Tag: US State Department

First Syrian refugees arriving in Louisville, KY; helped with grant from Islamic charity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Just as we have been discussing the testimony this past week by the FBI to the House Homeland Security Committee and how difficult it is to vet the thousands of Syrians in the UN’s pipeline to America, news is coming that the first Syrians are arriving.

This information about a Muslim charity giving grants for refugee resettlement is the first I have seen of this practice.

Head quartered in Alexandria, VA, Islamic Relief USA is not a rinkey-dink charity—in a recent Form 990 they reported $65 million in income in one year.

***Update***Ryan Mauro writing at the Clarion Project says that Islamic Relief USA is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (here).

Here is a story from WAVE 3 News from Louisville after an intro about the Bosnian caseworker from Kentucky Refugee Ministries:

“We all came as refugees and now it’s about time for us to give back,” said Semsudin Haseljic.

Syrian refugees arriving in Louisville, KY on Friday. Looks like nutritional deprivation was not a concern for this family

He arrived in Louisville to get treatment when he lost both legs in the Bosnian war. “It was difficult at the beginning because I was here by myself,” Haseljic said. “I didn’t have any money, any clothes, any family members.”

Today, he’s a caseworker with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. The organization with the help of the Bosnian American Islamic Center, and thanks to a grant from Islamic Relief USA, is bringing a family fleeing civil war in Syria. “This is a young couple, a husband and wife, and two young children,” Haseljic said.

Mohammed Masmoom and his family have had a long journey, stretching many months and miles, but when asked about his emotions today, all he could talk about was his welcome.

“He feels great that he saw all these people welcome him in the airport,” said Miriam Jaleel, who translated for the family.

The family was taken to the apartment that’s been rented in their name for a welcome meal, and then a weekend to adjust and decompress.

On Monday, Kentucky Refugee Ministries will begin explaining the services [including welfare—ed] they can expect, the English classes they’ll take and the help they’ll get finding jobs. The goal is for them to be self-sufficient in five to eight months and then help other families that Refugee Ministries expects to arrive in [from?] Syria.

By the way, Louisville is a preferred resettlement site for the federal government.   And, Kentucky is a Wilson-Fish state which means that Kentucky elected officials at the local and state level have no say in any of this—it is all done with federal contractors like Kentucky Refugee Ministries.

But….Mitch and Rand could say a whole lot about this if they wanted to!

Syrians: Who might we let in through the refugee program? And, who is coming back?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We told you about recent FBI testimony (here) that Homeland Security is not capable of properly screening prospective Syrian refugees that the UN has chosen for us because there is no way to get any data from a “failed state.”   As a result, the State Department’s plan to bring in 9,000-10,000 this year has hit a roadblock.

Eleven months ago, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was calling for the US to admit 75,000 Syrian refugees over a 5 year period. I wonder have they modified their demands? https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2014/03/29/hebrew-immigrant-aid-society-us-should-bring-75000-syrians-to-us-over-next-5-years/

Below, Leo Hohmann, writing at World Net Daily, gives us more detail about the House Homeland Security hearing last week and the FBI testimony, but in his more indepth analysis he also tells us about those ‘Americans’ who have gone to Syria recently and returned—what were they doing in Syria and do they pose a threat to us?

Longtime readers here know that Somali ‘youths’ who we took in and cared for have thumbed their noses at the good life here and have gone to join jihadists around the world, but how many other former “refugees” have gone for jihad training?

And, do you know that there is no way to stop their return to your cities?

World Net Daily (toward the end of a detailed story).  ‘Syrian refugee program called backdoor for jihadists’:

“We know that foreign fighters have gone from 15,000 to 20,000. We know that 5,000 of these foreign fighters have Western passports that could get them entrance into the United States,” McCaul said. “… There are hundreds of Americans who have traveled to the region to fight with ISIS. We know that some of them have returned, and that’s a classified number. But my first question is, for those who have returned to the United States, what assurances can you give the American people, and what are we doing about it to make sure they do not attack in the United States?”

Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, also testified Wednesday and said the numbers are far from clear.

“We know what we know, but that comes from a wide variety of sources and we have always assessed that there is likely more information out there that we have not yet been able to collect … And that is possible there are greater numbers of foreign fighters and potentially even greater numbers of individuals from Western countries who have traveled to the conflict zones.”

Steinbach agreed the numbers could be much greater than the 150 or so Americans suspected of fighting for ISIS, also called ISIL.  [I will bet a large percentage of those who have gone to Syria come from the Muslim immigrant community in the US—ed]

“I would not be truthful if I told you we knew about all the returnees. We know what we know. There is a number that we don’t know about,” he told the committee. “The ones we know about, that have returned from Syria and the conflict zone. … Regardless of the intelligence that we started with, we build a case to disrupt. … And we seek to determine the root cause of their travel, what they did in Syria, and then ultimately if it was in support of a foreign terrorist organization such as ISIL we look for prosecution or some other type of disruption.”

Don’t you think it would be very simple to rescind the passports of anyone traveling to Syria and Iraq for no legitimate reason?  Or, flag everyone coming back for interrogation?

Click here for our archive on ‘Syrian refugees.’

About the photo:  The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was not alone among the refugee resettlement contractors in demanding 15,000 Syrians a year—most of the nine were on board.  Readers may remember that the contractors persuaded the Obama Administration to relax security screening for Syrians, here, one year ago this month.

Last October, HIAS launched a petition drive to pressure the President to raise the quota of total refugees for FY2015 from 70,000-100,000 to accommodate more Syrians.

By the way, for all of our new readers, the contractors like to refer to themselves as VOLAGS (short for Voluntary agencies) which is such a joke since they are largely funded by you—the American taxpayer.

State Department downplays Somali refugee concerns about new banking restrictions

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been meaning to at least report on the latest round of angst over restrictions on sending American money from the Somali ‘community’ here to Somalia.  Of course the banks are worried that the dollars (that probably came through various US welfare programs) will end up in the hands of terrorists.

State Department Spokeswoman Psaki (of the beaded necklaces): no big deal that they can’t send cash to Somalia.

So, here is a report from Foreign Policy summing up where things stand now.  As expected, Rep. Keith Ellison is going to bat for his Minnesota Somali constituents.

Remember readers that the remittance practice is a big deal and is an important driver for migrants of all sorts to get here—those Central American governments, happy to see their ‘children’ go to America, are driven by the desire for the cold hard cash that the migrants send home.  The cash thus leaves the US economy.

Foreign Policy:

Many companies that send money from immigrants in the United States to friends and family in Somalia shut down this week, but the State Department doesn’t see any need for an emergency response.

State spokeswoman Jen Psaki downplayed the impact that a cutoff of remittances could have on millions of Somalis who the U.N. says depend on the money for basic survival. It would be a “stretch,” Psaki said Wednesday, to connect remittances to economic opportunity in Somalia.

Psaki said the U.S. government had “engaged in ongoing communication with the Somali community in the United States and financial institutions serving that community” in an effort to effectively regulate remittances and keep them from financing terrorism.

At issue is the fallout from a decision by the main bank facilitating international wire transfers to Somalia to close the accounts used to hold and then send the money. Merchants Bank of California, which handled 60 to 80 percent of those funds, closed all Somali accounts on Friday, as Foreign Policy was the first to report. The closure was a result of regulatory pressure on banks to verify where the money is going to make sure it isn’t funding terrorism, which is hard to do in Somalia because the country doesn’t have a central bank or formal banking system.

[….]

Oxfam, the humanitarian organization, responded to Psaki’s comment by pointing out that Somalia receives $1.3 billion in remittances every year, which is more than the country gets in aid or foreign investment.

“It is critical that the Department of State recognize the catastrophic consequences that the current disruption in remittances will have in Somalia,” Scott Paul, a senior advisor for Oxfam America, said in an emailed statement.

There is more, see what Rep. Keith Ellison has to say, here.

For the many new readers who joined us yesterday, we have resettled over 100,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last couple of decades, here.  Minneapolis is ground zero because of the refugee contractors operating there which include:  Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Service, and the evangelicals, World Relief (new name is Arrive Ministries), here.  The original attraction of Minnesota was its generous welfare system.

The US State Department and its contractors brought in 9,000 new Somalis to America in 2014 and are on target for 10,000 this year.  They will be distributed around the country.

US lacks intel to adequately screen Syrian refugees (no kidding!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

While I was distracted over the last two days (here), some of our readers were on top of the news.  Thanks to reader Joanne for spotting this story about why the Syrian refugee flow to America is only a trickle.  I am still puzzled why the UN and its “humanitarian” cheering squad are not squawking at Obama over the hold-up as they went absolutely nuts when George Bush did the same thing in his Presidency about Iraqis.

So, when Asst. Secretary of State Anne Richard went to Berlin recently and made promises, she jumped the gun?

By the way, the foolish German government says Germany will take 30,000 Syrians!  (can anyone say “death wish!”)

From Newsmax:

Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the Counterterrorism Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

 US authorities are facing a difficult task screening Syrian refugees for potential extremists because of a shortage of intelligence from the war-torn country, officials told lawmakers Wednesday.

Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the US government had data and intelligence to draw on when it performed background checks on refugees from Iraq in recent years but in the case of Syria, there was “a lack of information.”

“The difference is, in Iraq, we were there on the ground collecting, so we had databases to use,” Steinbach told the House Homeland Security Committee. [And they still let in the Kentucky Iraqi refugee terrorists!—ed]

“The concern is in Syria, the lack of our footprint on the ground in Syria, that the databases won’t have the information we need,” he said.

“You are talking about a country that is a failed state, that does not have any infrastructure so to speak, ” he said.

Washington has decided to let in more Syrians displaced by the civil war and announced plans in December to review about 9,000 refugee cases referred by the UN refugee agency.

US officials told AFP on Wednesday that nearly 11,000 cases referred by the UNHCR will be examined. [Once again an admission that the UN is picking our refugees!—ed]

[….]

Lawmakers at the hearing voiced dismay at the possibility that some of the male refugees heading to America could be potential jihadists.

The US was already working to stop foreign fighters from returning to America and admitting large numbers of refugees “would be a federally sanctioned welcome party, if you will, to potential terrorists in the United States,” said Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the committee.

Such a move would be a “huge mistake,” he said.

Here is a thought to solve the problem and keep us safe—stop all Muslim migration to America starting with the large numbers of Muslim refugees we are resettling in 180 cities across the country! 

Click here for our now very extensive Syrian refugees archive.

Obama expands refugee program with plan for Central American children

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And their children and their children!

The “children” won’t need to ride in on top of a train. We will be flying them in just as we do refugees from around the world. http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2015/02/09/immigration-officials-announce-an-in-country-refugee-parole-program-for-central-american-minors

Neil Munro at The Daily Caller today reported on the expansion of refugee resettlement to include what essentially involves the US State Department going to three Central American countries and bringing back the “kids.”

Oh, yeh, they say their “legal” parent in the US has to apply for them, but effectively we are picking them up.   And, the contractor racket continues because applications can only be filed with refugee contractors listed here.

The Daily Caller quotes us:

President Obama’s new border security plan is being expanded to allow illegals in the United States to bring their children, their adult children, their grandchildren and even step-parents into the United States.

Obama is opening “a whole new pipeline for legal migration,” said Ann Corcoran, editor of Refugee Resettlement Watch. Once the new program is established, future officials can expand it to include more economic migrants from more poor countries, she told The Daily Caller.

I’m asked all the time, what can be done?  This is pretty much it:

The program is being run in cooperation with federal contractors, such as Catholic Charities, said Corcoran. Those contractors will lobby Congress to keep the program funded until the public elects pro-American legislators to Congress, she said.

Ethnic groups will also support the program, partly because it allows new economic migrants quick access to the many federal welfare and aid programs that are normally off-limits to illegal immigrants.  [They want to be declared “refugees” to get the welfare goodies! The kid will anchor the whole family!—ed]

I’ve been writing about the ‘Invasion of Europe,’ but sad to say, we are there now too!  The Invasion of America is well underway. Can we stop it in time?

Our previous post on Obama opening the “refugee” flood gates for the “children” is here.

If you wonder why government leaders in those countries (which will be losing their children) don’t seem to care if the next generation is leaving, it is because of remittances baby!  They want the money, money, money the migrants send home.

***Update***  International Business Times mentions RRW too, here.