White House’s Power: “doing rinkey-dink do-gooder stuff”

But, would rather be making war!

Have any of you read the New York Times bestseller on President Obama by Edward Klein entitled, The Amateur?   I haven’t finished it yet but I almost fell out of bed recently when I read the chapter on White House Iraqi Refugee Czar Samantha Power.   Longtime readers may recall that I noted that Ms. Power (Mrs. Cass Sunstein), Susan Rice at the UN, and Hillary* were largely responsible for our engagement in the Arab Spring excellent-extended-adventure in Libya.  I called them Macbeth’s weird sisters in that post.

Klein confirms the role of the three in helping advance the further Islamification of Libya and quotes a White House source who calls the three the “humanitarian Vulcans.”

The gist of Power’s foreign policy (when to make war) theory is that war is o.k. for America when it is conducted to “protect” people.   She calls it the “Responsibility to Protect” described here by Stanley Kurtz; and the warmongers on the Left even have a shorthand way of referring to her doctrine as R2P.  Of course the situation in Syria and Obama’s lack of enthusiasm to protect Syrians comes immediately to mind, but that is a story for another day.

Back to Power, when European countries decided to jump into the Libyan civil war on the side of the rebels apparently Obama was reluctant to get involved, but, according to Klein, Power was itching for a fight and wanted to put her R2P to a test.   Readers here at RRW know how that turned out—tens of thousand of new refugees fled Libya into neighboring countries or tried to cross the Mediterranean resulting in even more people to protect (or is that the plan?).

As you read what Klein says be sure to remember that Power is the so-called Iraqi Refugee Czar in the White House National Security Council and that she was given the job of reforming the refugee program (which we hear nothing about these days).  Too “rinkey-dink” for Mrs. Cass Sunstein?   (Emphasis below is mine).

Klein:

Among Obama’s foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power, the far-out leftist firebrand, complained that the administration’s cautious, first-dono-harm, approach to the Arab Spring had effectively sidelined her in White House Councils.  She said she’d been relegated to “doing rinky-dink do-gooder stuff,” such as advocating on behalf of beleaguered Christians in Iraq, and no longer had as much access to the President.  She was itching to get back in the fray, and she saw an opportunity in Libya.

Let me repeat that!

She said she’d been relegated to “doing rinky-dink do-gooder stuff,” such as advocating on behalf of beleaguered Christians in Iraq.

In fact she would like to do more big stuff, nothing “rinky-dink,” like maybe invade Israel as some believe she is advocating in this clip.

* Power called Hillary a “monster” during the 2008 Presidential campaign and resigned from the Obama team (for awhile).

Resettlement to “welcoming” Minnesota slowed

Well, not just Minnesota but everywhere.  There is nothing new in this story.  I’m posting it here because while the Israelis riot AGAINST more Africans coming across the Israeli border, recognizing the potential destruction of the social fabric, this article highlights the desire by Minnesota’s social service agencies and the “faith” community to “welcome” more to Minnesota.

The refugee program has been slowed because of the discovery (oops!) of Iraqi terrorists having been resettled in Bowling Green, KY and probably some other cases we haven’t heard about yet.    By the way, a reader from Kentucky told me recently that Bowling Green is 10% Bosnian Muslim now thanks to the Clinton Administration’s phony-baloney Bosnian war and refugee resettlement contractors.

Here is the Star Tribune article boo-hooing about the slow flow of refugees to Minnesota:

Fewer feet are stepping across Minnesota’s welcome mat.

Stricter screening measures for refugees hoping to enter the United States from countries deemed a security risk have allowed fewer people to reach Minnesota from hot spots around the world.

The total number of refugees arriving in the state dropped from 2,107 in the 12 months ending in September 2010 to 1,856 in the 12 months ending in September 2011, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

So far, only 758 refugees entering the U.S. have landed in Minnesota in the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2011.

Not to worry! The pace will surely pick up in the summer!

Workers at both state and federal refugee agencies predict the numbers of new arrivals to Minnesota will pick up soon as the government fine-tunes the new screening process in time for summer, historically the busy season for refugee resettlement work.

Readers, there is nothing special about summer, it is just that the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30th and the feds and the contractors put on a big push to resettle as many as they can toward the approved cap before the new fiscal year begins.  And, since they are likely to even get smaller numbers of refugees in 2013, they want to get all the bodies they can get in 2012.

Most refugees going to Minnesota are Somalis.

The recent decline in refugee numbers nationally and locally began nearly two years ago, after U.S. officials sought to tighten screening process for refugees coming from Iraq mainly, but it also has affected refugees from Somalia.

See my recent post about Somali chain migration to Minnesota hitting a snag, here.   Same reporter for the Star Tribune, Allie Shah, wrote that story—must be on the Somali beat (or the Muslim beat).

Addendum:  Silly me, I should have linked this post from January 2011 that is one of the top posts here almost every day.

Minnesota: Iraqi Muslim gets 3 years for ripping off food stamp program for $3 million

Does that sound about right to you?  Three years in jail for $3 million worth of fraud!   And, then the OBAMA Justice Department has to throw in a lesson on the phony economics of the redistribution of wealth!

This is one of the largest food stamp rip-offs I’ve reported so far in my extra-curricular hobby of reporting on immigrant fraud schemes.   I wonder if maybe we could persuade that Minnesota Humphrey School that is so interested in how much immigrants benefit the economy of Minnesota to track the criminal fraud schemes too?

Note to readers:  I started writing this post last night and used this article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but this a.m. most of the text is gone (here is what I had last night from the story):

The former owner of a corner market in St. Paul argued before his sentencing on a massive food stamp fraud that his illegal behavior “was the product of stress and psychological instability” attributed to his ex-wife dying in the collapse of the I-35W bridge in 2007.

Khaffak S. Ansari, 46, of Arden Hills, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in St. Paul to three years and five months in prison for making illegal redemptions for cash and ineligible merchandise at the Stryker Avenue Market.

The government contended that Ansari trafficked more than $3 million in food stamp benefits from January 2006 — well before the bridge collapse — through October 2010.

Ansari argued that the figure was closer to $1.5 million. Sentencing calls for him to pay $2.4 million in restitution. [How much do you want to bet that money is already out of the country!---ed]

According to a law enforcement affidavit filed in the case, the average food stamp redemption for a similarly sized store in Minnesota between 2004 and 2009 was slightly more than $320,000. Over that same period, Stryker’s redemptions were nearly 10 times that.  [So, someone was ripping-off the taxpayer as early as 2004---ed]

In presentencing court filings, the government argued for a four-year prison term for Ansari. The defendant sought as little as three years, pointing out that his ex-wife, Julia Blackhawk, was killed in the bridge collapse three months after their divorce.

Stress made him do it!

“The nature and circumstance of the offense . . . was a product of stress and psychological instability after the death of Mr. Ansari’s [former wife] in the Highway 35W bridge collapse,” his attorney argued in a presentencing document.

This morning I see there is a much more interesting article on Ansari at the Chicago Tribune written by reporter David Hanners* of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.  And, by the way, I am sure it didn’t escape your notice that Ansari had divorced his wife prior to her death on the bridge and that he had been trafficking and scamming the US taxpayer as early as 2006 (possibly earlier) and she died in 2007.

So Ansari is a refugee from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq!

His father, a doctor! made a plea to the judge to keep his sentence to as few years as possible with this sob story:

Ansari’s father, Dr. Tawfiq Ansari, a physician in North Carolina, wrote Magnuson, asking him to show “leniency and mercy to a man who was not himself for the past five years, and who loves his new adopted country so much.”  [Way to show your love of America by ripping us off! Is it justified because we are only infidels?---ed]

He said that his son, a Shi’a Muslim, had been tortured under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime in Iraq and that his son’s wounds “were not healed just hidden very deep inside.”

The father told the judge that after his son settled in Minnesota and opened the market, he seemed to be doing better. He married Julia Anne Kreider in September 2005, and the couple had a son.

In June 2006, Ansari filed for divorce. [He filed for divorce!---ed] It was granted in May 2007, and the couple “maintained a civil relationship for the sake of their son,” the father wrote.

But on Aug. 1, 2007, Julia Blackhawk, as she was then known, was one of 13 people killed in the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.

“That left Khaffak in extreme shock and confusion,” Tawfiq Ansari told the judge. “The death of Julia turned to be a turning point in Khaffak’s life, he drifted into depression and self guilt. He started to have mood swings and an uncaring attitude towards life and his business.”

He said his son told him several times “that Julia’s death was his fault and he had to be punished for it.”

O.K. so let’s punish the guy!

Obama’s Justice Department doesn’t miss an opportunity to promote their economic redistribution theories even in a press release about a fraud case!  

LOL!  Not a mention in the release about the Muslim refugee sob story though.

Justice Department: Food stamps fuel the economy through trickle-down welfare!  Huh?  Couldn’t you also say that if the dollars were left in the hands of those who earned them (rather than the government taking them through taxes) that would also fuel the economy and do it more fairly!

From those brilliant economists at the Justice Department:

According to a 2010 USDA report, when properly functioning, SNAP benefits move into
the local economies quickly. This is important for the families that receive the benefits and the communities where the benefits are spent because SNAP has an economic multiplier effect. When SNAP operates as designed, every $5 spent in benefits generates $9 in economic activity. This benefit is supposed to accrue not only to the eligible families but also to the grocery stores where the food was purchased, the distributors who delivered the food, and ultimately the farmers who produced it. According to recent estimates, every $1 of spending on SNAP increases GDP by as much as $1.79 — a significant multiplier effect, and an increase of $1 billion in SNAP spending generates as many as 17,900 total full-time jobs.  [1, 7 and 9 must be the favorite numbers of the 'economists'---ed]

* Way to go Mr. Hanners!  Thanks for your more extensive reporting!  This is an example of the massive food stamp fraud going on in these ‘mom & pop’ stores across America—it is a huge story in need of some real investigative reporting!

Fishy “hate crime” story in El Cajon

CAIR and the Muslim grievance lobby are trying oh-so-hard to elevate this tragic murder of a young Iraqi mother in California to be on par with the Trayvon Martin circus in Florida.   I’ve been reading about the case elsewhere and there is something fishy about it.

Here is the story from Reuters, sans some red flags, but with a serious reference to the very un-serious Southern Poverty Law Center:

Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old stay-at-home mother of five, was found brutally beaten in the dining room of her rented home last week by her 17-year-old daughter, police said. She died of her wounds on Saturday.

Local police are investigating the killing as a possible hate crime because of a note found next to Alawadi’s unconscious body that threatened the family and was reported to have labeled her a terrorist. An FBI bias crimes squad is assisting.

Alawadi’s death comes at a time of renewed anti-Muslim sentiment nationwide. The number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled to 30 in 2011, according to a recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates for civil rights.

Take a couple of minutes and read this hilarious piece by Daniel Greenfield at Frontpage Magazine where he tells readers how he and his cat became a SPLC “hate group.”  Reuters reporter Mary Slosson should read it too!

Not a racist “hate crime” yet say the police because they are probably checking out the story of certain family members (Muslim honor killing maybe?):

“We are considering the hate crime aspect, but we are not labeling it as such,” El Cajon Police Lieutenant Mark Coit said. But he could not reveal any details on the status of the case.

El Cajon, second largest settlement of Iraqis in the US.  Many came to escape the Saddam Hussein regime (something we don’t hear much about from the refugee industry which wants everyone to believe all Iraqi refugees are a result of the evil US actions in Iraq).

El Cajon is in the heart of East San Diego County, which is home to the second largest Iraqi community in the United States, behind Detroit. More than half of El Cajon’s 100,000 residents are of Middle Eastern descent.

Like Alawadi’s family, some of the city’s Arab residents are largely Shi’ite refugees from Iraq who arrived in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s after fleeing their homeland in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s 1980 invasion of Shi’ite neighbor Iran and the long war that followed.

But the town has seen an even larger surge of Iraqi newcomers since 2008 through a U.S.-funded refugee resettlement program, often joining relatives in the area, said Michael McKay, Deputy Director of Refugee Services at the Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego.

For more on problems with refugees in El Cajon, see our archives on the city here. You will see one story about the Iraqi-Mexican drug rings.   A little warning to Iraqis involved in the illicit drug trade perhaps?  Lots of potential angles here to keep the police busy.

Greensboro, NC refugee activist visits Jordan IOM office, more Iraqis please

A couple of days ago I came across this column written by Raleigh Bailey about his recent visit to the International Organization for Migration office in Jordan.  Among other things he appears to have been interested in the slow flow of Iraqis to the US.  You get a feeling from his piece that he laments the fact that his hometown, Greensboro, NC,  and NC generally doesn’t have an adequate number of Iraqis compared to other states.  You also get a feeling he is not happy with the Israelis and thinks a soldier’s gun was paid for by US taxpayers.  (Truth be told, the US is largely paying for Palestinian “refugees’” upkeep, so what is the point?).

But, before I tell you what he said, Greensboro interests me.   Longtime readers may recall that Greensboro resettlement agencies were blasted in 2010 because of the large number of refugees arriving there and the apparent mismanagement of them by the federal contractors.  To see how bad things got go here and follow updates, and also go here.

I wondered if the resettlement into the Triad region of North Carolina had resumed in full force.

Now here is Mr. Bailey in the Greensboro News & Record giving us a look into the IOM office in Jordan:

Freedom.” “Security.” “Education.”

The first three volunteers wrote on the board. Our interpreter explained that they were listing the advantages of living in America. The list grew.

Then they listed the disadvantages. “Separated from family members,” “loss of culture,” “learning the language,” “loss of job skills certifications.” Then these Iraqi refugees who fled to Jordan discussed their answers.

The lesson was taught by a teacher working for the International Organization for Migration. IOM contracts with the U.S. State Department to provide cultural orientation for Iraqi refugees accepted for resettlement in America. The objective was to develop realistic expectations about America and develop analytical and networking skills in decision-making. The class was conducted in Arabic because the U.S. no longer pays for English language training.

I was leading a dozen U.S. refugee professionals and researchers from half a dozen states for the Association of Refugee Service Professionals. We were studying refugee issues. My daughter, who works with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, had arranged meetings for us. The refugees were stuck. Though approved for resettlement, they can’t get security clearances because new software designed for the Department of Homeland Security has problems.  [I thought the problem had to do with the two Iraqi refugee terrorists found living in Kentucky?---ed]

All these Iraqis had met the U.S. and U.N. commission criteria as refugees: having a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, place of birth or political beliefs. Most had received death threats or lost family members because they befriended Americans in Iraq.

Since the program began in 2007, North Carolina has resettled 779 Iraqis, a small number compared to several other states: California, 8,663; Arizona, 3,161; Texas, 4,424; Massachusetts 1,719. Most North Carolina refugees come from other countries.

Forget Raleigh Bailey for a moment and humor me as my ADD (wandering mind!) sends me in another direction.

Is Greensboro a center of Muslim population and activism in the US and has this been an area Middle Easterners have known for decades as such?

Readers I am not saying that refugees in North Carolina are terrorists, I just thought it was interesting to note that for some reason Muslims have been going to North Carolina for decades—since at least the 1970s and ’80s.

Did you know Khalid Shaikh Mohammed the terror mastermind, really Osama bin Laden’s brain, went to college there, in Greensboro, along with hundreds of other Middle Easterners?   I guess you can tell I’m fascinated by what I’ve learned from Richard Miniter’s book “Mastermind”  (earlier I mentioned “asylum seeker” and 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef).

First, in 1983 KSM enrolled in Chowen College in Murfreesboro, NC (that is near the Virginia border).  The largely black college was having trouble getting enough students so the entry requirements were not strict.  Miniter tells us that 29 (of 53) freshman science students that year were Muslims.  They stayed to themselves and otherwise strictly practiced their faith, including buying live goats and killing them in the halal fashion.

Within a year, KSM transferred to equally not demanding  North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University(NC A&T), 175 miles from Chowen.  In the summer of 1984 KSM (a reckless driver who chaffed against rules of the road) caused an auto accident that seriously injured a couple of North Carolina ladies and a legal wrangle ensued.  In the car with him at the time of the accident was the brother of Ramzi Yousef (the gang was all here, or at least in NC at the time).  The Yousefs are KSM’s nephews.

You can read all about the man who was responsible for a large number of terror attacks leading up to 9/11 and beyond in Miniter’s book. KSM personally beheaded WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl.   Osama bin laden was really nothing without KSM.

Also, it’s interesting to note that Samir Khan (the right hand man of Anwar Awlaki) who was killed along with Awlaki by an Obama drone attack in Yemen also hailed from North Carolina.

What is so attractive about North Carolina? I would really like to know!

Finally, I know it has nothing to do with anything, but opinion writer, Raleigh Bailey, may well have crossed paths with KSM at NC A&T right there in Greensboro, NC when both were on the campus in 1984.

Iraqis who fled to Syria now have no where to go

As Iraq deteriorated into chaos over the last decade or more, Iraqis fled to Syria not just because the US had gone to war against Saddam Hussein, but even earlier than that to escape Hussein’s regime itself (although NGOs like to blame the US for the exodus from Iraq).

Then, as some stability returned to Iraq, an undetermined number of “refugees” returned (we can’t really know the numbers because as this article points out, many did not register as “refugees.” )  Now, that the US is no longer in Iraq to help keep the warring factions apart, the country is sliding back into chaos.  So is Syria.   And, no one can blame the US for the Shia/Sunni civil war in Syria and across the Middle East.   In fact,  Andrew McCarthy makes a good point, here, when he suggests we let them fight it out themselves (Afghanistan shows we can’t bring western-style peace to feuds a millennium old).

So here is the story from Syria about Iraqis with no place to go, from al-akhbar.  Pay attention to the fact that the “bad” Assad regime let the Iraqis work and educated their kids.

Starting in 2003, thousands of Iraqis started to flee their homes in search of refuge in neighboring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan. As violence and targeted killings, in particular of the Iraqi middle class, came to a head in 2006 and 2007, the number of refugees in Syria exploded to over one million, according to Syrian regime and Iraqi estimates. At more than twice the number of Palestinian refugees in Syria, the Iraqi community became the largest refugee community in the country.

But the majority of Iraqi refugees in Syria did not register with the UN. According to Souad al-Azzawi, an Iraqi environmental engineer, human rights activist, and herself a refugee, many of those who failed to register chose to lie low because they “sensed danger in handing over their personal information to the UNHCR. Some had been illegally detained by US occupation forces, or kidnapped, or feared assassination” by pro-Iran militias infiltrating the Iraqi-Syrian border, she said.  [By the way, the Kentucky Iraqi terrorists passed through Syria and didn't mind giving over their papers in which they lied to the UN---ed]

[....]

With reported death tolls in the thousands since the uprising began in March last year, Iraqis in Syria have generally not been turned into targets of violence as such, according to UNHCR spokesperson in Damascus Helene Daubelcour.

[....]

Though it is impossible to estimate the total number of people that have voluntary returned home, a worsening security situation in Iraq in recent months has only given refugees new reasons to stay away from their country.

[....]

The majority’s lack of better options has made Iraqis like Ibrahim face the future with a sad mixture of solidarity, pure resilience, and fatalism. She believes that, although things were somewhat better for Iraqis refugees just over a year ago, the deterioration of conditions of life for people in Syria as a whole “might just show the direction in which the whole Arab world is heading. We are worried about Syria. As for us, wherever we go, things won’t be much better. So we choose to stay,” she said.

I’m with McCarthy on this.  We need to open up our own energy options in North America, help our ally Israel, but generally let the Arabs settle their own internal squabbles.  If they want to live in the seventh century, so be it.

Large numbers of Iraqis resettled in El Cajon, CA not finding work

Gee, I wonder why.  Just one more in a long list of stories about the large number of Iraqis being resettled in the US and then not finding employment.

From Prospect Journal:

When these refugees arrive in the country, the U.S. federal government provides them with a monthly stipend of around $800 to help them get situated. However, the payments expire after eight months, which is assumed to be an adequate amount of time to resettle, gain employment, and assimilate into the local community. Not surprisingly, this does not happen in most cases. Instead, refugees become increasingly reliant on non-profit organizations like the International Rescue Committee and Catholic Charities to provide assistance in a number of tasks ranging from the complicated immigration process to filing online job applications in the service sector. [The writer doesn't know that these two supposed non-profits are actually the government contractors responsible for the resettlement in the first place.  They are being paid by the federal government to assist the refugees---ed]

The quest for employment can be long and defeating. Of the few employers that are hiring in the midst of an economic downturn, few are hiring middle-aged refugees without a native grasp of the English language or experience in the American workforce. Yalda has filed numerous online and in-person job applications, but has yet to receive a follow-up call from a single employer. The refugees that do gain employment usually find work in the low-level service industry, which primarily consists of jobs in the hotel, retail, and manual labor sectors. These industries offer poor wages and poor prospects for job mobility.

What!  No meat-packers in El Cajon.  By the way, disgruntled Iraqis have gone home to Iraq.  It is possible to do.  As a matter of fact, I’ve advocated that the US State Department fly them home (or to the Middle East somewhere) if they are unhappy and on welfare here.  In fact, it wouldn’t be unprecedented.  Remember in 1999 we brought about 15,000 unhappy Kosovars here and shipped about 10,000 back the following year, here.

The price of the return airline ticket would sure be less costly to the taxpayers in the long run.

Kentucky: Iraqi terror suspect lied on refugee application

NO!  Imagine that!  He failed to tell the overseas processing entity in Syria that he was a member of a terrorist organization.

Readers, you know how this story began with the arrest of two suspected Iraqi refugee terrorists last summer, here.

One of the accused has already admitted he is guilty.

Now comes the latest on his accomplice, here, at the Bowling Green Daily News.  And, by the way, this failure to properly screen Muslim refugees is what has slowed the entire refugee resettlement program to a crawl in recent months.

An Iraqi refugee facing federal terrorism-related charges is now accused of falsifying information on refugee admission papers he filed in Syria in 2009 and on his application to register for permanent residence status that he filed in Bowling Green in 2010.

A federal grand jury in Bowling Green indicted Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 24, of Bowling Green, on Wednesday in a superseding indictment adding the two perjury charges to 10 previous charges filed in May that accuse Hammadi and a co-defendant, Waad Ramadan Alwan, 30, also of Bowling Green, of attempting to provide material support and resources to terrorists in Iraq. Alwan pleaded guilty in December to all 23 charges against him. An April 3 sentencing date is set for Alwan.

The latest charges against Hammadi allege that he “denied having previously engaged in terrorist activity and having previously been a member of a terrorist organization,” according to Wednesday’s indictment.

How did they know he was lying?  They found his fingerprints on an IED used against American troops in Iraq, but only after we had let him live among us.

And, you can be sure he was receiving much more of America’s social safety net then the subsidized housing noted here:

Hammadi lived in Section 8, government-subsidized housing on Flanigan Court before his arrest. He entered the country in July 2009 in Las Vegas and moved to Bowling Green in December 2009.

So, he was first resettled in Nevada and then migrated to Bowling Green (to work in a chicken plant there? or to hook up with his fellow Iraqi terrorist?).

Fun with Numbers!  Have a look at the US State Department’s data base here.  First, look at the one for Iraqis since 2007.  We resettled 390 Iraqis in Nevada and 1,183 in Kentucky.  California got the most Iraqis since 2007—14,953!

Then scroll down and have a look at the data base on what nationalities went to what cities and towns.  Bowling Green (a meatpacking town) got 2,688 refugees from all over the world over the last ten years.  Las Vegas (where our Iraqi terror suspect was first resettled by a government contractor, maybe Catholic Charities, but I didn’t take time to look it up) received 3,876 refugees in ten years.

Readers, this is our 519th post on Iraqi refugees since July 2007, visit our Iraqi refugee archives here.

Arizona: Iraqi woman arrested for beating daughter who talked to a boy

Here we go again.  Did no one tell the Iraqis they had to leave certain portions of their Muslim culture behind when they came to America?

Remember it was only last spring that another Iraqi in Arizona was sentenced to 34 years in prison for murdering his daughter because she became too westernized.

Here is the latest story from Reuters:

(Reuters) – An Iraqi woman has been arrested in Arizona accused of beating her daughter and padlocking her to a bed in outrage after she spoke to a male student at school in violation of the family’s traditional values, police said on Friday.

Yusra Farhan was taken into custody after a struggle with officers on Wednesday at a Phoenix hospital where her 19-year-old daughter was being treated for minor injuries, Phoenix police spokesman James Holmes said.

By the way, I saw another account of this arrest and struggle in which an expert on Islam said the reason she likely struggled so hard is that it is against their religion also for women to be touched by men (presumably it was male officers arresting her).  I can see it now—CAIR will swoop in and demand that all arrests of women be done by female police officers.  And, readers that is how Sharia law will creep into America.

The incident started on Tuesday, when the daughter was spotted by her father talking to a 19-year-old man at a high school parking lot in Phoenix. Police said her father became angry and took her home, striking her several times.

The mother arrived home later and admitted to hitting her daughter with her hands and a shoe, and tying her to the bed with a rope around her waist that was secured with a padlock, court records showed.

Farhan told police she hit her daughter because she “was speaking to a male subject and her Iraq culture states a female is not allowed to be having contact with males because females are not allowed to have boyfriends,” court records said.

Here is a reference to the honor killing I mentioned above:

The arrest follows another high-profile case involving an Iraqi immigrant. Last April, an Arizona judge sentenced Faleh Hassan Almaleki to 34-1/2 years in prison for murdering his daughter in what was described as an “honor killing.”

Almaleki struck and killed his 20-year-old daughter Noor with his vehicle in a Phoenix valley parking lot in 2009 for becoming too Westernized and violating what he said were Iraqi and Muslim values. He also injured her boyfriend’s mother before fleeing the scene.

Is Farhan one of thousands of Iraqi refugees resettled in Arizona in recent years?  The article doesn’t use the R-word, but the odds are pretty good that she and her family came to the US in the last few years through the Refugee Resettlement Program of the US State Department.

By the way, back in 2010 the state refugee coordinator for Arizona begged the State Department and its contractors to NOT send more Iraqis to Arizona, here.  And, you might find it interesting to see the letter to the editor in 2008 from an Iraqi teen in Tucson explaining how Iraqis aren’t prepared to live in America, here, because someone has set their expectations too high and they end up angry.

How many Iraqi refugees have been resettled in your state?

The numbers are here at the State Department’s refugee processing center.  The second link to a spreadsheet is for “Cumulative Arrivals by State for Refugee and SIV’s for Iraq.”   Click on it and find your state.

You might also go to “Arrivals by destination city” and look up your town or city and find out what nationalities came to your town through this program over the last ten years.

Want to know more about Iraqi refugees—we have written 517 posts on the subject, here since 2007.

Update: Iraqi refugee flow to US slow now under Obama

There is not a whole lot we don’t already know in this story from USA Today about how the flow of Iraqi refugees into the US has slowed because of stepped-up security checks in the wake of the Kentucky terror arrests last summer.  Of course, the average American is saying “what the hell are we bringing Muslim Iraqis here in the first place—we gave them their own Islamic government!”

Predictably, the open borders crowd wants to spin this as a story about how we need to help those Iraqis who helped us, but those two arrested in Kentucky were “humanitarian” refugees and not US government employees.

Here is the gist of the story:

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has dramatically slowed the resettlement of Iraqi refugees — including former U.S. military translators and embassy workers — in the midst of growing concerns about al-Qaeda’s potential ties with some asylum seekers, an administration official says.

Two Iraqi refugees who resettled in the United States in 2009 were arrested in May in Bowling Green, Ky., and are accused of plotting to send weapons and cash to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, says that intelligence indicates the threat is much broader than the two refugees.

Authorities learned of the Kentucky plot through intelligence gleaned in late 2010, the official said.

“That threat stream led us to re-examine our vetting process for this population and really all of the refugee population,” the official said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller noted last year before the Kentucky arrests that a potential threat rested with “individuals who may have been resettled here in the United States that have had some association with al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

After more than 36,000 Iraqi refugees were resettled in the USA between October 2008 and September 2010, only 9,400 refugees were resettled here the following year. In the last three months of 2011, only 826 Iraqi refugees have been resettled in the United States, according to the State Department.

Fingerprints of one of the Kentucky suspects, Waad Ramadan Alwan, were found on a component of a roadside bomb discovered by U.S. troops in Iraq before he arrived in the United States. But the prints were not in any of the databases that visa applicants were automatically checked against. Alwan pleaded guilty in federal court in December to conspiring to attack U.S. troops in Iraq, conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to terrorists.

Neither man had worked for U.S. organizations in Iraq. Both received refugee status for humanitarian reasons.

Note that Alwan pleaded guilty.  I’m guessing that there was huge pressure on him to do so because you can bet-your-booties that no one, especially the Obama State Department, wanted a big public trial in Kentucky with Senator Rand Paul on their case!

By the way, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was quaking in his boots when this story broke because I am sure he has been an enabler of refugee resettlement in Kentucky because big businesses in his state need the cheap labor.  When a Kentucky citizen activist went to his office for help with the neglect of refugees in Bowling Green a few years ago, he rebuffed her.

Also, I remember so well the beating the Bush Administration got in 2007 and 2008 from the “human rights” (ha-ha) activists with the help of AP’s reporter Matthew Lee about the slow and careful way the Bush homeland security people were screening Iraqis.  Once Obama was elected the spigot would be opened—or so they thought.

USA Today (continues):

The slowdown also puts President Obama, who during his run for the White House blasted the George W. Bush administration for doing too little to protect Iraqis who assisted the U.S. mission in Iraq, in an awkward position.

The article goes on to tell us about White House meetings on the security problem but with no mention of Obama Iraqi refugee czar, Samantha Power.  Guess she is too busy these days coping with the new “refugee” problems her “responsibility to protect” has caused in Egypt and Libya.