Amarillo, TX: Meat cleaver-wielding man arrested

01/26/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a story from last week that I never got around to posting and now this morning don’t have time to do it justice. Regular readers know that Amarillo has had its share of problems with refugees, go here, for all of that news. We don’t know whether the meat-cleaver man who attacked an apartment door with the meat cleaver, broke a window and cut phone lines of complete strangers is a refugee, but his resettlement agency would know for sure. I’m guessing he is Burmese.

From Connect Amarillo (hat tip: ‘Pungentpeppers’):

Naisikenyan Pha. Isn’t diversity beautiful!

AMARILLO, TEXAS — The man accused of aggravated assault on a police officer early Sunday morning has been arrested.

Amarillo police said he also tried to break into an apartment before resisting arrest. He was armed with a meat cleaver, police said.

Forty-one-year-old Naisikenyan Pha is now facing charges of Attempted Burglary of a Habitation, Aggravated Assault on a Public Servant and Resisting Arrest.

It was at about 2 a.m., Sunday when officers were called to the 800-block of North Evergreen Street on the report of a burglary in process.

The resident told police that a man who had a knife was trying to get inside the apartment. Three children were inside the apartment.

The first responding officer saw a man crouched in the yard, repeatedly and aggressively striking the ground with a meat cleaver, police said. The man was asked stop but police said the man did not comply.

After repeatedly being asked to stop, police said the man stood up and started walking toward the officer with a meat cleaver in his hand at chest level.

Two attempts to bring him down with a stun gun failed before several officers forced him to the ground. It is believed that “his behavior was consistent with heavy narcotics use.”

Poor Amarillo! No wonder it is becoming a ‘Pocket of Resistance’ to more refugee resettlement.

In “culturally diverse” Amarillo: Somali refugee drives vehicle into building attempting to run people down

01/06/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The timing of this story couldn’t be more stunning. Just as the Associated Press (yesterday!) was trying to make us feel all warm and “welcoming” toward the diverse ethnic groups the US State Department is dropping off in Texas, ‘Pungentpeppers’ spotted this news.

Jaba Mohamed Abdi brought some multicultural enrichment to Texas.

Get this Amarillo! As you bend over backwards to help refugees with your tax dollars, and the meatpackers get their cheap/captive laborers, you get the joys of cultural diversity. Wow! What a trade-off!

Amarillo”where subtle aspects of far-away cultures have taken root.”

From Connect Amarillo (emphasis is mine):

AMARILLO, TEXAS — The man accused of intentionally crashing into an east Amarillo bar early Monday morning has now been arrested, according to police.

Twenty-five-year-old Jaba Mohamed Abdi, police said, is also accused of trying to hit people with the vehicle.

Officers were called to the bar in the 6000-block of Amarillo Boulevard East just before 1 a.m. That’s near Eastern Street off the Boulevard.

An employee of the bar told police a man, later identified as being Abdi, tried to run him over before intentionally striking the building with the vehicle.

Police said Abdi had earlier been inside the bar but was asked to leave because he was reportedly being disruptive and was causing problems with other patrons. Abdi was escorted out of the bar but he managed to get back inside. At one point, police said, Abdi changed clothes so he could re-enter the bar.

Abdi was eventually escorted out of the bar again with employees standing guard to make sure he did not re-enter. One of the employees was watching Abdi as he got into a newer-model grey SUV. He, according to police, backed out of his parking spot and struck a concrete pillar in the parking lot.

Police said Abdi was then accused of revving the engine “as to intimidate the employee.” Abdi, police said, drove straight at the employee who was standing next to the exit doors. The employee pushed people of the way and dove out of the way of the vehicle, police said.

The vehicle crashed into the building and caused significant damage to the outside wall. Police said Abdi backed up and drove away.

As police were speaking with the bar employee, a vehicle matching the description of a grey SUV drove westbound in Amarillo Boulevard by the bar. Police stopped the vehicle, a grey Nissan Murano in the 5300-block of Amarillo Boulevard.

The man inside, Abdi, was detained as officers investigated. The Nissan had damage to its front end with red/maroon transfer paint on it. The pain matched the color of the damaged building, police said.

The employee identified the driver as being the one accused of driving into the building.

Abdi was taken to a local hospital to be treated for injuries. While at the hospital, police said Abdi became more disruptive and actively resisted officers who were placing him in a treatment room.

When the propagandists at ‘Welcoming America’ promote their reports about the economic boom times that refugees bring to clueless cities, I bet there is nothing in them about the cost involved with the criminal justice system!

Cultural diversity enriching you Texas hicks. Does that include Amarillo taxpayers as well?

01/05/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Amarillo”where subtle aspects of far-away cultures have taken root.”

We had just been reporting that Amarillo has deep problems with too many refugees to assimilate and educate and feed and house, and now here comes the news about how rewarding all of that is to the taxpayers of Texas. You cowboys, hicks, rednecks or whatever the Left calls you are getting cultural diversity as a reward, and apparently some of you are lapping it up!

Didn’t one of our readers recently report that Texas is standing up against the feds and demanding State’s Rights be respected? No it isn’t, or we wouldn’t have stories like the one we reported just the other day written by a woman involved at Catholic Charities in bringing refugees to Amarillo who says that too many refugees strain the educational system of the city (she also admits that meatpackers have driven the resettlement!).

The US State Department ignored her concerns and sent hundreds there anyway!

Don’t you get it! They are working to turn red states blue and more importantly they are working to plant Islam deep into your neighborhoods.

No, apparently, Texans don’t get it (or not enough of them anyway)!

From AP (hat tip: Robin):

Despite its reputation for anti-immigrant politicians, Texas has led the nation in refugee resettlements for the last four years and continues to attract others who move here on their own, due in large part to a strong economy. Most are settled in large cities, but immigrant populations are also thriving in more remote areas like Amarillo, where subtle aspects of far-away cultures have taken root.

Judge Rowdy Rhoades: We welcome more mosques because the big meatpackers need the refugee laborers. (He didn’t exactly say that, but he may as well have!) Photo at an old story about over-crowded jails in Moore County. http://amarillo.com/stories/100208/new_news3.shtml

“We’ve just adapted,” Moore County Judge Rowdy Rhoades said. His county, just north of Amarillo, will soon have a third mosque to serve the population of Somalis and people from Myanmar who work at a nearby meat processing plant. “They’re just here to provide for their family, like anyone.”

The U.S. State Department oversees the resettlement program, which annually places tens of thousands of people who have fled their countries in about 190 communities. In a year span that ended in September, Texas became the new home for about 7,200 refugees from more than two dozen countries, the majority from Iraq and Myanmar. Houston led the state with nearly 2,000 resettlements, followed by Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio.

Texas’ smaller cities have been accommodating the rest — including Amarillo, Abilene and Midland. In 2010 alone, Amarillo received 730 refugees, about the same as San Antonio and Austin.

Yet, the constant flow of refugees — hovering in the 400 to 500-person range in each of the last four years — has some of Amarillo’s leaders worried that the city’s resources are being overwhelmed. [Yet a few paragraphs earlier, the reporter says refugees are “thriving,” but I guess the taxpayers aren’t!—ed] Among the biggest concerns are getting students up to speed in schools and addressing the language barrier. Dozens of languages are now spoken in Amarillo, Mayor Paul Harpole said, and 911 calls have sometimes taken nearly 10 minutes.

Resettlement agencies have responded, deciding that refugees would only be placed in Amarillo if they have family ties.

There is more, read it all.

That last line is part of the scam!

Once your city is deemed “welcoming” and the feds (with their contractors***) drop off the “seed community” (their words!), then how can you possibly say no to the extended family without looking like uncaring boobs. You can just imagine how the immigrant community will grow when “only” those with “family ties” move in! And, by the way, the contractor is still paid by the head to bring in the family.

Our archive on over-loaded Amarillo is here.

*** Federal refugee resettlement contractors:

Amarillo, TX: Unbelievably frank description of a refugee overloaded city, and how it got that way

01/01/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In this opinion piece by Nancy Koons, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle, we learn some very important truths about the Refugee Resettlement Program of the US State Department/the UN and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

We have reported previously here, here and here about Amarillo, TX as a “pocket of resistance.”

Here is what I learned (re-learned!):

1) Meatpackers have indeed driven the program.

2) The contractors are in competition with each other for warm bodies to resettle (no matter what problems a city government might be having). Is it because they are paid by the head?

3) The US State Department is ignoring the city’s concerns and even as Catholic Charities asked for a reduction in number, the State Dept. sent more refugees to the same city. Is this arrogance or incompetence?

4) A community’s educational system is one of the first to suffer when refugee overload occurs.

5) Once yours has become a “welcoming” city more contractors will come.

And finally, I learned that there are some people inside the system willing to be brave and speak the truth! Nancy Koons is one of them.

From the Amarillo Globe News (emphasis below is mine):

Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle, formerly Catholic Family Service Inc., has provided social services in the Texas Panhandle since 1932, including a refugee resettlement program that began in the mid-1970s, following the fall of Saigon.

The refugee program was in response to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which, with other national organizations, assisted the U.S. State Department with resettlement nationwide. With the goal of helping refugees achieve self-sufficiency, one consideration for establishment of a resettlement site was availability of employment. The meat-packing industry became a primary source. [Not ‘assisted’ as in out of the goodness of their hearts, they are paid contractors.—ed]

Presently, USCCB is one of nine volunteer agencies (volags) at the national level that facilitates refugee resettlement. Until 2007-2008, USCCB was the only volunteer agency (volag) that facilitated resettlement in Amarillo, doing so through CFS.

In 2007-08, two more national volags began facilitating resettlement in Amarillo — Lutheran Immigration Services and Church World Services (membership includes Methodist, First Christian Church, Presbyterian, Church of Christ and Episcopalian churches). These two additional volags facilitate refugee resettlement through Refugee Services of Texas, Amarillo office.

Resettlement peaked in 2010 when CFS resettled 448 individuals and RST-Amarillo resettled 251 individuals. In total, 699 refugees were resettled in Amarillo in 2010. Refugees also came to Amarillo from other areas of the country, having already resettled through agencies in other cities. This is referred to as secondary migration, and is largely employment motivated. Not all secondary cases check in with a local resettlement agency. In 2010, however, 276 secondary case refugees came to CFS for assistance.

In August 2011, I began in my role as executive eirector at CFS. Residing out of the Amarillo area for six years, I was unaware of the dramatic increase in refugee resettlement, languages and cultures, and consequently the impact on the community — particularly the schools.

It wasn’t long before I heard from numerous concerned residents and staff from the Amarillo Independent School District. It was clear that the increasing rate of resettlement needed to slow down significantly to allow the community to catch up with challenges brought about by dramatic demographic changes. I invited officials from USCCB in Washington D.C., and the state refugee coordinator from Austin to meet with representatives from AISD to hear their challenges. At this meeting, AISD representatives graciously articulated extraordinary challenges in the schools. They begged USCCB and the state refugee coordinator to slow down the rate of resettlement to give AISD and the community the opportunity to “catch up,” and enable them to better serve all of the student population.

At CFS, I immediately reduced our projected arrivals for fiscal year 2012 by 50 percent, the projection of 400 was reduced to 200. RST-Amarillo had projected 200 arrivals for fiscal year 2012.

I learned soon after that our agency’s reduction was picked up by RST-Amarillo — they increased their projected 2012 arrivals to 400. Unfortunately, the community did not experience the reduction we had intended. In the following months, the local director of RST-Amarillo said he was unaware of problems at the schools. To his defense, complaints came to CFS because the community was, and still is, largely unaware of a second resettlement agency in Amarillo.

In July 2012, I shared this information with Mayor Paul Harpole. Dialogue continues on the local and national levels to address critical refugee issues in our community. Compared to fiscal year 2010, Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle anticipates 160 arrivals, a 64 percent reduction from 2010. RST-Amarillo anticipates 282 arrivals, a 12 percent increase from 2010.

There is a bit more where Koons talks about her faith and ‘welcoming the stranger,’ but in all honesty she and others can do that without taking money from the US Treasury—from their fellow citizens’ wallets to be precise! The Bible never directed Christians to steal from others to make themselves feel better and more charitable.

Dallas, TX receives refugees looking for work, Catholic Charities is the ‘head hunter’

11/16/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There is nothing earth-shattering in this Dallas News story. In fact I’m posting it to show new readers how reporters just lap up refugee none-news put out from the refugee PR machine and translate it into a warm and fuzzy story (the only thing missing in this one is the ‘refugees see first snow!’ but of course this is Dallas). If you are a new reader and/or from Texas you might find this enlightening.

However, reporters such as this one—Dianne Solis—never go beyond the surface and ask questions like how much is this costing US and Texas taxpayers because Catholic Charities is largely funded by your tax dollars? Or, are there Texans who need these jobs? (Does Catholic Charities also help poor Texans find work?) Or, are the Dallas schools struggling with the influx of so many diverse immigrants? Or, how much welfare do the refugees receive even after they reach that mythical goal of self-sufficiency? (See our fact sheet for the welfare goodies) etc.

From Dallas News:

Mohammad Farah, Catholic Charities of Dallas, trains refugees for job placement. http://www.catholiccharitiesdallas.org/category/employee-stories/

Mohammed Farah shares his story as a refugee from war-ravaged Somalia to a class of fresh arrivals. [Message: Mohammed hung in there and now works for Catholic Charities of Dallas!—ed]

Dallas and Texas generally top the list of US State Department targets for resettlement:

Today, now working as the refugee resettlement program manager for the nonprofit Catholic Charities, the 51-year-old Farah coaches others on the art of resurrection. And the demand is growing — Texas has led the nation for the last four years in refugee resettlements, and Catholic Charities in Dallas last year handled about 725 cases, or about 10 percent of the state’s total.

During the recent two-day orientation, Farah spoke to about two dozen refugees, ranging from Iraqi engineers to Burmese farmers.

He’s blunt about what it takes to succeed: Prepare mentally for endurance in the labor market. Take any job, any wage, any shift. And smell like a flower, he says. Farah’s point on fabulous hygiene finally provokes some smiles from the serious morning crowd.

Iraqis, Burmese and Bhutanese have led the flow into Texas. Rounding out the top 10 are newcomers from Somalia, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. [Bringing multiculturalism and democrat voters to Red Texas—ed]

Faking you out with the numbers:

“Your first job is not your lifetime job,” he says.

Many stare back glumly. One woman keeps her arms tightly folded across her chest, pressing her fingers into her biceps. [LOL! see the Dallas News photo for grumpy refugee.]

[….]

Catholic Charities of Dallas finds jobs for 98 percent of those it resettles within 180 days, says Avril Knox, the director of refugee resettlement services for the Dallas agency.

Catholic Charities is in competition with other resettlement contractors for the next batch of refugees so they are all padding their employment numbers to appear more successful than their grant-seeking competitors.

This 98% figure is bogus! It is an example of the Jonathan Gruber syndrome (government can lie to you if it advances their cause). These agencies work like heck to get refugees signed up for any job just as their reporting numbers are due into the feds. It doesn’t matter if the refugee quits or is fired the next week. What matters is if he or she is employed on reporting day!

And the Dallas News story wraps up with this instead of an account of the ‘first-snow’ thrill. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen this—refugee kid wants to be a doctor:

His enthusiasm hits home for one 13-year-old Iraqi girl, who fled with her family to the U.S. She says she’s eager to start school and mathematics classes.

“I want to be a doctor because I like to help sick people,” she said.

Read it all, and if you live in Texas you need to really start digging into the facts and exposing them—start a website on Texas LEGAL immigration news. You have a big fat target on your state!

BTW, Catholic Charities of Dallas was also involved in the Unaccompanied Alien Children mess this summer.

Go here for our archive on Dallas. One Texas city, Amarillo, has developed a “pocket of resistance” to more refugee resettlement.