Tag: welfare fraud

Guest post: Disillusioned Refugee Resettlement Worker Unloads

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor:  For new readers, from time to time we post guest columns and comments from readers.  All of those are posted in our category entitled, ‘Comments worth noting/guest posts.’     This (below) is very important information from someone who has worked for a refugee resettlement agency and seen firsthand the fraud being perpetrated on American taxpayers.  It should serve as further confirmation that the US Refugee Admissions Program has gone seriously astray.
From Disillusioned (why I support Rep. Brian Babin’s bill).  Prepare to be shocked:

Ann, I started to work five years ago in the refugee resettlement field to serve as a Christian witness through service and assistance. However, I quickly became dismayed as I saw the rampant, but undocumentable, fraud committed by Muslim Iraqi (and Cuban) refugees. While I am sure there must be fraud among other ethnic/religious people groups, Iraqi Muslims are the largest group resettled in my area. The amount of fraudulent income reporting (and non-reporting) by refugee clients is disturbing and fiscally unsustainable.

Florida ebt
Florida EBT card: Office of Economic Self-Sufficiency?

As your readers (should) know, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act (H.R. 3314) places an immediate suspension on allowing immigrants into the United States under the refugee resettlement program, until the Government Accountability Office (GAO) completes a thorough examination of its costs on federal, state and local governments.

The following are some of the reasons I support this bill.

Average duration for which refugees receive benefits. – The refugees for whom I apply for state benefits (food stamps, temporary cash assistance, Medicaid) reapply for benefits every six months. The resettlement agency (VOLAG) can assist them with benefit renewal applications for up to five years! Many of these refugees, particularly from Iraq and Afghanistan, come into this country with cash, as evidenced by their purchase of new furniture, clothing, cars, and even homes, within a very short time of their arrival. This could not be done on strictly temporary cash assistance and usually, minimum wage jobs.

It is well known in the resettlement community and by the State of Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) Refugee Services that many recipients work for cash, receiving payment “under the table” and never report their actual income to the DCF when reapplying for government benefits. Many of these clients continue to receive food stamps even after they have been here up to and over five years!

The percentage of aliens who receive benefits is 100 percent for resettled refugees. In my job at the VOLAG, I apply for food stamps, temporary aid to needy families (families with children) or refugee cash assistance (singles or couples with no children), and Medicaid. These applications are automatic and are part of the required resettlement core services.

Every refugee who is aged 65 or older automatically receives assistance in applying for SSI benefits! This is automatic, whether the refugee has any presenting issues, other than age, or not! Some refugees under age 65 are turned down after medical reviews do not reveal mental or medical issues. However, refugees aged 65+ are automatically approved for SSI benefits. Social Security Spotlight on SSI Benefits for Aliens – 2015.

It is common knowledge among VOLAG coworkers and employees of the DCF that many refugees commit fraud regularly in their (lack of) income reporting. We are aware of this fraud but have no paper documentation or proof. Certain local small grocery stores, convenience stores, ethnic restaurants, Halal meat markets, bakeries, and imported foods stores hire these refugees, pay them under the table, and the refugees continue to receive benefits for which you and I pay.

Here are a couple of other abuses I have personally seen:

A Liberian refugee entered the country legally but managed to get his adult son brought over as a refugee minor to serve as his caretaker. The son has verbally admitted to me that he was over 21 years of age when he arrived in this country but his fraudulent documents showed him to be under 18!

A Cuban couple entered this country with documents which show them as married, however, they verbally stated to their caseworker that they are not married and the “wife” plans to move in with friends. She will continue to receive benefits while her friends support her as she has “no income.”

A Muslim Ethiopian-Somali refugee abruptly quit his job when he found he cannot stop work to pray five times a day!

An Arabic speaking “friend” “translates” the driver’s license test for Arabic speakers in northeast Florida. His “friends” pay over $250 for a driver’s license as he gives the correct answers to them and for them.

RRW readers simply must find the refugee resettlement and immigration events in your city and state and SHOW UP! You need to know what is going on in your area. You need to “push back” and demand answers about the impact this is having on your neighborhoods, local schools, HUD housing, slum lorded apartment complexes, and your local, state and federal government expenses.

Yes, I know and love many good hearted, honest, hardworking immigrants and refugees. From my experiences, most of these come from the persecuted Christian Burmese, Bhutanese, Congolese and Sudanese populations. I have “gone to bat” for them as I’ve tutored in English, taken children to school, doctor appointments, church activities.

I encourage you to volunteer at your local VOLAG and, if you are a Christian, share the love of God in Jesus Christ with them. Whether you are a Christian or not, volunteer to help them assimilate into a free nation built upon Judeo-Christian worldview and values for the sake of your own children and grandchildren!

Ann Corcoran has done an Herculean job of researching and documenting information for you. Burn up her website finding out what is happening in your area. Use these links to do some research on your own:

Catholic Legal Immigration Network – https://cliniclegal.org/affiliates/directory

Immigration Advocates (Resources for nonprofit advocates, organizers and service providers.) http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/nonprofit/

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service – http://lirs.org/

US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants – http://www.refugees.org/

US State Dept. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration – http://www.state.gov/j/prm/

WORLD RELIEF – https://worldrelief.org/us-offices

YOUR STATE – Refugee Task Force

Endnote:  Besides support for Rep. Brian Babin’s bill (which I am told now has 50 co-sponsors), everyone must begin, starting today, to call your Member of Congress, your US Senators and the leadership and demand that they stop the funding for the Refugee Admissions Program for FY2016 as Congress will be debating funding for the entire government in advance of a December 11th deadline.   See my post here for more information.

The Somalis-to-Cheyenne, WY post has gone viral

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t get around to a weekly wrap-up of what was hot at RRW last week…but I need to mention this:

I don’t know why or how, but the post we wrote ten days ago about the Somalis going to Cheyenne, WY to get their subsidized housing vouchers is still coming in every day in the number one most-read posts tabulation.  Thousands and thousands have read it.

Click here to read it if somehow you missed it.  I would like to know who taught them how to game the system—Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains maybe?

By the way, I see it’s minus 6 degrees in some parts of Wyoming this morning.  Brrrr!

For all of our previous weekly summaries, go to our ‘blogging’ category.  See also our archive on the Wyoming refugee controversy by clicking here.

Refugees in camps abroad being educated on how to come to America and get welfare

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Buried deep in a story about Niagara County, NY cracking down on food stamp fraud and other types of welfare fraud is a little nugget we have always suspected but never have seen in writing until the ever-watchful ‘pungentpeppers’ spotted it near the end of the story in the Buffalo News.

Remember Buffalo is a “preferred” refugee placement site for the US State Department and its resettlement contractors.

Owners of this store were busted for food stamp fraud.
http://www.niagara-gazette.com/local/x1387867593/POVERTY-IN-NIAGARA-Sheriffs-office-unit-has-its-hands-full-fighting-welfare-fraud-in-the-county

Here is how the story begins:

LOCKPORT – The Niagara County Sheriff’s Office is playing hardball with individuals and store owners who try to cheat the public assistance system.

And it’s paying off, with Niagara County taxpayers saving more than $500,000 in overpayments in 2013. The department added a second welfare fraud investigator in 2013, which has easily paid for itself, and says adding a third would do the same.

Read all about the crooks who ran the Indian General Store.  Then this:

And sadly, New York State taxpayers are being victimized not only by their own residents, but also by people from outside of New York.

Niagara County Legislator David E. Godfrey, R-Wilson, who works with the Sheriff’s Office as the community, safety and security liaison, said people are being trained in southern states to get benefits and then are being bused to New York State.

“I spoke with the joint terrorism task force and they say that in refugee camps overseas there are pamphlets of how to come to New York and get benefits,” said Irons-Rindfleisch. But she said Social Services does have access to databases to make sure that people are not getting benefits in more than one state.

“One of the things that the legislatures are looking at – and it’s not just in Niagara County, it’s all of New York State – is welfare fraud by those non-residents,” Godfrey said.

We have a fairly large archive on Buffalo (including other food stamp fraud cases), so if you are from that area, you might want to check it out here.

NY: Afghan translator, family, arrested for welfare fraud, request interpreter!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Amirjan Hayatullah, Lailuma Meherdil, and Neshat Hayatullah
Photo: Albany County Sheriff’s Department

Here, first, is the simple, straightforward version of the story from WNYT Albany, NY.

Keep in mind that we have a special refugee program for translators (and others) from Afghanistan who supposedly helped the US called the Special Immigrant Visa.  We don’t know if this is how the family of alleged welfare cheats got into the US, but we do learn that Amirjan Hayatullah is still working for the US ARMY!

WNYT Channel 13:

 COHOES – Three people are arrested, accused of defrauding the Department of Social Services of $10,000. Even though police knew who they were looking for, tracking down the whereabouts of one of the suspects took a little extra work.

Lailuma Meherdil, 44, was arrested at her Cohoes home. Her husband, Amirjan Hayatullah, 47, was working in Louisiana employed by the United States Government as a translator on an army base, where police say he earned $150,000 a year.

The following week, police learned Hayatullah had returned home, but say they learned he threatened to kill his wife if she revealed his whereabouts.

Police found Hayatullah by secretly following the couple’s son, Neshat Hayatullah, to a hiding location in a wooded area on Manor Avenue.

The three suspects now face several charges.

Then get this! The interpreter wants a taxpayer-funded interpreter!

(I hope you “welcoming” local communities are budgeting the tens of thousands of dollars, just for translation services, one legal case like this one could cost your city or county!).

Our indispensable researcher ‘pungentpeppers’ learned that the Afghan interpreter for the US ARMY, is now requesting an interpreter for his dealings with our legal system!

From New York Citizen One:

 Amirjan Hayatullah was processed and transported to the Albany County Correctional Facility where he was held pending his arraignment in Albany County Court this morning. His arraignment before the Honorable Supreme Court Judge Thomas Breslin unfortunately had to be postponed when  Mr. Hayatullah requested an Afghanistan interpreter. His arraignment was rescheduled for today and he was arraigned on Grand Larceny Third Degree, and four counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree. At this time bail has not been set.

Next!  Wailing and moaning!  US dragging its feet granting visas to Afghan interpreters!

Somali fraudsters exposed in Lewiston, ME and Columbus, Ohio

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Lewiston fraud is your run-of-the-mill welfare fraud (with a little alleged forgery and some lying thrown in!) which we are becoming familiar with in the cities, like Columbus and Lewiston, that have “welcomed” diversity.  The Columbus story adds an interesting and new piece of information about the creative ways refugees are defrauding Uncle Sam.

From the Lewiston Sun Journal  (by the way, when I type ‘Lewiston fraud’ into our search bar this is what I get—lots of previous posts):

AUBURN — A Lewiston couple denied in court Thursday charges that they schemed to defraud the government out of welfare benefits over the past nine years.

Amina H. Ege, 42, of 105 Shawmut St., was indicted by an Androscoggin County grand jury on two counts of theft by deception, four counts of aggravated forgery and 12 counts of unsworn falsification. Six of the charges are felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The remaining charges are misdemeanors.

Abdi A. Hassan, 43, of the same address, was indicted on two counts of theft by deception, seven counts of aggravated forgery, one count of negotiating a worthless instrument and five counts of unsworn falsification. Nine of the charges are felonies, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and one of the counts is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. The rest of the charges are misdemeanors.

According to court documents, the two are accused of lying about the fact that they were living together while Hassan was providing Ege with financial support. She was accused of failing to disclose that she had received a workers’ compensation settlement.

Because of those omissions, according to the indictment, Ege received more than $10,000 worth of benefits from programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Section 8 housing, among others.

Read it all.

Who knew that the federal ‘No Child Left Behind’ program was paying Somalis to educate kids!

Mussa Farah is a spokesman for the central Ohio Somali community and on Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s Community Relations Commission.

From the Columbus Dispatch (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

Columbus City Schools are stepping up oversight of independent tutors paid for by the federal No Child Left Behind program, terminating eight contracts this school year.

The problems have ranged from students’ signatures being falsified to employees who weren’t paid, according to district documents.

Last week, the district sent a letter to Horn of Africa, a tutoring program in Linden, stating that it was rescinding its contract based on evidence that employees “falsified dates, times of attendance and student signatures on attendance forms.”

The district conducted an inspection in January of Horn of Africa and said it had found students on computers not receiving instruction, including some playing online games, according to a district report.

“No instruction taking place,” the district representative commented on the form.

Mussa Farah, who owns the service that was paid almost $83,000 in federal money during the 2009-10 school year, said an illness in his family distracted him from running the center, which he voluntarily closed after being notified recently of the problems.

Farah said that the claim that a student’s signature had been falsified came because a student who had signed in left tutoring early because of an illness.

“I never did anything wrong,” said Farah, who is a spokesman for the central Ohio Somali community and on Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s Community Relations Commission. “The decision to stop came from me. I had to fire the teachers and everyone who was there.”

Farah still operates a tutoring center for South-Western City Schools that runs on federal money.

[….]

Under federal law, parents of students whose schools are low-performing can choose to get tutoring from any provider who signs up with the state. Columbus schools paid more than $3.7 million last school year to 53 providers, Braverman said.

There is much more, read it all!

I’ll bet they had been laughing all the way to the bank about us dumb infidels!

If you are on facebook, don’t forget to ‘like’ Diversity’s Dark Side a new page to highlight stories like this one about legal and illegal immigrants bringing crime and cultural tensions to “welcoming” America.