry I didn’t get to it when it was hot. Somalis arrested near Emerson, Manitoba.
Another RRW geography lesson! Emerson, Manitoba is directly north of Minnesota, but also affords easy access from North Dakota. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson,_Manitoba
A Somali described as a “person-of-interest” to the FBI is being held in Manitoba after he and another man walked across the border from Minnesota and were captured by RCMP officers.
Ahmed Abdi Ismail and his travelling companion got 15 kilometres inland before they were picked up by members of the RCMP Integrated Border Enforcement Team on March 20.
Three days later, FBI agents flew to Winnipeg to interview Mr. Ismail, who is described in court documents only as “the subject of an FBI investigation for matters of security.”
Although he has been detained almost two months now, the reasons for the FBI probe remain a mystery. “All we know is that the FBI is interested in him and has asked for him to be held,” Anthony Navaneelan, his Toronto lawyer, said Wednesday.
The Canada Border Services Agency is conducting its own investigation into whether he should be deported under a section of the immigration law that applies to those engaged in terrorism, espionage and subversion.
Mr. Ismail has claimed refugee status in Canada. [Wants protection from America!—ed]
Yesterday we had a report on Canada’s first Somali terror trial.
For new readers, we have a lot of posts over the years about problems with Somali refugees in “welcoming” Canada.
This is an update of the story that shocked the security world when a Somali teen successfully hid himself in the wheel well of a passenger jet and survived the flight from California to Hawaii. Our first post and subsequent updates are here.
The mom in Ethiopia: I’ll be there soon so the US taxpayer can take care of all of us! Elias Asmare AP
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Police said Tuesday they plan to interview a California teen who stowed away on a Hawaii-bound flight two weeks ago, surviving sub-freezing temperatures in the wheel well of a jetliner as it crossed the Pacific Ocean.
[….]
Law enforcement agents want to question Abdi about how he climbed over a fence at San Jose International Airport, then got into the wheel well of a Boeing 767 and survived the April 20 flight at 35,000 feet despite the cold and a lack of oxygen.
Authorities have searched the airport perimeter and found no signs of anyone going over or under the fence. A review of video surveillance also didn’t show Abdi, but there are gaps in the coverage. As a result of the breach, the airport is adding more cameras.
[….]
Abdi’s mother, Ubah Mohammed Abdule, lives in a refugee camp in eastern Ethiopia and told The Associated Press that the boy longed to see her but his father told him she was dead.
[….]
She said her asylum application is about to be concluded, and she is looking forward to seeing her family in the USA.
Yippee! Soon the US taxpayer will be supporting Mom and her two younger kids while she fights a legal battle to gain custody of Abdi (who will pay for that?).
