Pittsburgh: Just who exactly is exploiting the refugees?

Let’s see, is it an ‘evil’ Catholic Charities, an ‘evil’ business, or the ‘evil’ labor unions?   Or, maybe all three?   I believe that for the first time, I am seeing evidence of a thesis I have been promoting on these pages for a long time.  My theory is that refugees and other immigrants are being used as political pawns by the Far Left to bring about crisis using Alinsky’s (Rules for Radicals) methods with the ultimate goal of changing our form of government (see posts in our Community Destabilization category).

This is the story today in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that prompted me to look a little further.  We have already discussed some of this controversy in a previous post, here.

Catholic Charities

A group of Burmese refugees protested their treatment by Catholic Charities at the opening of an immigrant center yesterday.  Gosh, don’t you wonder who taught them to protest in this manner and present their demands—the union community organizers of course.

Refugees from Myanmar picketed the opening of a new welcome center for clients of Catholic Charities at its Downtown office yesterday.

Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh, who dedicated the Susan Zubik Welcome Center in honor of his late mother, went out to meet the protesters, who spoke little or no English. Counting children, they included more than 30 ethnic Karens, who carried handwritten signs such as, “We demand a professional translator who speaks our language.”

The protest was organized by Three Rivers Coalition for Justice, a group with ties to organized labor that helps workers with problems such as evictions. It printed a leaflet claiming that Catholic Charities had assigned the Karens a Burmese translator who did not speak the Karen dialect and who treated them with contempt.

It claimed that a Karen refugee facing eviction had given $500 to a Catholic Charities caseworker to pay his rent, but eviction notices kept coming. It also said that refugees are placed in low-paying, dangerous jobs.

Bishop Zubik said he tried to invite the protesters in for food. “But they didn’t speak English.”

The core of the problem stems from the allegedly unhappy refugees working at W & K Steel nearby.

Ms. Rauscher said that there are only 20 Karen translators nationwide, and that Catholic Charities investigated reports that their translator was prejudiced against Karens. Those who worked closely with her saw no sign of it, she said. [Ms. Rauscher, there are several Karen  Burmese in Bowling Green, KY who speak English well enough to translate, maybe you could get one of those and free him or her from the misery of chicken plant work.]

But the core of the dispute involves 14 Burmese workers at W&K Steel in Rankin. The Three Rivers Coalition for Justice says they are paid less than other workers, and that they all work in dangerous conditions.

Two W&K employees, one of them Burmese, went on strike in September, and Ironworkers Local 3 is supporting their action. According to the Coalition for Justice, there are 35 employees total. Ed Wilhelm, owner of W&K, did not return phone calls.

Ms. Rauscher said Catholic Charities didn’t place any clients there, but that two got jobs on their own initiative. After the labor complaints, a social worker asked them if their workplace was safe and if they wanted to find new jobs.

“They said they liked their jobs and wanted to stay,” she said.

[.....]

“I’m not sure what’s going on with W&K Steel and the Ironworkers. … But from our perspective, we didn’t see that this employer was exploiting the refugee workers,” she said.

Mr. Rink (Chad Rink, an Ironworkers organizer with Three Rivers Coalition for Justice) said he believes the workers lied to Catholic Charities about work conditions.

“They are afraid for their jobs,” he said.

Then we have the usual old saw that refugees only get $425 when they come to the US.

Ms. Rausher said all refugees struggle to make ends meet, especially when they arrive without western job skills. The government provides a one-time grant of $425 to set them up in an apartment. Most of the money Catholic Charities spends on refugees is from donors, she said.

Well, that’s not exactly accurate Ms. Rausher, most of your funding comes from the taxpayers of the United States.  See Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s most recent Form 990 here and note that in a total income of $9,583,772, $5,322,899 is from government grants and $1,138,826 is indirect public support (this is a category I have come to realize is also money from the government somehow, contracts maybe).  So they are mostly government funded and that government funding probably allowed them to open this “welcome” center where the demonstration took place.

We have previously reported that Catholic Charities placed refugees in a Pittsburgh area slum building for the past decade here, so we know there is some veracity to the charges that refugees have been neglected.  In addition to this story, there are reports in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette that Somali Bantu resettled in the area in 2005 had similar problems.

Big business

I have no clue who is telling the truth about the working conditions at W & K Steel. Readers will need to read all the links I’m providing and try to sort that out.  Frankly, I wondered why a business in this day and age would be so stupid as to pay a legal immigrant worker less than other comparable workers at the plant (as alleged in this story) thus opening themselves up for discrimination charges.  

There has always been a rumor that somehow the “employment service” whoever that was in this case, Catholic Charities or the Jewish agency mentioned, gets a piece from the refugee workers salary, but I can’t believe any of them would be so foolish to set up such an arrangement.

Labor Unions

Sorry, Three Rivers Coalition for Justice, I don’t believe you either.  I think you are ticked off at Catholic Charities over the health care debate and that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is standing firm on abortion (the only thing they are standing firm on) so you are setting up the Burmese to go after CC as well (although I might agree they need to be gone after)!  Three Rivers is teaching Catholic Charities a lesson, and CC since you have gone to bed with the Far Left I have no sympathy for you.

Exploitation of immigrant workers is the heart and soul of the labor movement in the US!

At a website called “Talking Union” a site for the Democratic Socialists of America, an article entitled, “Indentured Workers Fight Back” confirms, at least to me, that the Burmese refugees may be being exploited by business, and not properly cared for by Catholic Charities, but pro-union socialists use them too to promote their cause— “changing” America.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International. DSA’s members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics.

Here is what they are saying about the Burmese refugees in the Pittsburgh area and this controversy.  Please read this!

Right in the Pittsburgh area a new and surprising strike around related issues is being waged with support from the Ironworkers Local 3. Some 35 workers at an unorganized steel fabrication factory in Rankin, W & K Steel, went on strike against unsafe and dangerous working conditions, and to demand an end to discrimination in wages and other treatment against the 14 workers who are refugees from Burma. The refugees, who have legal status and the right to work in the USA, are placed for employment at W&K by Catholic Charities and the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Pittsburgh, which take no responsibility for the unsafe and discriminatory conditions under which the refugees are placed. A statement from the striking American workers reads: “We feel as Americans that it is our duty to defend the defenseless and expose the wickedness of the unjust.”

More information on this strike is available from the Three Rivers Coalition for Justice, 2201 Liberty Ave, Ste 4, Pittsburgh Pa 15222, phone 412-849-1271.

 

Such moral solidarity as demonstrated here between American workers and Burmese refugees is the heart and soul of the labor movement in America. If the struggle for the rights of immigrant and indentured workers is becoming considered part of organized labor’s core agenda for workers rights, it is clearly not on the immediate or middle term agenda of the Obama administration. Painful struggles against ferocious resistance by reactionary and nativist elements must be waged. Solidarity for battles like those at Signal and W&K Steel build the heart needed to wage those battles.

In conclusion, refugees are being used all around in my opinion!  The folks at Catholic Charities (and other government contractors) get their salaries paid primarily from the US government and they get to pat themselves on the back for bringing the downtrodden to America while seemingly being cavalier about the living conditions in which they place refugees.   Businesses may take advantage of them.  And, then their supposed friends in the socialist unions like this one, use them to promote their socialist agendas.   Frankly, it stinks!

Targeted Assistance grants tell us where the refugee overload is

Your tax dollars:

That’s how I look at this program of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.  When you check the list of counties receiving the grants, you will see according to how much federal support the counties are getting where the refugees are congregated. It is not a perfect correlation because I bet some politics are involved too, I don’t know for sure, just a guess considering the way Washington works these days. 

We hear all the time in the mainstream media that refugees only get that measly $450 or so when they arrive in the US, but there is so much taxpayer money sloshing around, one just needs to find it all!   And, frankly most of the money doesn’t go to the refugees—salaries and programs eat it up.

Targeted Assistance is federal grant money that goes through states to counties experiencing the worst refugee overpopulation and where refugees are not economically self sufficient and are relying heavily on public assistance (aka welfare).

Here is how it is described at ORR’s website:

The Targeted Assistance program (TAG) is part of the Division of Refugee Assistance and allocates formula funds to States that qualify for additional funds due to an influx of refugee arrivals and a high concentration of refugees in county jurisdictions with high utilization of public assistance.

TAG services are the same as Refugee Social Services and are intended to assist refugees obtain employment within one year’s participation in the program and to achieve self-sufficiency. TAG service priorities, however, are distinctive in that they prioritize (a) cash assistance recipients, particularly long-term recipients; (b) unemployed refugees not receiving cash assistance; and (c) employed refugees in need of services to retain employment or to attain economic independence.

One question I have after reading the lengthier discussion, available apparently only as a pdf file, is that  it appears that Ethnic Community Based Organizations (ECBOs) can receive some of these dollars as pass-throughs from their county government.   ECBOs can be nothing more than a few folks of a particular ethnicity filing a $50 incorporation with a state and presto they are legit groups to receive your money.  They don’t even have to be federally designated 501(c)3 charities!

Here are the top counties in the US receiving this extra money for FY2009 (FY2010 will be the same)   Total funding is $43,731,000 for the year.  I’ve only selected those counties that received over $1 million.  These then are the hotspots for refugees not finding work and trying to survive on public assistance:

Arizona, Maricopa County:  $1,232,374

California, Los Angeles County: $2,276,525

                       San Diego County:  $1,053,907

Florida, Maimi -Dade:  $12,176,596 (jackpot!)

Georgia, DeKalb County:  $1,004,721

Illinois, Cook/Kane/Dupage:   $1,005,683

Minnesota, Ramsey/Hennipin:  $2,389,647

New York, NYC:  $1,400,675

Texas, Dallas/Tarrent County:  $1,025,330

               Harris County:  $1,142,247

Washington, King/Snohomish:  $1,137,988

If you would like to see if your county is receiving this funding, write to me at Ann@vigilantfreedom.com  and I’ll send you the pdf.   Or write or call the contact person at the bottom of this page at ORR.  The table with the counties is actually a very cool list because it will even tell you how  many asylees are in the county.

Endnote:  Two cities we have talked about lately with refugee overload in Kentucky (Bowling Green) and Maine (Lewiston) don’t get any extra money.

Bowling Green International Center plans Owensboro satellite office opening, Dec. 1

Update November 18th:  The tangled web that will likely hinder any investigation into charges of refugee neglect in BG, here.

Recent criticism of the Bowling Green International Center doesn’t seem to have slowed the plan for the organization to open another office in neighboring Owensboro, KY.

Here is the story, which we first reported here:

Nov 16, 2009 (Messenger-Inquirer – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — The Bowling Green International Center hopes to open its satellite office in Owensboro by Dec. 1.

Though an office hasn’t been selected, Suzanne Rose, a local volunteer, will be meeting with Father Larry Hostetter, Brescia University’s president, next week about potential office space, said James Robinson, executive director of the International Center.

He said the first group of refugees could be settled in Owensboro by Christmas. The refugees will probably come from Myanmar (formerly Burma).
The International Center works with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants to bring refugees to the country.

“They’re very excited for us to get started, and we are too,” Robinson said. “It’s going to be hectic (at) first. (We’ll) start slow and gain momentum.” Refugees are also expected to be relocated to Owensboro from Iraq. Robinson anticipates Owensboro will receive between 75 and 100 refugees in its first year as a satellite site.

The city received federal approval in late October to become a satellite office for the International Center.

What the heck does that mean, “The city received federal approval…?”   Is that supposed to mean the federal government blessed the city.  Who in the federal government conferred the approval?  Did the city government agree?   Was there any sort of public discussion?

And in light of the complaints we are hearing in Bowling Green where it appears the refugees aren’t getting enough help, how does the International Center think they can manage a whole new office?  In Bowling Green we hear the office is only open two weeks out of the month, could that be?

A combination of International Center staff, interns and volunteers will operate the Owensboro office.

A full-time case manager might be added next year after more refugees have been relocated to Owensboro, Robinson said.

The International Center also plans on bringing its immigration office representatives to Owensboro once a week or once every other week.

Other programs the International Center will offer includes cross-cultural training where refugees can learn about local law enforcement and vice versa, and education on human trafficking.

They need more volunteers (no kidding!):

Volunteers will help the refugees find housing, furniture and jobs. They will also help school-age children get enrolled in schools, and they help refugees get Social Security numbers and immunizations.

“The qualities we look for more than anything (in volunteers): If you say you’re going to do it, do it,” Robinson said. “Commit only to what you can do, and always communicate with us as much as possible.” Robinson was scheduled to meet with local volunteers on Sunday. Volunteers are welcome to mentor refugees, but they also need to make sure the refugees learn to survive in the United States on their own.

The organization has been criticized because its volunteers only take refugees to the grocery a few times before having them go on their own. [That would be fine IF THEY HAD TRANSPORTATION!]  The International Center doesn’t want refugees to become dependent on volunteers.

“The goal is to be self-sufficient within 90 days,” Robinson said.  [Readers, how many of you would be comfortable and self-sufficient in say China or Thailand in 90 days if you didn't speak the language?]

The refugees are given a little money to help them get started, but they have to eventually pay back their travel expenses to the government.

Is USCRI supplying labor for Perdue Chicken?   USCRI is the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and is one of the top ten federal refugee contractors.  The Bowling Green International Center is a subcontractor of USCRI.  What sort of arrangement does USCRI have with Perdue?

I had to laugh in searching around on the topic I came across a post I wrote back in February about USCRI bringing refugees to North Carolina to work in a chicken plant there!  Here it is!   Judy and I have written over 2500 posts in the last few years and we are finding our posts at the top of some google searches, but I guess I better search our own site first in the future!

Brenda Walker writing at VDARE calls this Neo-slavery, here.

In March of this year, I reported on a report from the Center for Immigration Studies about how immigrant labor keeps wages low in the meatpacking industry, here.

A new study out yesterday from the Center for Immigration Studies confirms that immigrant labor keeps wages low in the meatpacking industry.

One other little bit of information I found about the Perdue chicken factory near Owensboro is that it was closed by the USDA in 2007.   It doesn’t say why they had been closed, but it must have been for health or safety reasons.

A final note to the critics:   Before our critics jump in here and say, well, where do we expect them to work, let me say this:   You need to ask yourselves whether this life is better for the refugees than their life in Thailand (in the case of the Burmese chicken plant workers).   If you believe it is, then all I want is honesty—that all of you admit the labor supply arrangements, be honest to the city where you are resettling them, to its citizens and to the volunteers and mostly be honest to the refugees and stop pretending it is all about being a humanitarian.

A reminder, how refugee resettlement should be done….

….one family at a time! 

Coincidentally I just came across a new post at Jeffrey Kirk’s blog, Refugee Resettlement Support, where his group is moving their Burmese refugee family again.   I say coincidentally because one should contrast how Kirk’s folks in Wisconsin are caring for their family to this mass resettlement in Bowling Green, KY that has caused a furor here on RRW.  In Bowling Green, hundreds of Burmese are unhappily living in apartment buildings under questionable conditions, resettled there by a government contractor—the Bowling Green International Center.

Refugee overload in “Little Baghdad,” El Cajon, CA; summit attempts to find new model

Here is one more story about refugee overload, this time from the San Diego area.  A refugee summit held November 6th sought to find answers about what to do about the flood of refugees arriving and suggestions were made for a new “national model.’

From East County Magazine:

November 12, 2009 (El Cajon) – Impacts of the Iraq War are hitting home in East County, where so many Iraqi refugees have settled that El Cajon’s mayor has dubbed a section of his community “Little Baghdad.” Last year, the U.S. admitted over 60,000 refugees—including 8,500 from Iraq. Since October 2008, San Diego has been taking in 400 refugee families a month. Nearly 85% are from Iraq. Almost 75% of all area refugees have settled in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District (GCCCD), straining resources beyond capacity in social services, education, and healthcare.

“Social Services predicts that 200 to 300 new families will be entering East County each month for the next two or three years,” Mike Lewis, PhD, assistant superintendent of education for the Grossmont Union High School District said at a November 6 summit at Cuyamaca College titled Spotlight on Refugee Education and Employment. Some have spent weeks or even years in refugee camps. Many don’t speak English and have not been able to receive an education. Many refugees are also physically maimed by war or suffer post-traumatic stress. Often they receive misinformation and find steep barriers to getting the help that they need.

I’m all for a new national model, but I bet the entrenched resettlement agencies aren’t interested in any model that doesn’t involve more taxpayer funding!

Below are a few random comments from participants (there are more, so check out the article).  Come to think of it, I’m not sure this article has any suggestion from anyone actually resettling the refugees as a government contractor.

A former Iraqi immigrant and state legislator said the following sensible thing:

“We have immigrants coming here who have been thrown out of their homes. They are scared to death,” said Deddeh, who formerly taught English under an immersion program in Monterey. He called for immersion programs in English to help new refugees and asylees. “Otherwise we are dancing around the issue. Without English, they cannot get jobs…English, that is the hope, that is the dream, that is the future” for refugee families and their children, he concluded.

This proposal sounds like just more bureaucratic talking when the problem is too many refugees for too few jobs:

The most ambitious vision at the summit, which was attended by over 150 people, came from Sunny Cooke, president of Grossmont College. Noting that the assimilation period for refugees has been shortened by the federal government from two years to eight months since the Iraq War began, she called for creation of a “transformation model of how this country greets and services its refugees.” Under her plan, a coalition of community leaders would examine what other countries do around the world.

Here is the typical leftwing new model, refugees make me feel good so lets get more taxpayer money for them.  Watch out for that word ‘empower’ it always alerts us to more hits on the taxpayer:

A representative from Assemblyman Joel Anderson’s office urged refugees to write to elected officials about “wonderful effects the refugees have had on our communities” to empower politicians to obtain more funding for refugee programs.

Here is someone speaking truth to power, a welfare model is a faulty model!

A Sudanese man who said he spent four years in a refugee camp called local efforts “a faulty model. It’s a welfare model. These are new citizens. They need training—a model to create new citizens.”

Then this suggestion is in our opinion the only real hope of reform, REFUGEES MUST BE SPONSORED!

Janet Casteños said her La Mesa-Sunrise Rotary Club has adopted a refugee family. “It’s a fantastic way to understand the culture,” she said, urging other groups to do the same.

It is also a “fantastic way” for the refugee family to learn our culture (English too) and take the burden off the taxpayer and place it back where it belongs as the role of private charity!

Move along, nothing to see in welcoming Ft. Morgan, CO

I had to laugh when I saw this article (Morgan ahead of others in refugee resettlement) yesterday from Ft. Morgan, CO all about how great everything is with the booming Muslim population in that “welcoming” town.  If readers did not know that a refugee woman was murdered there a week ago today, one would think this just sounds idyllic.

In some ways, Fort Morgan is ahead of other cities that are dealing with an unexpected influx of refugees.

Recently, Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning Director of Integration Strategies Susan Downs-Karkos and English Language Training Project Director Burna Dunn came to Fort Morgan to talk with people from the school district, OneMorgan County and other agencies that are dealing with the challenges of the East African refugees who have moved to the community.

They also talked to people in Greeley and communities in Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas and Texas, on behalf of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, to find out how schools and other agencies are doing with their unplanned new residents.

All of these towns have meat or poultry packing plants, which offer relatively well-paying jobs for those with basic skills and little knowledge of English, Dunn said.

Overall, the representatives heard some promising things from Fort Morgan, Downs-Karkos said.

There are some ways in which Fort Morgan stands out compared to other communities. [other than being the only town with a murdered Somali]

Perhaps the biggest difference between Fort Morgan and the other cities is that it has Lutheran Family Services of Colorado case management services in the city, she said.

In most states, these kinds of services are only available in the big urban centers, and it is outstanding that LFS and the Colorado Refugee Services Program have been so responsive to the needs in Fort Morgan, Downs-Karkos said.

These Colorado offices have worked to put resources into communities to help both the refugees and the communities to deal with this move, she said.

As for the ’shout out’ to Lutheran Family Services of Colorado, I would like to know which came first.  Did the resettlement agency set up shop and bring the refugees to Ft. Morgan, or did they have insider knowledge that Cargill was going to be luring refugee labor and the agency followed the refugees?   Does anyone know?  We do know that Lutheran Family Services is a sponsor of the new Ethnic Community Based Organization in Greeley the East African Community of Colorado run coincidentally by some Somalis by the name of Abdi (both the murdered woman and the murder suspect share that name).

I would have so much more respect for mainstream media reporting if this article at least acknowledged that a refugee was murdered under very suspicious circumstances last week.  It wouldn’t have taken too many lines, but at least the problems should be listed along with the glossy good news.

Likewise since the same reporter wrote the story, he could have slipped in a line from his soccer team article AND  mentioned the fact that Somali teens were banned from the local library.   This is why so many people are getting their news elsewhere—-stories like this one are just too good to be true and readers know they are being spun!

More on Somali murder in Ft. Morgan: victim identified, sort of

The Ft. Morgan Times reported earlier today that the woman murdered by a fellow Somali immigrant last week is 27-year-old Warsen Aden Abdi.   When no pre-death records could be found, the only thing the Coroner’s office had to go on is the say-so of family members.  

 That is B.S.!   Unless she entered the country illegally (which is possible) someone in the US State Department, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the Department of Homeland Security AND the agency that resettled her in the US have records for her.   If they don’t know who she is, that is downright scary because we are told refugees are thoroughly screened and surely fingerprinted in advance of arriving in the US.   Let’s hope they do a better job of tracking down documents on the accused murderer.

The victim of a Nov. 3 fatal stabbing has been positively identified by the Morgan County Coroner’s Office as Warsen Aden Abdi.

Her birth date, provided by family members, was Jan. 1, 1982.

Identification was complicated by lack of pre-death records.

The coroner’s office and Fort Morgan Police Department worked together to obtain postmortem fingerprints, a dental examination and medical examination but were unable to obtain any pre-death records for comparison.

Contact with Immigration Services and Lutheran Services, the sponsoring agency of refugees from East Africa, were unable to provide records.

Identification efforts were finalized by visual examination by family members of the victim.

A suspect in the case, Ahmed Abdi of Greeley, is being held in Morgan County jail on $300,000 bond and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Dec. 16.

Was this another honor killing?  Is that why there was an early gag order on information being released about the case?

Since the last names of the victim and the murder suspect are the same, I think it’s time to raise the Muslim ‘honor killing’ question.

Ft. Morgan Update: Gag order lifted in Somali murder case

Update:  Victim identified, same last name as murder suspect, here.

This is a post to update last week’s reports, here and here, from “welcoming” Ft. Morgan, CO, about the murder of a young refugee woman by a Somali man.  Although earlier stories dance around the word ‘Somali,’ referring to the alleged murderer and victim as being from East Africa, it sure appears from their names and from her photo that they are both Somali refugees presumably resettled here by the US State Department.   Some resettlement agency knows the two well and might know if they had a history together.  Prosecutors and reporters should contact the US State Department and find out the details of when the two entered the US and who resettled them. 

This is one time I wish we published photos.  Go to the Ft. Morgan Times story from Friday and see the suspected murderer’s photo—he is likely a lighter skinned Somali because of the Arab influence in the Horn of Africa.  I am told that such interbreeding is common.   Think about all the people in the world who wish to come to America and make better lives for themselves and we selected this guy.

Here is the story:

Bond was set Thursday at $300,000 for Ahmed Abdi of Greeley, accused in the stabbing death of a woman tentatively identified as Warsan Aden of Fort Morgan.

Abdi, 25, like the victim an East African, was in Morgan County District Court with an interpreter for rights advisement in the case.

District Attorney Robert Watson said he was not yet certain what charges would be filed, but preliminary reports indicated that the charges could be second-degree murder and first- and second-degree assault.

Judge Kevin Hoyer rescinded an order regarding pretrial publicity, putting normal standards for release of information about the case into effect.

Earlier, Judge Douglas Vannoy had imposed a set of standards somewhat more rigid than normal.

The judge says that rumors would start if the gag order was not rescinded—good thinking judge!

“It is a matter of interest to the community and a matter of interest to the media representing the community,” Watson said as he and Sperandeo both asked the court to rescind the order. Watson said he would rather have accurate information put out than to have rumors circulating.

Besides the $300,000 bond, Abdi must — if he raises bail — surrender any travel documents such as a passport or visa and must remain in Colorado.

Not a good idea, however, to even give him an opportunity to be out on bail.  He will disappear into Canada or Mexico the minute he is free (it is a possibility that that is how he got here in the first place).  Reporters for the Ft. Morgan Times need to find out whether or not he came to be in the US legally by, as I said above, contacting the US State Department.

This is what we are told so far about the murder itself.

The affidavit in support of the arrest warrant for Abdi said that two people called police to an apartment building at 400 W. Kiowa Ave. at 11:36 p.m. Tuesday.

Witness Abshir Hirsi, 29, said the victim went to the door of an apartment where she and several other people were watching television and began talking to a man, then they heard a loud noise as the victim yelled. She then grabbed Hirsi, and he felt blood.

For new readers:   Ft. Morgan has been, in my opinion, too naive and politically correct about the Somalis and other refugees pouring into that meat packing town, see my post here last year.   You can “welcome” them, but the community needs to be fully informed about the downside as well as the upside of being a resettlement city.  Cargill isn’t luring them to Ft. Morgan because they care about the downtrodden or wish to give Ft. Morgan the joys of multiculturalism—they are cheap legal labor, that is all.

See also this post about how Somali men would not allow Somali women to attend a mixed-gender church luncheon in Ft. Morgan.

Also you should know that the US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

Gag order in Somali murder case in Ft. Morgan, CO

Update November 9th:  Gag order lifted, here.  Victim identified, same last name as murder suspect, here.

O.K. now things are really getting fishy.  Maybe Jerry Gordon writing at New English Review is on to something—do we have another* Muslim honor killing here?   I’ve written very critically of the Ft. Morgan Times and their editorial squishiness on the joys of multiculturalism, but notice here they are asking the judge to lift the gag order—good for them!

This is the latest on the stabbing death of a young “East African” woman (see post last evening) from the Ft. Morgan Times:

Two agencies involved in the investigation of a fatal stabbing in Fort Morgan have declined to release information on the case, citing a gag order.

After an initial news release reporting that an unidentified East African woman had been fatally stabbed Tuesday night and a suspect had been arrested in Greeley, Fort Morgan Police Chief Keith Kuretich
declined to further discuss the case Wednesday.

The stabbing occurred in a residence in the 400 block of West Kiowa Avenue, and another East African, Ahmed Abdi, 25, of Greeley was arrested on charges of second-degree murder and first- and second-degree assault, according to the initial FMPD news release.

The Morgan County Coroner’s Office declined to release the identity of the victim Wednesday afternoon.

Morgan County District Court Judge Douglas R. Vannoy issued a gag order Wednesday limiting what lawyers, legal representatives and law enforcement officials could say about the case.

The order granted a motion by public defender J. Brandeis Sperandeo to limit pretrial publicity.

The order prohibited lawyers and legal representatives from expressing opinions about character, guilt or innocence of the defendant; talking about admissions, confessions or contents of statements attributed to the defendant; making references to results of investigative procedures; and making statements about the credibility or anticipated testimony of prospective witnesses.

Law enforcement officers were prohibited under the order from discussing the existence or contents of any confession, admission or statement attributed to the defendant; discussing the possibility of the defendant entering a plea; discussing prior criminal records; discussing the performance of any examinations or tests; discussing the identity, testimony or credibility of prospective witnesses; and discussing information that an officer knows or has reason to know would be inadmissible in court.

The Times delivered a letter to the court Thursday morning requesting that the order be lifted.

I’m wondering if the murder suspect, Ahmed Abdi, is related to the Abdis who run the East African Community of Colorado Center in Greeley?

A little later:   I just remembered this post I wrote almost exactly a year ago about the church folks of Ft. Morgan getting together with their new Somali neighbors—the Somali men that is!  No Somali women could come out to the mixed-gender luncheon.

For new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

* Iraqi woman died two days ago of her injuries in Arizona honor killing, here.

Amherst, MA: Yes we will be happy to “resettle” Gitmo detainees…

…that is, assuming Congress lifts the ban on resettling (as refugees) Guantanamo Bay Muslims who were detained as enemy combatants.

Reported on MassLive.com:

AMHERST – After about 40 minutes of discussion, Town Meeting on Wednesday night approved a resolution supporting the resettlement of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the area if Congress repeals its ban allowing resettlement of detainees in this country.

Part of the resolution also urged Congress to repeal that ban.

The article, brought to Town Meeting by a petition campaign led by meeting member Ruth F. Hooke, received all kinds of national attention and nasty e-mails and calls to the Select Board, resulting in a police officer being posted at a recent Select Board meeting.

For more on this story, see my previous post here.