Tag: Somali refugees

World Relief building the refugee population of Memphis, TN

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Resettlement contractor:  You don’t have to “go across the ocean,” you can get diversity right here in Memphis!

This morning I saw this article in a college newspaper about World Relief’s Memphis office promoting its internship program where local college students put in hours saving the agency time and money by helping refugees get settled, get to doctors appointments, apply for jobs etc. and I realized we haven’t said much recently about World Relief or Tennessee’s other big resettlement cities.  We mention Nashville all the time and the huge role Catholic Charities plays in Tennessee generally.

We’ve had a lot of posts lately about Catholics, Lutherans and even Jews (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) resettling refugees (including Muslim refugees), so maybe if you are an Evangelical Christian you are thinking it’s those other faith groups doing all the contracting for the US State Department, but your people are involved too!   World Relief’s full name is World Relief Corp. of National Association of Evangelicals and it is one of nine major federal contractors.

The headquarters office of World Relief is in Baltimore, MD and according to its most recently available Form 990, here, they received $51,828,435 in income and $34,109,484 was from “government grants.”  As is the case for the other eight contractors, they could not exist if it weren’t for the fact that you are supporting them with your tax dollars.

Incidentally they don’t pay the big fat salaries we reported for Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota the other day, here.

This is the story, nothing earth-shattering here, just your basic puff-piece.

I suspect, but don’t know for sure, that World Relief keeps track of the student intern hours, assigns them a financial value and is basically reimbursed that money through the federal match grant program (out of the taxpayers’ pocket) as so many contractors are.  In other words, you pay for the student ‘volunteers’ too!

From The Daily Helmsman:

Refugees from countries often have already overcome innumerable hurdles, and World Relief is there to provide just what the name suggests: relief.

Across the United States, World Relief has many stations such as Chicago, Nashville, and, the most recent work-in-progress, Memphis.

“It’s a global organization, and not all of them are refugee relief,” said summer intern Peyton English, a junior sociology major attending Union University.

[…..]

Once refugees get their paperwork approved, World Relief sets up their living quarters and figures out their job experience, strengths and weaknesses, along with family information.

The refugees will then receive monthly checks from the government for the next eight months — a period in which employees and interns will work with them to teach the basics of American culture as well as set them up for a life here.

[…..]

While this is an organization that has Christian values, one does not necessarily have to be of that religion to participate.  [Muslims are welcome!—ed]

Moses encourages students to join in with this experience.

“I think that Memphis is diverse, and this is one avenue of many to get involved with people of different faiths, backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds as well,” he said. “You will get a wide range of experience, and you don’t have to go across the ocean to do that. You can do it right here in Memphis.”

Checking the numbers!

Interested readers should visit WRAPS.net from time to time to see what refugees are coming to your towns.  Just now I went there and clicked on Arrivals by Destination City by Nationality by CY as of Aug 31, 2013.

Usually I look up the Fiscal year numbers but this time I inadvertently used the Calendar Year database.  The only difference is that the Fiscal Year numbers are recorded from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 of the following year.  In any case these data bases are up to date until August 31st of this year.

From 2001 to August 31, 2013 Tennessee resettled 12,812 refugees.   “Welcoming” Nashville resettled 7,273 and 1,395 of those were Somalis.  Memphis looks to be the second largest resettlement city in the state with 2,006 refugees and 805 of those were Somalis.  In calendar year 2013, Memphis (World Relief?) resettled 103 refugees and 59 of those were newly arrived Somalis.

As I reported here in my story on the Kenya massacre, we have a larger than normal contingent of Somalis resettled in the US this fiscal year.

As of August 31st we have resettled 6,679 additional Somalis this year alone!  Go here.

I think I should work on a little project and see where all of the FY 2013 Somalis were resettled.

US stepping up deportations of Somali refugees with criminal backgrounds

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Were some of Rep. Keith Ellison’s constituents doing the killing in Kenya on Saturday?

Rep. Keith Ellison swearing in on the Koran as the first Muslim Member of the House of Representatives in 2007. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

 

This article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune went unnoticed over the weekend (at least by me!)  when the issue of Somalis and Minnesota took center stage in faraway Kenya as Somali terrorists slaughtered dozens of innocent shoppers (see our report here).

We’ve written about Somali deportations previously and noted that the US Supreme Court has already ruled that it is legal to send immigrants back to countries in chaos if they break American laws.  But, the ‘human rights gang’ is always agitating against the idea as is the case now in this report.

From the Star Tribune (Minnesota Somalis make up most of the list of those to be sent back):

The federal government is engaging in an aggressive effort to deport Somali immigrants who run afoul of U.S. law, after refraining for years from shipping people back to a country wracked by civil war and lacking a functioning government.

The policy change affects more than 3,100 Somali nationals who have received final orders for removal from the United States since 2001, either because of violations of immigration law or criminal convictions. That includes 435 people who were ordered removed from the immigration court in Bloomington, representing 13 percent of all such Somali cases in the country’s 52 immigration courts.

Until recently, they had been allowed to remain in this country despite the removal orders, living in a legal limbo, wearing ankle bracelets or under requirements to check in periodically with authorities.

Now that’s changed.

Since 2012, 33 Somalis across the United States have been deported to Somalia, including 22 so far this year. Most have come from Minnesota, home to the nation’s largest Somali refugee community. Thirty Somalis remain in custody this month from the St. Paul region of the immigration service, faced with a pending or final deportation order.

Next the Tribune gives us a sob story about how these kids grew up here and don’t know Somalia, some don’t know the language.   How about a sob story for the US and Minnesota taxpayers who raised these “kids”—housed, fed and educated them!

This is so backwards!  The poor Somali “kids” could become “victims” in Somalia.  What about their victims here?

The increased deportations have raised the thorny issue of whether it is proper to send offenders, many with admittedly lengthy criminal rap sheets, to an unstable country they don’t know and where many believe their presence will be tantamount to a death sentence.

What do you do with people who have no legal right to stay here, but nowhere safe to go?

“We still consider Somalia to be extremely unsafe,” said Deepinder Mayell, director of the Refugee and Immigrant Program for the Minneapolis-based Advocates for Human Rights. “Even affiliation with western countries could be a threat. It makes them stick out. …. They could become subject to increased scrutiny or targeted as a victim.”

Rep. Keith Ellison is worried that al-Shabaab will get these poor kids. 

I think this morning Ellison has to be sweating until we find out if some of his constituents are actually among the al-Shabaab Islamic terrorists who did the slaughtering in the Kenya mall!

The Tribune story continues:

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, whose district includes a large segment of Minnesota’s Somali community, said he will be requesting a detailed briefing from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice on their guidelines for deportations to areas with potential safety concerns. Despite some gains in Somalia, he said he remains concerned about things such as recent asymmetrical attacks by the terrorist organization Al-Shabab.

“Asymmetrical attacks by the terrorist organization Al-Shabab!”  Is that what happened in Kenya?

There is a lot in this article but I don’t have the time this morning, so please read the whole thing here.  Lawyers are wondering why the feds have renewed their interest in deporting the Somali criminals.  I would like to know that too!

Readers:  I’m away from the computer this morning, so if anything interesting happens send me a note at our new address:

AnnRRW@yahoo.com

Al-Shabaab goes international with deadly mall attack in Kenya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 23rd:  There is so much coverage of this story I can’t keep up, but here is one from CNN about the fact that refugees living in the US were recruited for Jihad in Africa—this story is FIVE YEARS OLD!  What takes the media so long to catch up?

Update:  ABC is reporting that the attacks could have ramifications in the US since so many Somalis left the US to join the Jihadists over the last few years, but they cannot bring themselves to use the “r” word (refugee!) leaving the average readers scratching their heads and wondering how all these Somalis got to the US in the first place.

Update:  See photo at Vlad Tepes here (warning!  it is heartbreaking).  If the link isn’t opening try Vlad’s home page (here).

Update:  There is a report at PJ Media (thanks to all who sent this news) that some of the Somali terrorists are Americans—that would almost have to mean they are also “refugees”  (or the children of refugees) resettled in Minnesota, or possibly another of the “preferred” locations for Somali resettlement.

And, I bet most Americans think this is ‘over there’ and has nothing to do with the US.  Wrong!  We have had (and may still have) the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab in Minnesota and possibly other “welcoming” cities where Somali “refugees” have been resettled.

We began following al-Shabaab (sometimes spelled al-Shabab) since its US Jihadi recruitment activities became known in 2008, here.  For ambitious readers, the key words ‘missing Somali youths’ are found in our one-hundred-plus-post archive on the recruitment of mostly young men we raised and educated on the taxpayers’ dime.  (I’ll bet there is no one place, other than RRW, for a complete history of the recruitment.)

Photo is from the Investigative Project on Terrorism

Al-Shabaab in 2009:  “Beware we are coming!”

Here is a post I wrote in January 2009 where I reported that al-Shabaab spokesmen were caught on tape saying they want to re-establish the Islamic caliphate and eventually control the world.  Why is it that we don’t take them at their word?

“Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa, and from Japan to Russia. Beware, we are coming.”

[…..]

“Our objectives, by the grace of God, are to see the return of the Islamic Caliphate, the last of which was the Ottoman empire that collapsed in the 1920s. We want to bring that system back and govern the world with God’s law.

In March of 2009, I attended a shameful (even more shameful in retrospect then I viewed it at the time) hearing in the Senate Homeland Security Committee where Senators Lieberman and Collins visibly gave a sigh of relief to hear from US GOVERNMENT TERROR EXPERTS that al-Shabaab was all about defending their homeland from Ethiopian “invaders.”

The Senators were looking for a link to al-Qaeda, and if there wasn’t one they were happy.  They didn’t get it then, and most people don’t get it now—Islamists do not have to be formally linked to have the same ideological goals!  Of course, subsequently the link to al-Qaeda was definitively determined.

Kenyan mall slaughter

Update:  Israeli forces rescuing hostages according to this report.  Hat tip: Janet.

Yesterday, al-Shabaab, which most “experts” thought was on the run as the new Somalia government gained strength, has flexed its muscle outside of Somalia to show the world they aren’t done yet.  An attack on Obama’s ancestral home is a signal to the world that they are still relevant, and that Obama has not made any peace with the Muslim world.

As of this writing, Sunday morning, CNN is reporting that 59 innocent Saturday shoppers were killed, 175 wounded and the Somali Islamic terrorists still hold 30 hostages in the most deadly attack in Kenya since the US embassy bombing in 1998.

[And, btw where is Drudge?  When I started checking out the breaking news yesterday, I began with Drudge, as I usually do, and as of this minute, I’m not even seeing the terror attack mentioned there!]

Frankly I’m sick of these Somali Islamists and the issue of al-Shabaab recruiters operating in the US.  Really!  I’m sick of our naive view of Somalis and the goals of Islamists.

So please read our friend Jerry Gordon’s account of what happened.  He isn’t tired of making the connection between the goals of Islam and refugees.    And, folks, it isn’t just that you should fear your next mall shopping trip, the more important Jihad on-going now is the demographic Jihad (read al Hijra—the Islamic doctrine of Jihad by immigration)!

And, have a look at CNN explaining al-Shabaab to their readers.  At least some mainstream outlet is doing it—5 years late—but better late then never (what a joke!).

How many Somalis have been resettled in the US?

More than 100,000 now and those are just the ones who came in through the State Department’s Refugee Program with the help of nine federal contractors***.  See our now outdated post here.

But, if you are thinking we have maybe slowed the flow of new Somali refugees, forget it!  Fiscal year 2013 ends in eight days. 

As of August 31st we have resettled 6,679 additional Somalis this year alone!  Go here.

Photo is from this 2010 story at The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

*** I often wonder if one day these “church” leaders will place their heads in their hands and ask themselves—‘God what have I done?’

Addendum:  I should have linked this 2011 post (it is being heavily hit today) on why there are so many Somalis in Minnesota—thank Catholic Charities, World Relief and Lutheran Social Service and their sugar-daddy—-The US State Department.

St. Cloud, MN: Somalis want more access to the court system

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

For what?

Seems to me that Somalis have been very busy in the Minnesota courts.  Judy reported the settlement in 2009 of an over $1 million pay-out in a religious discrimination suit where Somalis claimed persecution because the chicken plant didn’t let them have special time off for religious observance.  Then more recently, also in Minnesota, CAIR sued a dessert maker which objected to the long clothing worn by Somali workers (safety issue, claimed the company).

Bringing hundreds of Somalis to St. Cloud. Photo: Lutheran Social Service St. Cloud facebook page.

We can’t forget that Somali terror-related cases are keeping Minnesota courts busy.  Here is one of many posts on the terror-funding trials.   And, then we most recently reported on the Somali women convicted of voter fraud, here.  So it seems to me they are pretty involved in the Minnesota court system already!

For new readers, St. Cloud is home to a growing Somali community.  Up until 2010, refugees arrived on their own to work in what else—meat packing plants.  But, in its infinite wisdom, about three years ago, the US State Department made St. Cloud a  “welcoming” resettlement site with its primary resettlement contractor —-Lutheran Social Service!

Here is one story from 2010 about the new push to bring Somalis to the St. Cloud area.

Also, in 2010 I wrote this post about the Far Left community agitators hooking up with the Somalis to bring political strife to St. Cloud.  I don’t presume to be an expert on the St. Cloud area, but the city has made news here at RRW on many occasions.  Go here for all of our posts on St. Cloud.

Now back to the news relating to our headline.  This is a notice of a meeting in October billed as a “listening session” for Somalis to gain more access to the court system.  If you live in the St. Cloud area, you really should plan to attend.  I sure hope they aren’t looking for special “shariah law” treatment in Minnesota courts!

From the St. Cloud Times:

Judges, lawyers and other justice system partners will have a listening session in St. Cloud designed to improve access to the courts for Somalis.

The event is scheduled for 9 a.m.-noon on Oct. 26 at Whitney Senior Center, 1527 Northway Drive. Preregistration is required by Oct. 21.

The listening session is being co-sponsored by the city of St. Cloud and the Equal Justice Committees of the Seventh and Tenth Judicial Districts. The bulk of the St. Cloud area is located within those two judicial districts.

The goal of the session is to advance efforts to eliminate bias in court operations based on race, gender, ethnicity, age, disability, socioeconomic status, religion, sexual orientation and any other status protected by law.

Other goals include ensuring equal access to the courts and a fair and impartial courtroom. There will be a light lunch provided by Somali Cafe.

To register for the event, send an e-mail to Rita.Steinhagen@courts.state.mn.us or call Rita at 320-591-1513.

Why Somali refugees shouldn’t join the jihad (unless they have a death wish)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to one more report on the topic, “community leaders” are trying to counter the recruitment efforts they believe are still on-going in the “Somali community” in Minneapolis.  Here is the latest on that film we reported here last month.

American-born Omar Hammami aka Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki may now be dead, killed by Al-Shabaab leadership who got sick of him.

This is the news at KAAL.TV.com.  Give ’em jobs and they won’t go to Africa to kill people!, but the fallacy in that argument is that those who have gone back “home” to join the terrorists were well-educated Somalis with excellent prospects for employment.

Leaders in the Somali community are fighting hard to beat back a ramped up recruitment effort following a sophisticated video. The video depicts men who traveled from Minneapolis to Somalia for jihad and is being used as a recruiting tool.

Community leaders say as many as 40 Somalis have disappeared from Minnesota since 2006. That’s double the estimate reported previously. Many have turned up on battlefields in Somalia.

Headway is being made, though, as community leaders say they are winning over the community and convincing young men to ignore Al Shabaab. However, a high unemployment rate in the Somali community makes the population vulnerable.

As a result, an effort is underway to provide training and job skills to Somalis.

American stuff and American jobs just don’t cut it when Allah calls! 

Just ask Omar Hammami aka Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki (if he is still alive that is!).

I have no interest in re-telling the story of an American-born Muslim (Mom is Christian, Dad is Syrian Muslim) who grew up a normal kid in Alabama and went to Somalia to become a Jihadist.  Here is our complete archive on Hammami.

Rumors of his demise have surfaced several times over previous years, but it looks like he may now be dead for sure—killed by his Al-Shabaab former buddies who aren’t really happy with their recruits from the West.  They turn them into handy suicide bombers!

Read Al-Amriki’s story here at The Star Phoenix. He has been hunted by Al-Shabaab leaders for some time and his fate may have a chilling effect on recruitment in Minneapolis say experts.

For new readers:  We should have made a special category for ‘Somali missing youths’ (former refugees) who went to Africa to join the Jihad.  Since we didn’t, just type those words into our search function and you will probably get at least 100 posts on the topic going back to 2008.

Also, I used to put this (below) information at the bottom of most of my posts on Somalis, but haven’t recently.  I know we have a lot of new readers who probably don’t know the background so here is a place to start:

We have resettled more than 100,000 Somali refugees to cities large and small in the US over the last 25 years (more than 25 now).  See one of the most widely read posts here at RRW.  Large numbers went to Minneapolis, and now they are spreading out throughout the state.  In three years since 9/11 ( Bush years 2004, 2005, 2006) the number of Somalis arriving topped 10,000 per year.  Those refugees then began bringing in the family (chain migration!) until 2008 when shock of shocks! the State Department discovered that as many as 30,000 Somalis had lied about their kinship and weren’t related at all.  The State Department then closed the “family reunification” program for Somalis.  It has recently been re-opened for new and legit family members, but they have no intention of finding and deporting the liars.