No patriotic assimilation! Instead taxpayer-funded Balkanization

In the wake of Boston, author/investigator Stanley Kurtz , writing at NRO, said that the Boston terrorist attack brought to the light of day the great failing of the once successful assimilation of our immigrant population—the loss of that all important anchor of patriotic assimilation.

The mainstream press is filled with stories and opinion pieces about the connection between the Boston bombings and the immigration reform bill. The point in common is a near-total failure to grapple with the weightiest Boston-related argument critics of the bill have offered – that the terror attack is an extreme symptom of a far broader problem, the breakdown of our system of patriotic assimilation.

Read it all.

Kurtz and John O’Sullivan, also at NRO, wrote late last week about a new study by the venerable Hudson Institute:

…  John Fonte and Althea Nagai (“America’s Patriotic Assimilation System is Broken“)

Here is O’Sullivan:

We know very little of the marathon bombers and their motives thus far, but what we know points to some very obvious points. Some of these points are so obvious, moreover, that commentators and politicians are already saying that we shouldn’t even consider them.

The first point that strikes me is that these young men should have had every reason to be happy in the United States and grateful to the country for its giving them sanctuary.

[....]

In that case — and I suspect we shall find also in the case of the marathon bombers — the explanation was (or included the fact) that they had been assimilated into a nullity.

Myth explodes! 

Referring to Britain’s Subway bombers raised in the UK in upstanding families, O’Sullivan continues.

They had therefore looked around for a heroic cause they could identify with. The radical Islamists provided them with the cause of radical Islamism — and they embarked on the relatively short road to mass murder.

When that happened, several British commentators argued that this wouldn’t happen in America because America, with its public and private ceremonies of Americanization, had solved the conundrum of how to turn immigrants into loyal and patriotic Americans.

Alas, I had to tell them sadly that they were a generation behind the times. America now bore all the marks of a society that had been subjected to several decades of relentless indoctrination in the dogmas of multiculturalism and bilingualism. And the results are now in.

[....]

Into this moral and patriotic vacuum seeps what Orwell called “transferred nationalism.” In his day this was usually some variety of Marxism; today it often often a variation on radical Islam. But it is adopted and sparks violent thoughts in the minds of young men whom official America has shielded from the old Americanization.

Getting patriotic assimilation right is as vital — perhaps more vital — than getting border security right. It is an essential part of any comprehensive immigration reform worth the name. To propose opening the country to millions of new immigrants until we have solved this problem is simply to invite more violence from more young men whom we have disoriented and left victim to the worse impulses.

It is worse than Kurtz and O’Sullivan know!  

Not only are we not encouraging assimilation of ethnic groups being admitted under the legal framework of the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, we are in fact ENCOURAGING BALKANIZATION through grant programs for Ethnic Community Based Organizations administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

You tell me!  If we are giving federal grants to groups like these, are we encouraging separation and notions of ethnic superiority—-you betcha!   Consider these ethnic-centered groups which received grants in 2009 as mini-ACORNS.  Fostering competition, they help THEIR people get hooked up with social services and teach them how to stand up for the “rights” of THEIR people.

The Southern Sudanese American Association, $100,000, AK

From Association of Africans Living in VT website. Your tax dollars supplied them with $165,000 in 2009. For what?

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Boat People, SOS, Inc., $100,000, AL
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Somali Bantu Association of Tucson, $197,688, AZ
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Horn of Africa Community in North America, $135,000, CA
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Lao Family Community Development Inc., $198,154, CA

•
Merced Lao Family Community Inc., $183,381, CA
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Merced Lao Family Community Inc., $180,891, CA
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Colorado African Organization, $197,308, CO
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Pan African Association, $177,555, IL
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Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, $184,719, ME
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Minnesota African Women’s Association, Inc., $123,758, MN
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Karen Community of Minnesota, $169,000, MN

Montagnard Human Rights Organization, $181,390, NC
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Asian Community & Cultural Center, $125,000, NE
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Sauti Yetu Center for African Women, Inc., $107,590, NY
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Sauti Yetu Center for African Women, Inc., $152,056, NY
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Somali Bantu Association of San Antonio, $174,345, TX
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Somali Bantu Community of Greater Houston, $125, 695, TX
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Association of Africans Living in Vermont, $165,531, VT
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Pan African Community Association, $166,824, WI

Yikes!  It gets worse, here is an up-to-date list of Ethnic groups (now called Ethnic self-help groups!) getting your money and fostering separation and nationalism (theirs!).  Readers if these cities needed an organization to teach immigrants English (how about local junior colleges for this?) and how to access stuff (taxpayer goodies)—why isn’t the government funding one multicultural organization where all the disparate groups come together (get instruction on how to get food stamps, health care, education) and are taught American civic responsibility, history and patriotism?

In addition to the usual African and Asian groups listed above, this latest list funds Ethnic groups including those for Iraqis, Karen (Burmese), Bhutanese, Ukrainian, Ethiopian, Haitian, other Burmese, and Chaldean.

Much more in our category on ECBOs here.

Sequester suggestion for the day: defund the Ethnic Community Based Organizations!

Your tax dollars!

Yesterday I recommended saving US taxpayers almost $4 million by gutting the Refugees must have rotten marriages program, here.   Today we can save some air traffic controller jobs by cutting over $5 million for ethnic groups who have set up their little ACORN-like fiefdoms across America.

They used to be referred to as ECBOs (Ethnic Community Based Organizations), now the bureaucrats in Washington call them Ethnic Community Self-Help organizations. 

Why do we even need these?  They are non-profits set up for specific ethnic groups (funded by you) that help THEIR people (their ethnic group!) get signed up for welfare, find jobs, learn English, register to vote, demand THEIR rights and are the voice of THEIR people in your city.  In short, they promote balkanization. 

The federal government already contracts nine major contractors who in turn contract hundreds of sub-contractors whose job it is to get new immigrants settled.   And, if we need anything further besides local government, then the group in a city whose job it would be to get stuff for refugees should be multi-ethnic!  (a few are).

Furthermore, why do these ECBOs even need to be involved in teaching English?  Can’t the state and feds contract a local college to teach English to all immigrants and at least those tax dollars could be monitored.

Center for Prevention of Hate Violence got a grant

Before I get to the list, there is one listed in 2009 that caught my eye—-The Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence in Maine won a grant for $184,719, but is now defunct.

I wrote about them here in 2010 when they were going to take their Lewiston model of how great the Somalis had been assimilated there (they haven’t been) on the road and make some cities feel guilty—three of the cities were refugee over-loaded cities that we write about here all the time, the fourth was Frederick, MD!  Frederick, MD!  They were going to do a PR campaign about the hateful people in Frederick, MD!   Of course, if you live in Maryland you know why—they wanted to discredit Sheriff Chuck Jenkins.  As far as I know it didn’t happen and I’ve wondered if a call made by then Congressman Roscoe Bartlett’s Office to the Maine office of the Center had anything to do with it not happening?

Here is that gold-mine of information, the 2009 ORR Annual Report to Congress that has just been released four years late on the funding for ECBOs (p.49).   Let’s save the taxpayer $5 million!

Ethnic Community Self-Help Program In FY 2009

MAWA (Minnesota African Women’s Association)

ORR supported 32 single and multi-site ethnic community integration projects through competitive awards totaling $5,028,696. The host organizations provided self-help networks, and various in-house and referral services to enhance refugee integration. In addition, they conducted community outreach, coalition building, self-assessment, strategic planning, resource development, and leadership training activities. The active grantee organizations for FY 2009 are listed below.

The Southern Sudanese American Association, $100,000, AK
•
Boat People, SOS, Inc., $100,000, AL
•
Somali Bantu Association of Tucson, $197,688, AZ
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Horn of Africa Community in North America, $135,000, CA
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California Health Collaborative, $141,682, CA
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Lao Family Community Development Inc., $198,154, CA
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Merced Lao Family Community Inc., $183,381, CA
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Merced Lao Family Community Inc., $180,891, CA
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Colorado African Organization, $197,308, CO
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ISED Solutions, $121,764, DC
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Refugee Family Services, $154,430, GA
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Pan African Association, $177,555, IL
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Catholic Charities of Louisville, $196,267, KY
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State of Maine Dept. of Health and Human Services, $168,059, ME
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Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, $184,719, ME
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Minnesota African Women’s Association, Inc., $123,758, MN
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Women’s Initiative for Self-Empowerment, $168,370, MN
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Karen Community of Minnesota, $169,000, MN

Montagnard Human Rights Organization, $181,390, NC
•
Asian Community & Cultural Center, $125,000, NE
•
Southern New Hampshire Services, $118,420, NH
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The International Rescue Committee, $199,962, NY
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Sauti Yetu Center for African Women, Inc., $
107,590, NY
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Sauti Yetu Center for African Women, Inc., $152,056, NY
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Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, Inc., $79,226, NY
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US Together, Inc., $141,572, OH
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IRCO-Immigrant & Refugee Community Organization, $200,000, OR
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Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee, $195,608, TN
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Somali Bantu Association of San Antonio, $174,345, TX
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Somali Bantu Community of Greater Houston, $125, 695, TX
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Association of Africans Living in Vermont, $165,531, VT
•
Pan African Community Association, $166,824, WI

We have a whole category on ECBOs, here.   By the way, if you have one or more of these groups in your city or state, please look into their activities and their finances.  They should all be filing Form 990s and reporting how much of their funds come from the government (you!).

Suggestions for cutting US budget: Start with grants to non-profits for healthy marriage education

Your tax dollars!

All of last week, we heard the dire warnings from Washington about sequestration.  If we cut a few billion from our trillions of dollars of government funded programs and projects, the planes won’t fly, children will starve and trashcans will overflow in our National Parks.  Yet here is an example of what we are spending our money on—-teaching refugees to have healthy marriages!

I could see some rationale for giving federal dollars to city or county mental health departments overloaded with refugees and asylees to deal with these issues where there might be some taxpayer oversight and review of how the grant money was used, but to give millions to non-profits for this purpose is sheer madness!

This is from that goldmine of information, the 2009 ORR Annual Report to Congress (p. 50).  Granted it reports on 2009 and earlier years, but it’s really all we have since the ORR is breaking the law by not having already completed reports for years 2010, 2011, and 2012.   No one in Congress seems to care that they are flouting the law.

Who knew all those Laotians, Vietnamese and Cambodians had such rotten marriages!

From the annual report:

Refugee Healthy Marriage Program

In FY 2009, ORR continued its commitment to promoting policies and programs that help strengthen the strong, positive family relationships that refugees have brought with them to the United States. The Refugee Healthy Marriage Program (RHMP) helps provide opportunities for refugees to strengthen their marriages by providing marriage education.

It is believed that refugee couples face unique difficulties because of their flight from persecution and long periods of insecurity. ORR funds marriage education in order to help refugees cope with these difficulties. This group of grantees provides marriage education workshops to refugee couples in order to enhance and promote healthy relationships by providing the skills, tools, knowledge and support necessary to create and sustain healthy marriages. Since the inception ofthe program in FY 2006, 44,476 refugees have attended family courses or workshops.

In FY 2009, ORR funded the following grants:

~Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Inc., $830,000, NY

~Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Inc., $400,000, NY

~United States Committee for Refugees & Immigrants, $780,000, VA

~Jewish Family & Career Services, $309,930, GA

~Lao Family Community Development,$250,000, CA

~Boat People SOS, $250,000, VA

~The Cambodian Family, $250,000, CA

~Alliance for Multicultural Community Services, $250,000, TX

~Jewish Child & Family Services, $247,785, IL

~Catholic Charities of Hartford, $250,000, CT

Obviously the big kahuna in the marriage-fixing business is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (one of the top nine federal refugee contractors).  They get paid by you to bring in refugees, then paid to fix their marriages!

Here are the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society’s affiliates teaching “healthy marriage” courses.    I had to laugh when I saw that Mohamud Mohamed of JFS (Jewish Family Services) of Western MA is teaching healthy marriages.  I sure hope he has a lesson or two on polygamy in refugee communities, that we don’t beat wives in America, and that honor killing one’s daughters will get you prison time.

Hopefully, this will be first in a series of suggested federal budget cuts from RRW!

Reminder!  Find me on twitter (I just started) @RefugeeWatcher!

Columbus, OH: Somalis gone wild!

I joked as I left town last week that you would get a break from news about “refugees gone wild,”  but golly I didn’t think they would be making news and going wild the very next day!

Thanks to lots of readers who sent me the story from Columbus, OH (the city probably second only to Minneapolis, MN for the title of Little Mogadishu, USA) about Somalis by the thousands attempting to get subsidized housing available for 200 and getting so out of control that the police had to use mace to break up the melee.

But, you know what is more surprising as I read comments to articles and blog postings (like these at Gateway Pundit) about the case—Americans ( those who don’t read RRW) haven’t the foggiest idea how we came to have hundreds of thousands of Somalis living in the US.

The mainstream media just can’t bring itself to critically examine the Refugee Resettlement Program of the US State Department, so please tell your friends and family to stop in occasionally at RRW.

And then you must—-

Read Sam Solomon and E. AL Maqdisi’s, little book entitled, “Modern Day Trojan Horse—the Islamic Doctrine of Immigration.”   (LOL!  I’m going to nag you every day to read the book I read while internet-deprived over the weekend.)

Here is the Columbus Dispatch.  Note that for most of the story the reader doesn’t know that those being “unruly” were Somalis.  But, here is a news clip of the disturbance’s aftermath that clearly shows who was involved.

Columbus police used pepper spray to control and disperse a larger-than-expected crowd of people who had gathered at a Northeast Side church yesterday to sign up for a subsidized-housing waiting list.

Authorities said the crowd that gathered at Mount Hermon Missionary Baptist Church, 2283 Sunbury Rd., numbered more than 1,000 and consisted mostly of local Somalis.  [2000 according the the housing office.--ed]

They were there because a nearby apartment complex, the Heritage, was holding an event at the church from 8 a.m. until noon to take names for a list for two-bedroom apartments.

Neighbors of the church started calling police about 6:30 a.m. to complain about loud music, blaring car horns and people parking in private driveways, according to police call logs. Some in the crowd started arguing with neighborhood residents, according to subsequent calls to police.

Eventually, someone from Heritage arrived to set up for the event, and police records indicate that the crowd then rushed the doors. That’s when police officers used chemicals to control the crowd. The event was canceled.

Police said an ambulance was brought in to treat those who had been sprayed. No one was arrested, and it appeared that no one was seriously injured.

Get this!  They would have respected Somali “community” leaders, but not the Columbus police?

Hassan Omar, the leader of the Somali Community Association of Ohio*, said many Somalis already live at Heritage. Columbus is home to the second-largest Somali community in the United States, and housing is a real problem for them, Omar said. Families are large, and many crowd into too-small apartments. Anytime word of a vacancy spreads, people want in, he said.

“Everyone wanted to be in the front of the line.”

Omar said his organization didn’t know about the event, but if he had been there, he could have helped.“If we had been there, the people would have respected us,” he said.

It was foolish of us to never have created a whole separate category for Somalis here at RRW because I bet we’ve written at least 400-500 posts on just Somalis.   New readers might want to search RRW for ‘Somalis Columbus,’ and definitely check out one of  our most read posts about the number of Somalis we have admitted to the US over the last three-decades.

And, don’t forget Somalis in Columbus want government stuff from Obama, here.

* Check out the ‘Ethnic Community-based organization (ECBO)’ Somali Community Association of Ohio‘s list of “services” that they want from taxpayers.  And, are you ready for a really good laugh?  Have a look at the most recent Form 990 for Mr. Omar’s organization.  They had an income stream of $217,000 for 2010 and you (taxpayer!) gave the organization $212,000 in government grants!   What a racket!    We pay them to run an organization and they use the organization to  lobby for more taxpayer-funded goodies!

What a bunch of suckers we are (read Solomon’s book!).

Colorado: African refugees want to vote for Obama to get (more!) healthcare

The problem is that many are NOT US citizens and (hopefully!) are NOT voting!

However, if it were up to the  Colorado African Organization(CAO) they would all be signed up!  Before I get to the story in The World from yesterday, keep in mind that the CAO is a mini-ACORN, sometimes called an Ethnic Community Based Organization (ECBO)***.   The basic idea is that they help immigrants of their chosen ethnic group get signed-up for their welfare and at the same time become political ADVOCATES for the “community.”   And, here is the kicker—-YOU are paying for it with your tax dollars!

Here is the story from swing-state Colorado (emphasis mine).  It begins as they all do with a representative sob story:

Doh-Taka (open the link to read her story, if she had her fibroids removed, there should be no limitation on her returning to work—ed) is in a bind many refugees and asylees face – living in a new country without health insurance. [What!  She had health insurance in her old country?---ed] That is slated to change soon. Refugees, as legal immigrants, are eligible for the same protections and benefits as US citizens under the Affordable Care Act. Many of the provisions of the Act take effect in 2014, including a rule that insurance companies cannot deny or charge higher premiums based on pre-existing conditions.

Doh-Taka’s story isn’t unique, nor is it special to immigrants, refugees, or asylees. But navigating the healthcare system is especially difficult for refugees, who often have a superficial understanding of American culture, institutions, and English.

“The Affordable Care Act is going to really help people understand and utilize the healthcare system that’s available for them,” said Kit Taintor, the executive director at the Colorado African Organization, a group that helps African immigrants build new lives.   [Here the reader is led to believe that the CAO is just a friendly struggling non-profit out to help the poor and downtrodden---ed]

Obamacare will streamline their health care (don’t believe it for a minute!).

Right now, Taintor said healthcare for refugees is a “cumbersome” process.

“For the first 90 days they get refugee medical assistance, and then they switch over to Medicaid, which requires recertification of forms and filling out all of these things. So they tend to let Medicaid lapse, even if they’re eligible for it. So I think that what this (The Affordable Care Act) is going to allow is for people to really extend what they think healthcare is and how it can support them and their families.”

We want Obama because we want our health care (which we just learned that they already have through Medicaid):

The African refugees I met in Denver didn’t have the greatest understanding of the nuances of healthcare reform, but all strongly support it. And from my totally unscientific polling, nearly all support President Obama. In Colorado, there are an estimated 35,000 African immigrants and refugees; precise data aren’t available. In a tightly contested election, could this small group like this give the president enough votes to take the state?

“I doubt that’s a large enough community to make a really substantial impact on the election,” said Seth Masket, an associate professor of political science at the University of Denver. “But given how close this election is likely to be, almost any constituency of any size could end up being pivotal.”

One problem for the president: Those still legally classified as refugees, by definition, can’t vote.

The ones I met were all striving to improve their English and study for the citizenship exam so they could become citizens. I asked Ismail Ahmed, a refugee from Sudan, why he wants to vote. His English was pretty basic: “Healthcare, I like that.”

So, now what do we know about the Colorado African Organization?

In a free country there is no problem with non-profits forming to help “their people.”   However, you need to know that taxpayers are the majority contributors to this organization and that “advocacy” is a large part of what they do—including getting Africans registered to vote!

So, now have a look at their most recent IRS Form 990.   Page 9 is the important page where we can see their revenue for that year.  Note that they took in $607,125.   And, of that $497,205 comes from you as government grants!  They couldn’t exist without 82% of their funds coming from taxpayers!

Another $22,252 was service revenue which probably included government contracts.  That leaves a paltry $87,668 that came from private donations from places probably like the Tides Foundation and other left-leaning foundations and companies (which are looking for cheap labor!).

So, just like the now discredited giant, ACORN, they use taxpayer money and advocate for leftwing issues and politicians (and register voters in election year!).   It is “community organizing” with an ethnic twist!

*** We have a category on ECBOs .  I haven’t written many posts there recently, but it’s worth having a look at.

New readers might also want to visit our “health issues” category to see the many health problems associated with refugees entering the US from third world countries.   Be sure to see the post from September about the cases of TB we are admitting to the US.  A little surgery for fibroids is nothing compared to what that TB treatment is going to cost our healthcare system!

You pay for refugee “community organizing”

I haven’t mentioned ECBOs in awhile but noticed a week or so ago that they were still busy and being funded by you.

By the way, I’m going away without computer for a few days so this will be my last post until maybe Monday.  Also I won’t be able to post your comments until then.

Back to ECBOs—Ethnic Community Based Organizations. We have a whole category I started sometime back on these mini-ACORNS. [Remember ACORN, Obama, Wade Rathke and the Breitbart bust?---ed].  They are community organizing groups that you fund with your tax money and they organize their “ethnic” groups in various cities across the US.

Last week I told you about the ECBO “Somali Community Center” in Nashville which became the “Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee” presumably because they got into grant trouble under the old name and they wanted to look more “inclusive,” but it’s still headed by Somalis.

Here is what the Office of Refugee Resettlement says about ECBO’s:

This program provides assistance to refugee community based organizations and other groups that address community building, facilitate cultural adjustment and integration of refugees, and deliver mutually supportive functions such as information exchange, civic participation, resource enhancement, orientation and support to newly arriving refugees (and other refugees that maybe in need of such assistance regardless of their resettlement date) and public education to the larger community on the background, needs and potential of refugees. In short, the purpose is to promote community organizing that builds bridges between newcomer refugee communities and community resources.

As regards to the first part of that statement, one might wonder if it wasn’t the job of the Volags in the first place to help refugees adjust and integrate.  Surely community colleges could do that too through English language programs.  And, I’m not sure why we need to spend money on public education to teach Americans what the refugees need (again, isn’t that the job of the agency that has chosen your city as a resettlement site)?

Of course, the “civic participation” part is about getting them ready to vote and in the meantime teaching immigrants how to demonstrate and make demands.

But, it’s that last line that is so telling—it’s about teaching refugees to tap into the wide variety of social welfare programs we now have in place.  It’s teaching them how to get their stuff!

Go here and check out the list of those ECBOs being funded with your tax dollars.

Seattle Somalis suspended by Hertz for praying on company time…

…..and the Somali spokesman is paid for by you—the taxpayer!  What a racket!

Hertz had an agreement with the EEOC that Muslims would clock out to pray, but many refused.   Always pushing, pushing, pushing—that is the stealth jihad.  BTW, seventy per cent of Hertz shuttle-bus drivers at the Seattle-Tacoma airport are Somali Muslims (silly Hertz, really silly!).

From the Seattle Times:

In the three years she’s worked as a shuttle driver for Hertz at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Zainab Aweis, had always taken time out of her shift each day to pray.

An observant Muslim, she prays five times a day — with one, sometimes two of those prayer times falling during her shift.

“That was the one benefit of the job,” the 20-year-old*** said.

On Friday, she and 33 other drivers — all of them Somali Muslims — were suspended indefinitely from their jobs after they took religious breaks to pray while at work without first clocking out.

A spokesman for Teamsters Local 117, which represents the workers, said it is trying to get the workers back on the job.

Both the company and the union late Thursday said they were waiting to hear back from the other.

While the drivers were allowed two, 10-minute breaks during their work shifts during which they could pray, Teamsters officials said managers had agreed in negotiations that workers would not have to clock out and in, though the contract itself does not address the matter.

And the workers and their union said Hertz had previously not required that workers clock out for prayer. The union said it has filed an unfair-labor-practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against Hertz for failing to notify the union in advance of what it called a policy change.

But Hertz said the rules aren’t new; that it had been trying for some time to enforce the terms of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settlement it reached with the workers two years ago that required them to clock out.

A Hertz spokesman said the workers had been repeatedly told they needed to clock out and that the 34 suspended workers had not complied.

To add insult to injury, you pay the salary of the Somali mouthpieces.

Mohamed Hassan, of the Somali Community Services Coalition, said the workers cannot afford to be away from their jobs. “They need to pay rent and buy food for their children.”

I’ve reported previously about Ethnic Community Based Organizations (they are called ECBOs in government mumbo-jumbo language)—-we have a whole category on ECBOs here.   You can think of these organizations as mini-ACORNs geared specifically to particular ethnic groups.  The Somali Community Services Coalition is an ECBO.  They are funded almost exclusively by you!  Then they teach their people how to access social service benefits and get jobs and if a political issue arises the mainstream media runs to them first for comment (as they have done here).

I just checked the Somali Community Services Coalition’s most recent Form 990, here.  Although the IRS has changed the forms making it extremely hard sometimes to find the government share of an organizations income, it appears that this ECBO had an income of $282,830 that comes from government grants (federal for sure and probably some local or state grants).   They paid out $193,363 in salaries ($40,000 plus of that went to an EX-director) and another $22,500 in some sort of contractor payment and $46,389 in rent (probably some inside deal with a landlord there too!).

Note that over $100,000 of their income in 2009 came from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, here.

So what did you pay for?  You paid for a political mouthpiece organization.

*** Check out the strict driving requirements for teen drivers in Washington State, here.  How on earth has she been driving a shuttle bus for three years if she is only 20 now?

Portland, ME Somalis want non-citizens to have voting rights

This is a story I found more than a week ago, but haven’t gotten around to posting until now (cleaning out my queue before going away for a few days).

Buried in an article about yet another Somali Ethnic Community Based Organization (mini-ACORNS) forming in Maine, we learn that Somali community organizers are pushing for the right to vote for non-citizens.

By the way, the reason these Somali ECBO’s* keep popping up is that Somalis have brought their clan conflicts to American and they can’t get along with each other.  You can see by the tone of the critics of the latest political organizing group that is pretending to be a place for the youth to learn English and keep out of trouble.

From Maine Public Broadcasting Network:

According to the state, Portland’s Somali population now stands at around 5,000. Over the last decade a handful of grassroots groups have cropped up to support that community. But a new group IS aspiring to overcome funding and political challenges to be the largest and most comprehensive of them all, and serve as the voice for the Somali community in its adopted city.

“The most important goal we have is to unify the community,”> said Mahmoud Hassan.

He is helping to lead the brand-new Somali Community Resource Center as vice-chairman of the board. The plan is to hold English and citizenship classes in a space newly-leased on Forest Avenue, to mentor troubled youth, and help people apply for jobs. But leaders also want to use the center to encourage more political participation, to use it as a place.

“Where you can get the word out in terms of what’s happening around us, what they can do to effect the political process, not only in the local level but also statewide and federal level,” Hassan said.

It seems so incredible to me to learn recently that here in Maryland, in Takoma Park the center of the socialist state of Maryland, non-citizens can vote in local elections.  Looks like someone is now teaching Somalis to go for that same idea in Portland.

The past year has seen a spike in political engagement by Portland’s Somali community. Somalis were on the forefront of a campaign to allow non-citizens to vote in city elections. Mohammed Dini, one of the leaders of that campaign, also ran for a state representative seat.

TB in Lewiston

Possibly related story in Lewiston, ME—a high school student has an active case of TB and now there will be a special meeting of parents and students who have had contact with him.  No word on the nationality of the student.

* Learn more about ECBOs which often get taxpayer funding and are community organizing outfits like ACORN but for immigrants—they teach their people how to get taxpayer-funded goodies and then get them engaged in Democrat Party politics in our category on ECBOs here.

Somalis bring their clan squabbles to Kansas for all to see

Honestly, I don’t want to re-name this blog Somali Refugee Watch but every day, every few hours! I get another story about some Somali problem somewhere in the US.  This one, from a reader in Kansas, draws us to a little publicized issue involving Somalis—they are tribal, and they are now bringing their clan squabbles to your town.

How would you like to take the kids to the park on Saturday morning in middle America and find Somali clans squabbling in the park?  

Sure looks like that is happening in Garden City, KS.  If you ever wondered why Somalis can’t govern themselves in Africa, this story from the Garden City Telegram will give you a hint!

Holding signs of protest and discussing leadership in Garden City, a group of Somalis on Saturday called for the closing of the center of Somalis of Southwest Kansas, saying the leaders cater only to certain groups and tribes of Somali people.

About 40 Somalis rallied Saturday in Stevens Park in downtown Garden City.

Organizers of the protest, Said Yousuf and Faysal Ahmed, said they felt some Somalis are welcome at the center, some are not. They said the problem is dividing the people. Ahmed said the reason for the divide is that the center isn’t welcoming those in certain tribes. The men don’t want to have to deal with that treatment because it’s what they escaped from in conflict-torn Somalia.

One group of protesters wants the present “community” center closed and a new one created.  

In order for all Somalis to be welcome at a community center, Ahmed and Yousuf called for the closing of the center organized by the Somalis of Southwest Kansas. They said it would be impossible to have an inclusive center without closing the current one.

I’ve written about these Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOs)* on many previous occasions, I even wrote about this one in Garden City previously, here.  The federal government—the Office or Refugee Resettlement—is encouraging, with grant money, the growth of these litte ACORN-like ethnic groups.  It is part of the Far Left’s community organizing model.

In my view ECBOs create ethnic tension in cities when they selectively help THEIR PEOPLE get government goodies.  In this case the Somalis have taken the tension one step further by suggesting this likely taxpayer-funded group helps one clan over another.

Look at what the wimps at the “cultural relations board” have to say—we will help dialog, but we can’t judge who is right and wrong. Of course not—we can’t judge other cultures, and we all know that diversity is beautiful afterall.

“The city and its cultural relations board are aware of the disagreement in the Somali community. We have talked with those who are disgruntled with Somali community leaders. Their issues are interpersonal and not related to local governmental functions. Nonetheless, we are interested in helping the two groups resolve their problems. We have expressed to both sides our willingness to convene a meeting to improve the dialog. It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to identify who’s wrong or who’s right in this private matter. And even if it was, we don’t know enough about it to render that kind of opinion.”

Here is an idea—take away ALL PUBLIC FUNDING for groups like these.   Tell them this is America and they can form all the private groups their hearts desire, and they can work out their conflicts within the confines of the law and the US Constitution and they needn’t draw in the wusses at the “cultural relations board” to mediate.

* See our whole category on ECBOs, here.

St. Cloud, MN update: refugees now arriving there directly from camps

We have written a lot about the problems with refugees, mostly Somalis, in St. Cloud, MN over the last year or so (use our search function for St. Cloud).  Now it appears that St. Cloud is no longer a city of secondary migration (refugees resettle elsewhere but then move to where jobs and welfare are better or where family members are located), but is now a direct resettlement site.

This is information provided to the St. Cloud Times by SASSO (St. Cloud Area Somali Salvation Organization).  SASSO is an ECBO (Ethnic Community Based Organization).  They are like little ACORNS except that they are based around ethnic groups.  ECBOs help ‘their ethnic group’ tap into welfare programs and other public services and then also serve as the political activism arm for ‘their community.’  See our ECBO category here.

I told you all about SASSO and community agitation, here, back in April of this year.

From today’s St. Cloud Times:

We [SASSO] were able to resettle about 40 primary refugees to the area. In the housing area, we provide that service for them.

It took from August to September. We provided housing and financial startup.

They were the first group that came directly from refugee camps to St. Cloud. They came from camps in Yemen, from camps in Ethiopia, from camps in Egypt. They were mostly Somalis, and they came from Iraq.

We were working together with the Lutheran Social Service of St. Cloud. They were the anchor agency that brought them here ….

Note that in my previous post this morning it was a Lutheran Social Services subcontractor that got the boot in North Carolina.

Get ready St. Cloud—more refugees on the way from camps!

There will be more refugees coming to this area. We have an estimation of 100 cases.

Readers, read the rest of the group profile at the St. Cloud Times and note who is funding SASSO, a list that includes banks.  What is up with that?    For more on SASSO be sure to read that post I wrote back in April.  I wonder does Rep. Michelle Bachmann fully understand what is going on in her district?   Visit her website, here, and note she has just been assigned a seat on the House Intelligence Committee.  Great!  She can get to work on intelligence in her St. Cloud-centered district!