The attack in India and our refugee/immigration policies

I was just about to post this when I saw Ann already posted on the same article (different titles, same article). Well, it’s worth two posts, so here’s mine.

Mark Steyn’s commentary, It’s Not the Cold War,  stands out among the mountains of words written about the Bombay attack, especially for us at RRW.   He points out that those who carried out the attack are not  a known group, they do not take orders from al-Qaeda, and they did not target one particular kind of victim.

The Islamic imperialist project is a totalitarian ideology: It is at war with Hindus, Jews, Americans, Britons, everything that is other.

The attackers caused devastation, both in the number of victims and in the chaos and economic damage they caused. And here’s what’s important for us:

What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events. Try it in, say, Mayor Nagin’s New Orleans. All you need is the manpower.

What is common to jihadist attacks is a combination of “local lads and wily outsiders.” The jihadist ideology is worldwide, and ubiquitous wherever there are mosques. Any would-be Islamist mastermind anywhere in the world can easily find the angry young guys eager for their shot at glory and put together a plot. Here’s Steyn’s key paragraph:

It’s missing the point to get into debates about whether this is the “Deccan Mujahideen” or the ISI or al-Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba. That’s a reductive argument. It could be all or none of them. The ideology has been so successfully seeded around the world that nobody needs a memo from corporate HQ to act: There are so many of these subgroups and individuals that they intersect across the planet in a million different ways. It’s not the Cold War, with a small network of deep sleepers being directly controlled by Moscow. There are no membership cards, only an ideology. That’s what has radicalized hitherto moderate Muslim communities from Indonesia to the Central Asian stans to Yorkshire, and coopted what started out as more or less conventional nationalist struggles in the Caucasus and the Balkans into mere tentacles of the global jihad.

This shows why it’s so absurd to treat the jihad as a law-enforcement matter. It’s an ideological fight, and we haven’t engaged the enemy on that level. President Bush thought he was getting into the battle by sending Karen Hughes to tell Arabs how nice Americans are. Our government information agencies, which effectively  brought information, hope and inspiration to people behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, now create radio stations to bring American music and other culture to the Muslim masses. Great. America’s corrupt culture is what has helped recruit countless Muslims to the cause. And Obama certainly isn’t prepared for this ideological fight.

So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists don’t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we haven’t yet held talks without preconditions with. This isn’t about repudiating the Bush years, or withdrawing from Iraq, or even liquidating Israel. It’s bigger than that. And if you don’t have a strategy for beating back the ideology, you’ll lose.

All the things Ann has been reporting about the missing Somalis fit nicely into this scenario, doesn’t it? They’re part of the worldwide jihad, one of the tentacles reaching out somewhere or other. Will it be Minneapolis that is subject to an attack similar to Bombay’s? Or have they been recruited into an operation that will surface somewhere else in the world?

It is insane that we let any Somalis into this country, given what is now known. It’s insane that seven years after 9/11 we have not stopped the Wahhabi Saudis from funding mosques, organizations, Middle East studies programs, and God knows what else throughout our country. It’s insane that radical Muslims carry out the stealth jihad under our noses, telling us what they’re doing while we watch them do it.  If all of this went on and got worse during the Bush administration, what will happen during the next four years?

The hypnotic spell of “tolerance” has got to be broken.

Mumbai massacre, and why we should halt Muslim immigration to the West

Mark Steyn had a very important column on Friday entitled, “Mumbai could happen just about anywhere.”  Hat tip:  The Unbeliever.   There is no sense in my trying to analyze it for you, because I can’t write like Mark Steyn anyway.   Please read it.    Here are a few lines from near the end.

This isn’t law enforcement but an ideological assault – and we’re fighting the symptoms not the cause. Islamic imperialists want an Islamic society, not just in Palestine and Kashmir but in the Netherlands and Britain, too. Their chances of getting it will be determined by the ideology’s advance among the general Muslim population, and the general Muslim population’s demographic advance among everybody else.

And now, go read, Atlas Shrugs.  It will break your heart.  The Islamic terrorists tortured their hostages before executing them.

I don’t need to be politically correct, and I am angry!    We must stop all Muslim immigration to the West.  That’s it plain and simple.

And now, I’ll leave you with this one thought, do you know where those missing Minneapolis Somali men are tonight?

Connecticut, another state where Iraqis are having a tough time

This is an article from Connecticut.   Although the Iraqi refugee who is the subject of this piece seems to be making out o.k. (he has a job!), it sounds like the reporter is dancing around reporting on problems with other Iraqis.

“Watching and imitating is for animals. We are people of ideas and thoughts.”

Those are the words of Mr. Hussain [referring to his young son in school]-his first name and place of residence cannot be used for security reasons-a refugee from Iraq whose family relocated to Connecticut with the help of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, or IRIS, in New Haven and contributions from Cornwall residents.

Some refugees must be struggling to find work just as we reported recently in nine* other states.

According to Mr. George (Director of IRIS), employment is another stumbling block. Language dictates the kind of work refugees can secure, as well as the fact that their job history no longer matters. The résumés, no matter how impressive in their home countries, do not translate. Many families from professional backgrounds find they are suddenly fighting to get manual labor jobs or housekeeping work, a jarring and a significant part of the adjustment process. Mr. George cited an example of an oncologist who ran his own clinic in Iraq but in America worked in the meat department at Stew Leonard’s.

Now this part makes no sense. 

IRIS receives a paltry $50 for each refugee from the government which must be spent on food, clothing or rent. While Mr. George said the status of government funding pulls in more private donations, the organization relies heavily on volunteers, in kind donations and contributions from people like those in Cornwall.

Either someone is lying or the reporter misunderstood.  The volags (non-profits like IRIS) receive $850 per head for each refugee initially from the US State Department and the volag keeps half of that for their overhead and the remainder is used for each family to get them settled.   Then 30 days later other funds begin flowing to the family through the Federal Dept. of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement.

But, we are happy to hear that private funds and needed items are being solicited, because that’s how we think most of this program should be run—through private charity not taxpayer handouts.   Believe it or not, under existing law,  those “inkind contributions” that are being collected are matched with cold hard cash from the taxpayer.

* Lets see so far we have unhappy jobless Iraqis in Arizona, Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Idaho, and now Connecticut makes ten.

See our Iraqi refugee category here (with 270 posts to date).

More Muslim immigrants guilty of food stamp fraud in Michigan

Debbie Schlussel has the latest case here.

It never ends because we continue to let thousands of these people in and then to pander and bend over backward and forward to them once they’re here. Fortunately, the Michigan State Police has a special unit for this kind of fraud, headed by Det. Lt. Marty Bugbee, that is cracking down on this kind of stuff.

A Dearborn couple has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit food stamp fraud in a scheme that netted more than $1 million.

See our growing list of food stamp fraud cases here.

Big city paper finally catches on to African immigration fraud story

Well, can you believe it!  The Minneapolis Star Tribune, the hometown paper of the Somali capital of the USA, has finally written about the worldwide suspension of the State Department’s P-3 family reunification program—suspended due to widespread fraud in Africa.  We told you about this bombshell story two weeks ago.   Our very first mention was back in July here, but we didn’t know the full extent of the fraud until recently.

A day late and a dollar short, the Star Tribune published a report yesterday, November 28th, a full 12 days after the little Shelbyville, TN Times Gazette had the scoop.   Wouldn’t you think that the Minneapolis paper, in light of the Somali terrorist investigation going on, might have been right on top of this story.

The Star Tribune doesn’t add much more than we already know, but our now favorite Somali mouthpiece is all over this story too.  What, don’t you reporters have anyone else you can go to than a Somali guy who was convicted of lying to get into the US?  Any chance he might not be straight with you now?  Nah!  Oh, yes, I forgot, the Star Tribune thinks this is the modern day West Side Story.

Omar Jamal with lots of column inches:

Immigrant groups in the Twin Cities acknowledge that there is occasional fraud — in some cases, money changes hands to claim sponsorship of supposed family members. But they say it is unfair to keep out those who can document they aren’t lying.

“You have a huge number of desperate refugees who are stuck in the middle of nowhere,” said Omar Jamal, president of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in the Twin Cities. “They’re looking for assistance from the United States. It’s very sad.”

Cry me a river!

State Department officials, meanwhile, say they can’t reopen the program until they ensure that it works. No date has been set.

“We have to figure out what the next step is,” said Todd Pierce, a spokesman for the department’s Bureau of Populations, Refugees and Migration. “We’re obligated to make sure it works the way it was supposed to work.”

The State Department and Department of Homeland Security are working together to devise new verification procedures. One proposal would involve more widespread DNA testing. But some officials worry that it could add significantly to the program’s cost. [Edit:  so let me understand, it's cheaper to have the illegals here than to do some advance DNA testing?]

Jamal, who has faced his own legal problems with immigration officials — he was once found guilty of making false statements to enter the U.S. — says that the government’s concerns are overblown.

“I cannot deny there may be some fraud,” he said. “But the policy of shutting the whole program down will hurt huge numbers of innocent, law-abiding people who are in desperate conditions in refugee camps.”

Jamal understands that some of the government’s concern derives from Somalia’s status as a state without a functioning government, riven by warring groups of clans and Islamic militias, some with ties to Al-Qaida.

He, too, has heard of sponsorships being sold to fictitious family members, sometimes for as much as $10,000. But for most, he said, “they are innocent people falling victim.”

So, I’ll ask the same question as one of the commenters asked in the juicy comments section to this story:  How many of those fraud cases did you turn in Mr. Jamal?

More on spinmeister Omar Jamal here and here (Denver Somali Cyanide death).

News Busters: Star Tribune makes Somali missing men look like characters in West Side Story

I had noticed that the Minneapolis Star Tribune coverage of the missing Somali men was a little sugary, but I realized that I have become so accustomed to mainstream media outlets soft-peddling terrorism that I didn’t give it another thought until a reader sent me this analysis at News Busters which begins:

It reads like the lyrics of the song in West Side Story where the “Jets” gang members sing to Officer Krupke claiming they are just misunderstood kids, not punks and criminals. The Minneapolis Star Tribune takes this approach to the story of young male Somali refugees that have taken residence in Minneapolis who have decided to go back to Somalia to “visit.” The suspicion is, though, that are they going back to join terrorist gangs there. The Star Trib claims they absolutely are not in its coverage, however. Yet, for some unexplained reason, the Star Trib also leaves out the fact that Somali recruiters have been seen roaming the streets of Minneapolis encouraging Somali men to return for just that purpose, as well as other important details linking the “visits” with terrorism.

Why would the Star Trib leave out such important facts in the story?

Continue reading.

I suppose it is the same reason that Matthew Lee at AP won’t investigate the unhappy Iraqi refugee issue, it doesn’t fit the reporters or the news outlets view of the world.

Is Barack Obama a natural born citizen of the United States?

Update July 26th:  SPLC going after Lou Dobbs on birth certificate issue, here.

Update July 15, 2009:  Soldier challenges orders to report to Afghanistan claiming Obama is not legally the President of the United States, here.

A U.S. Army Reserve major from Florida scheduled to report for deployment to Afghanistan within days has had his military orders revoked after arguing he should not be required to serve under a president who has not proven his eligibility for office.  

His attorney, Orly Taitz, confirmed to WND the military has rescinded his impending deployment orders.

“We won! We won before we even arrived,” she said with excitement. “It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate – and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!”

Update Jan. lst, 2009:   It is not over yet, two US Supreme Ct. conferences remain, new cases filed, here.

Update Dec. 13th:  The Birth Certificate issue leads to a discussion of democratic tyranny at Gates of Vienna today.

Update Dec.12th:  Diana West has a good column on this subject here today.

Update Dec. 9th:  Blue Ridge Forum has a good post on the issue here.

Update  Dec. 8th:  Excellent discussion of the issue, here.

Update  Dec. 6th:   More news here, press conference Monday in DC

Update Dec. 4th:  Atlas Shrugs has a very thorough summary of where this issue stands today.

Off topic I suppose, but maybe not so far off because I have grave doubts about whether an Obama administration would ever even think to begin reforming the Refugee Resettlement program.  I will even bet they quickly lift the suspension of the P-3 family reunification program that primarily effects African immigration to the US.

Gates of Vienna yesterday has a very interesting article about the birth certificate controversy with a whole new angle.  Read it here.   For more detail be sure to follow the link back to Atlas Shrugs—the blog that did the groundbreaking work on the subject.

Then also be sure to listen to the MSNBC commentary on the topic.

The US Supreme Court has scheduled a conference on the issue for Dec. 5th.   I gotta say it is really creepy and wierd that the mainstream media isn’t talking about this—the silence is deafening.

And that reminds me.  Atlas Shrugs has a post  yesterday about Fox News going over to the “dark side,” that as a long-time Fox News viewer I was disheartened to read.   But, lo and behold, one day recently I just flipped over to MSNBC and couldn’t believe my ears, they were harder on Obama then Fox has been recently.  Maybe it was a one time deal, but it might be worth some revisits to confirm.

Another day, another state, another unemployed Iraqi refugee

This story is from Boise, Idaho.  One of hundreds of Iraqi interpreters (among thousands of other Iraqi refugees) entering the US can’t find work.  Tell me something I don’t know!   This fellow (Mohammed) at least doesn’t think we owe him a job.

But now he’s joined the ranks of Idaho’s unemployed at a time when the state’s economy lost more than 9,500 private sector jobs between September and October.

Jobs once available to refugees are being taken by Idahoans who have been laid off.

We asked the regional director of the International Rescue Committee in Boise if it is fair to bring refugees into the United States now to compete for jobs with Americans.

That is my question too.   And, how can the International Rescue Committee and its sidekick, Refugees International, justify telling our newly elected President to bring in a hundred thousand Iraqis this fiscal year that began October first?  It makes no sense, unless they are really trying to bring down our country.

IRC’s response to the fairness question:

“It’s not a question of fairness,” said the IRC’s Lesyle Moore. “We are extending humanitarian protection to them. If I was in the same situation I would want somebody to reach out to me”

The IRC says 1,000 refugees resettled in Boise during fiscal year 2008.

Once it was relatively easy for them to find work.

Not anymore.

Yesterday I gave you a list of the states where we have unhappy, out of work, Iraqi refugees. 

Lets see so far we have unhappy Iraqis in Arizona, Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, Michigan, Ohio and now Georgia.

 We can now add Idaho.

Another day, another unhappy Iraqi refugee

These unhappy jobless Iraqi refugees are in Atlanta.  The International Rescue Committee whose annual budget is over $200 million (and almost half of that comes from the taxpayers) gave them a nice Thanksgiving dinner (big deal), when they want jobs!  By the way, the dinner didn’t look as fancy as the one in the New York publicity stunt.

Or they are going back to Jordan!   From CNN:

The man, Munir, and his wife, Fatima, hoped, like so many immigrants before them, that the United States would help them find a better life for them and their children.

But the couple, who asked that their identities be protected for fear of reprisals against their family and friends still in Iraq, are considering ending their American dream after three months of struggle.

College-educated and proficient in English, Fatima and Munir were shocked that the skills that provided them a comfortable living in Baghdad, as a mechanical engineer and lab technician, are of little advantage in an increasingly competitive U.S. job market.

They spend much of their day at the IRC office in Atlanta, searching for employment, but are considering returning to Jordan, where they say they can find work, albeit illegally.

“I am worried that I will be thrown out on the street,” Fatima says. “My Pakistani neighbors couldn’t find work and they were evicted and thrown out on the street. We are worried the same will happen to us. Many refugees we know have not found work and they have been here for eight months to a year.”

Until 2007, very few Iraqi refugees were resettled in the United States. For 2008, the Bush administration set a goal of accepting 13,000 Iraqis.

And now we have the ever-brilliant Refugees International urging its groupies to write to Obama and tell him we need 105,500 Iraqis this next year.

Didn’t anyone in the State Department think about this—highly educated Iraqis needing jobs in our miserable job market?  Was there no planning?  Did someone lie to these people?   Where is that big investigative reporter at AP, Matthew Lee, the one beating up Bush for not bringing enough Iraqi refugees?

You are all nuts, that’s all I can say!

P.S.   Mr. Lee, if you decide to take the initiative and do an investigation, I’ll direct you to our Iraqi refugee category where you will find many unhappy Iraqi refugee stories.  But, I am guessing you will never do the story because it is outside your world view.

Lets see so far we have unhappy Iraqis in Arizona, Maryland, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, Michigan, Ohio and now Georgia.

Government grants available for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh

Your tax dollars:

All you NGO’s hurry on over to the State Department and get in line for grants available for Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh.   Yes, I know the theory—poverty breeds terrorism, so we are going to send American tax dollars to BANGLADESH!   What are we thinking!     Next thing you know we will be resettling Rohingya Islamists in a town near you.   See our whole category on Rohingya here.