There is nothing earth-shattering here, but since we had previously discussed the National Association of Evangelicals on the issue of amnesty, I thought it only fitting to tell you about how leading Catholics are working toward Comprehensive Immigration Reform (called Amnesty for short).  

This is an account of a conference a few days ago at Georgetown University at which Cardinal McCarrick says the window is closed at the moment to push for Amnesty—no kidding!

From the National Catholic Reporter:

“A toxic political atmosphere” is preventing much-needed humane reform of the “broken immigration system” in the United States, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick said Nov. 3 at a forum on immigration and human dignity at Georgetown University.

Calling for “comprehensive immigration reform,’ the retired Washington archbishop said, “We have to change what is broken, lest more people will suffer. We have to be courageous and persistent and change the system.”

McCarrick was lead speaker of a three-member panel at the forum, put on by Georgetown’s Woodstock Theological Center and co-sponsored by CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.), the Migration Policy Institute and the Jesuit Conference, USA. More than 300 people attended.

In one way or another all the speakers urged new attention to immigration reform — which McCarrick bluntly said is now on a political back burner to the more currently dominant issues of the economic crisis, U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the health care reform debate.

The golden opportunity for immigration reform two years ago is gone, and those seeking comprehensive, humane reform need to watch closely for the next open window and seize it, he said.

“Our receptivity to immigrants defines who we are” as Americans, said Donald M Kerwin Jr., a Woodstock Center associate fellow and vice president for programs of the Migration Policy Institute. “What immigrants want today is what your parents and grandparents wanted” as immigrants in previous generations.

Kerwin, who for 15 years was director of CLINIC, a national program established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide legal assistance to refugees, asylum seekers and other immigrants seeking visas and legal residency in the United States, sharply disputed the use of “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” as terms defining or identifying those who enter the country without legal status.

“The rejection of ‘illegal alien’ is not a quibble. … It’s a line drawn in the sand” to say that these are human beings with rights and legitimate aspirations, whose illegal entry does not define who they are, he said.  [I think it says an awful lot about them!]

A little research into CLINIC

I don’t have time today to look too deeply into CLINIC (some interesting stuff on their website) because I am going away for a few days and have to get out of here, but I was curious who was funding this legal office.   Turns out you are—not entirely, though!  On average CLINIC gets about a half a million dollars a year from the US taxpayer to legally defend immigrants including refugees, and apparently to lobby.    The money passes through a Washington, DC office run by Kerwin for 15 years.

If you are interested check out their latest Form 990 here.   And, also go to that wonderful new source of information USA Spending.gov for information on their federal grants.

By the way, as regular readers know the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, one of the top ten federal refugee contractors,  is one of the largest recipients of federal grant dollars.  I wonder do they ever consider that if millions of illegal aliens are legalized overnight that they will compound even further the poor job prospects for legal refugees.

And, why are we giving millions and millions of tax dollars to rich churches and their political activities?

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.

Doesn’t this give you confidence in our immigration system? The Associated Press reports Officials: LA doctor faked immigrant medical exams: 

A Los Angeles doctor has been arrested for allegedly falsifying the results of medical exams for immigrants applying for visas.

Officials say 72-year-old Levon Tebelekian is charged with fraud and making false statements after a joint investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the California Medical Board.

ICE’s Miguel Unzueta says immigrants applying for permanent residency must undergo a medical exam to ensure they don’t have any medical conditions or diseases that could threaten public health.

Investigators say immigrants paid Tebelekian up to $150 to complete the medical examination form, but never saw the doctor.

If convicted, the physician faces up to 80 years in prison.

The local NBC station adds this charming anecdote:

In one case, he allegedly told an undercover ICE agent that he was not going to “disturb his blood” and that he “did not look like he had AIDS,” according to an affidavit.

But why should the doctor be prosecuted? Obama is lifting the ban on immigrants and travelers with HIV/AIDS anyway, as Ann reported last week.

From the Associated Press:

LONDON — Britain is using genetic tests on some African asylum seekers in an effort to catch those who are lying about their nationality, drawing criticism from scientists and provoking outrage from rights groups.

The United Kingdom Border Agency launched the pilot project in September amid suspicions there might be a large number of asylum applicants lying about their home countries. An agency spokesman said Britain was the only country using genetic tests in this way.

Experts, however, say the tests are based on flawed science and there’s no way genetic swabs can provide meaningful evidence regarding nationality.

[....]

The government argues such tests can provide valuable – although not conclusive – evidence in assessing whether or not asylum seekers are telling the truth about their country of origin.

So far, the tests are being used only on people who claim to be from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, though if successful, officials say the plan could be rolled out further.

Of course they want to find out if the African is from a country where they might be persecuted and in danger or not. 

Last year, nearly 26,000 people applied in Britain; of the more than 19,000 cases where decisions were made, 3,725, or 19 percent, were granted asylum. People from more repressive or chaotic countries, like Sudan or Somalia, often have a better chance of gaining asylum than those from more stable countries like Kenya.

Definitely read the whole story.  It also tells us that there is other testing that may be done and how the tests can be used to track terrorists.

Besides genetic tests, British officials are also performing isotope analysis of asylum seekers’ hair and nail samples. Scientists can look at the composition of certain elements like oxygen or strontium in hair and nails to see where a person has been.

How is this for a brilliant move?  NOT!

In a landmark decision, the European Court of Human Rights recently ordered Britain to destroy nearly 1 million DNA samples and fingerprints on its database – samples taken from children, people who had never been charged or people acquitted of crimes.

This is the most interesting section of the AP story.  Our very own Secretary of Homeland Security hasn’t given any of this any thought!   Doesn’t she know that the State Department suspended all family reunification  from Africa after discovering widespread fraud through DNA testing more than a year ago and that they are in the process of revising the whole program?  Most of us are expecting that DNA testing WILL BE EMPLOYED for at least family reunfication when the so-called P-3 program is reopened.  Napolitano acts like she doesn’t know about all this!

Concerned about potential fraud, the Bush administration launched a pilot DNA testing project in 2007 to vet applicants to a program that allows family members of African refugees already in the United States to join them.

The project, which wrapped up in March 2008, found an extremely high rate of fraud – 87 percent – among applicants claiming to be related to each other, the State Department said, and the resettlement program was suspended until those concerns could be addressed. The U.S. does not use genetic tests to try to prove nationality.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in London on Thursday that the U.S. has other ways of probing a person’s country of origin, such as testing language skills.

“I haven’t thought about it,” she said of the British attempt to match DNA to nationality. “We have a variety of ways we can use when we think someone is not telling the truth.”

Oh, and what might those be?

I can’t resist saying, I told you so.   Here we have a case from Pennsylvania where recently resettled Burmese refugees have walked off the job with other American workers claiming wage discrimination and unsafe working conditions. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not disputing their claim, I suspect they do have miserable jobs and miserable living conditions, but who placed them in that situation—some do-gooder far left refugee resettlement agency/employment service in conjunction with the Obama State Department—NOT some evil conservative right-winger!

The article doesn’t tell us who resettled them, but like so many articles of this sort, the reader is left to assume they magically came to be in the vicinity of Pittsburgh on their own!      Here is a list of resettlement agencies in Pennsylvania, one of them brought the Burmese to this place of employment.

This is the story from the AFL-CIO News (what else!):

Aung Oo fled his native Burma with his family to escape the brutality, ethnic violence and repression of that country’s military dictatorship.

After being allowed to legally migrate to the United States under the refugee resettlement program, he faces another kind of oppression―working for an employer that pays him half what he should make and that forces him and his co-workers, both native and foreign, to work in unsafe conditions.

So on Sept. 8, Aung Oo and a U.S.-born employee, Tim Hand, went on strike against W&K Steel on behalf of all the other 35 workers in the plant, located in Rankin, Pa., just outside Pittsburgh. They are still on strike.

[...]

Several W&K workers described their experiences to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and spoke to a group of international labor leaders at the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh. The workers also will testify Nov. 13 at a National Workers’ Rights Hearing sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). The hearing will be at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Talking with Trumka, one refugee told how he and his family of five live in a small two-bedroom apartment supplied by the company. He works an average of 50 hours a week and grosses approximately $25,000 annually, with overtime. Other workers say they are expected to run large presses and shears that cut steel beams, but have no guards to protect against severing fingers and hands.

The American-born workers at W&K don’t fare much better. They say they must endure unsafe working conditions, with workloads increasing and time to safely perform the tasks decreasing. They also say the company’s health plan is unaffordable and the pay is low.

Hand said he is on strike because the way workers, native and foreign, are treated is dangerous.

“… only to find themselves working in unjust conditions here!”   Who lined up the job for them?  Some refugee resettlement agency with the State Department’s help did!  And, they won’t be forced back to Burma—-it is maddening to see this type of distortion.  We don’t send refugees back when they don’t have jobs!  Heck, we hardly send them back if they have committed major crimes.

The Burmese refugees came to the United States to escape oppression, only to find themselves working in unjust conditions here, says Chad Rankin, an organizer with the Ironworkers and a member of the Three Rivers Coalition for Justice, which is assisting the workers.

“The refugees feared challenging the unsafe working environment, shoddy housing and substandard wages because they are afraid they will lose their jobs and be forced back to Burma,” Rankin says.

We are exploited!

Aung Oo says he is on strike because America is supposed to be a land of opportunity and equality.

I stood up and went on strike not only for myself but for all the refugee workers in the shop because our community is suffering. I know that we are exploited.

This is a strategy!  It has Alinsky (Rules for Radicals) written all over it!

I know for most of you its hard to comprehend, but I swear this is a strategy!   Far Left Wing progressives (or whatever you want to call them), bring in poor refugees and place them in horrible working conditions, then in a kind of ‘double-teaming’ the Far Left unions  (like the AFL-CIO and SEIU) ‘organize’ them, sign them up as members, and complain that evil capitalists are exploiting them!

Note to AFL-CIO:  In that upcoming hearing I hope you are honest and identify how these Burmese ‘came to be’ in that place of employment in the first place!  Name the resettlement agency!

…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.

Update November 5th:  The plot thickens, judge issues gag order in the case, here.

Update:   You can find a few more details in the Greeley Tribune, here. Hat tip: Jerry Gordon

Fort Morgan, CO is a city that has been welcoming Somali and other African refugees ever since the meatpacking riots erupted in Greeley, CO more than a year ago.   Today comes news that a twenty-year-old  recently arrived refugee has been murdered by a Somali man outside her apartment.  Here is the whole short story in the Denver Post.  I will see if I can find more.

A man was arrested in Greeley early this morning just hours after a recent arrival to Fort Morgan was stabbed to death in front of her apartment house.

The woman, in her early 20s, is one of approximately 600 African refugees including Kenyans, Somalis and Nigerians living in the northeastern Colorado community, said Fort Morgan Police Chief Keith Kuretich.

It is the first homicide in Fort Morgan since Oct. 28, 2006.

Kuretich said police responded to the apartment complex in the 400 block of West Kiowa Avenue after receiving a 911 call reporting the stabbing.

The call was made by other tenants in the building.

Officers were quickly able to determine that a man had been seen with the victim in recent days and was the likely suspect, according to the chief.

After obtaining the man’s name and learning he was in Greeley, Fort Morgan Police contacted the Greeley Police Department, said the chief.

In the meantime, relatives of the victim had contacted the suspect and told him police were looking or him. At that point, the suspect, identified as Ahmed Abdi, 25, called the Greeley police and said he would turn himself in.

Abdi was arrested in Greeley and returned to Fort Morgan where he is being held for investigation of second-degree murder and first and second-degree assault.

Kuretich said authorities are trying to determine the exact relationship between the victim and Abdi. The victim’s name has not been released.

I’ve written many many posts on Ft. Morgan, but I commend this post to you now. It’s a post about a Ft. Morgan Times editorial a year ago that took a shot at RRW and I called the editorial naive and deceptive.   Use our search function for all the other posts on “welcoming” Ft. Morgan.

Endnote:  I know Abdi is a common Somali name, but I wonder if the suspect is related to Asad Abdi one of the Somali “community organizers” in Greeley, here.

When I wrote about funds (lots of federal funds) going to Catholic Charities in Kentucky and Tennessee yesterday and today, I was reminded* of the Code of Federal Regulations that govern the Refugee Resettlement Program.  Readers wishing to try to understand this program better might want to look over the regulations here. 

I won’t pretend to understand them entirely myself, but I recall that State coordinators are required to submit a plan each fiscal year to the Office of Refugee Resettlement that has been approved by the Governor.

This is from 45 CFR Section 400.4:

(b) A State must certify no later than 30 days after the beginning of each Federal fiscal year that the approved State plan is current and continues in effect. If a State wishes to change its plan, a State must submit a proposed amendment to the plan. The proposed amendment will be reviewed and approved or disapproved in accordance with §400.8.

Regarding that line I have in bold, we are now at 30 days after the beginning of the fiscal year which began October 1, 2009 (FY2010).

From Section 400.5,  this is what the plan must include:

The plan must:

(a) Provide for the designation of, and describe the organization and functions of, a State agency (or agencies) responsible for developing the plan and administering, or supervising the administration of, the plan;

(b) Describe how the State will coordinate cash and medical assistance with support services to ensure their successful use to encourage effective refugee resettlement and to promote employment and economic self-sufficiency as quickly as possible.

(c) Describe how the State will ensure that language training and employment services are made available to refugees receiving cash assistance, and to other refugees, including State efforts to actively encourage refugee registration for employment services;

(d) Identify an individual designated by the Governor or the appropriate legislative authority of the State, with the title of State Coordinator, who is employed by the State and will have the responsibility and authority to ensure coordination of public and private resources in refugee resettlement in the State;

(e) Provide for, and describe the procedures established for, the care and supervision of, and legal responsibility (including legal custody and/or guardianship under State law, as appropriate) for, unaccompanied refugee children in the State;

(f) Provide for and describe (1) the procedures established to identify refugees who, at the time of resettlement in the State, are determined to have medical conditions requiring, or medical histories indicating a need for, treatment or observation, and (2) the procedures established to monitor any necessary treatment or observation;

(g) Provide that assistance and services funded under the plan will be provided to refugees without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, or political opinion; and

(h) Provide that the State will, unless exempted from this requirement by the Director, assure that meetings are convened, not less often than quarterly, whereby representatives of local resettlement agencies, local community service agencies, and other agencies that serve refugees meet with representatives of State and local governments to plan and coordinate the appropriate placement of refugees in advance of the refugees’ arrival. All existing exemptions to this requirement will expire 90 days after the effective date of this rule. Any State that wishes to be exempted from the provisions regarding the holding and frequency of meetings may apply by submitting a written request to the Director. The request must set forth the reasons why the State considers these meetings unnecessary because of the absence of problems associated with the planning and coordination of refugee placement. An approved exemption will remain in effect for three years, at which time a State may reapply.

(i) Provide that the State will:

(1) Comply with the provisionsof title IV, Chapter 2, of the Act and official issuances of the Director;

(2) Meet the requirements in this part;

(3) Comply with all other applicable Federal statutes and regulations in effect during the time that it is receiving grant funding; and

(4) Amend the plan as needed to comply with standards, goals, and priorities established by the Director.

(Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under control number 0960–0418)

[51 FR 3912, Jan. 30, 1986, as amended at 60 FR 33602, June 28, 1995; 65 FR 15443, Mar. 22, 2000]

ACTION NEEDED

Beginning today, I am going to write to each of the State Coordinators listed here and ask for the state’s most recent plan.   I recommend readers who are concerned with the refugee program in your state do so also.   Note in the regulations above, state coordinators are required to be employees of the State.

* I first wrote about these regulations last February when I was addressing the issue of states being able to opt out of the program.   So far, only the State of Wyoming has done so.

USA Spending.gov sure is an entertaining government website for anyone interested in watching the flow of your tax dollars.

Yesterday, after I wrote about Kentucky’s Catholic Charities stash of cash, I noticed that one of Tennessee’s Catholic Charities had also brought in a large pile of federal dough in 2009 for refugee programs.  Yet,  Tennessee is way down the list of states when ranked by the number of refugees they resettle.

More interesting is to note what a huge jump in funds this particular Catholic Charities office received compared to previous years.  What did they do to deserve that?  Would someone in-the-know please write to us to explain (I feel like Glenn Beck must feel with his red phone line to the White House!).

For FY2009 Catholic Charities of TN, Inc raked in $8,539,705 of your federal tax dollars for refugee programs!   We will be eager to see how many refugees were resettled in Tennessee in 2009 to warrant that big hike.

In 2008, they received $1,880,242  (847 refugees resettled*)  To clarify, we don’t even know if Catholic Charities resettled the entire 847 refugees themselves.

In 2007, they received $194,392  (961 refugees resettled)

In 2006, there is no report    (724 refugees resettled)

* You can see here where I get the refugee numbers, check this out for your state too!

Go to this list of State Coordinators and note that Holly Johnson, employed at this Catholic Charities office, is also the Tennessee State coordinator for the refugee program, isn’t that interesting?   In many (most, I think) states there is a separate state office overseeing the program.

The Arizona Republic misleadingly headlines the story Woman in Peoria hit-and-run incident dies from injuries. Ann has been following this story here and here. The current Arizona Republic article begins:

A 20-year-old Valley woman has died of injuries sustained in what prosecutors are calling an “honor killing.”

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, of Glendale, is accused of running over his daughter, Noor Almaleki, and another woman in his Jeep Cherokee because he was infuriated with his daughter for becoming “too Westernized.”

Noor Almaleki died Monday of injuries she received during the Oct. 20 attack.

The charges against the father will be upgraded. I wonder if they have the death penalty in Arizona. But maybe he wouldn’t get the maximum penalty. The article explains:

Social experts say honor killings are an accepted practice in Iraqi tribal society, where family members feel they must kill a woman who shames them by not adhering to traditional Muslim or Iraqi values.

Oh well, then, it’s just their culture. And we are multi-cultural.  We wouldn’t want to offend Muslims by putting “honor killing” in the headline, would we?  Or punishing the perpetrator too harshly just for following his cultural rules.

Mark Steyn has a biting commentary at the Corner, including this:

If there were a Matthew Shepard murder every few months, Frank Rich et al would be going bananas about the “climate of hate” in our society, but you can run over your daughter, decapitate your wife, drown three teenage girls and a polygamous spouse, and progressive opinion and the press couldn’t give a hoot. Indeed, as The Atlantic notes, it’s merely an obsession of us right-wing kooks.