Maine: Asylum seekers being lured to Lewiston, Mayor says STOP!

Maine: Asylum seekers being lured to Lewiston, Mayor says STOP!

Posted by Ann Corcoran on February 12, 2014

More problems for Lewiston, Maine which became the Somali capital of New England more than ten years ago now (see Somali Migration to Maine: It’s the welfare magnet!)
Now we see that the asylum racket has Maine by the short hairs as one of the few states that gives welfare benefits to “asylum seekers.” Most asylum seekers are illegal aliens or people who came to the US on a visa of some sort (tourist visa, student visa etc.) and claim that if they go home to their country they will be persecuted. The federal government only provides welfare to those who successfully are granted asylum (they become ‘refugees’ with all of the taxpayer supported benefits). We learned just a few days ago that 70% or more of successful asylum seekers may be frauds.

http://www.wmtw.com/image/view/-/228...ston-mayor.jpg Mayor Robert MacDonald: “All these people are is they’re tourists.” We can’t afford them all!

Maine’s governor is attempting to take away the carrots, here, but immigrants are protesting.
In the meantime, Africans headed to Maine!

From WGME.com (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’) Emphasis below is mine:

LEWISTON (WGME) — They’re called asylum seekers; people who entered the country on a visa, then declared they can’t go home. In Maine, asylum seekers are eligible for General Assistance funds. But Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald says they are gobbling up too much of his city’s budget. And he wants a local pastor to stop helping asylum seekers relocate to Lewiston.
Mayor Macdonald says “We can’t support them like that. We don’t have that kind of money.” Mayor Macdonald says asylum seekers are costing the city too much money. He’s asked Rev. Jean-Pierre Tshamala, a former refugee of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to stop encouraging asylum seekers to move here. He says it’s “really putting a financial strain on this community.”
Maine is one of the few states that help asylum seekers, by making them eligible for General Assistance. In the past six months alone, The City of Lewiston has helped more than 100 asylum seekers with expenses like food, rent, utilities and prescription medicines. The state does partly reimburse Maine cities and towns for the General Assistance funds they provide.
The federal government provides financial assistance to refugees who got approval in advance to enter the U.S. Asylum seekers are people who enter the U.S. with a visa, then say they’re unable to go home. So the feds give them nothing. Macdonald says “All these people are is they’re tourists. They’re tourists that have overstayed their welcome, I mean, overstayed their visa.”
Mayor Macdonald says Rev. Tshamala talked about bringing 60 asylum seeking families, now living in Portland hotels, to Lewiston. The mayor says if that happens, he’ll be forced to either cut services or raise property taxes. Mayor Macdonald says “We can’t do this to people. And I’ve told him, I’ve told the reverend this.”
Interesting that it’s a Congolese ‘refugee’ in Wyoming attempting to open that state to refugee resettlement. And, just a reminder, last spring the State Department announced it will admit 50,000 Congolese to the US during the next couple of years.
We have an extensive archive on poor Lewiston, here.

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...yor-says-stop/

Somali fraudsters exposed in Lewiston, ME and Columbus, Ohio

Posted by Ann Corcoran on February 1, 2014

The Lewiston fraud is your run-of-the-mill welfare fraud (with a little alleged forgery and some lying thrown in!) which we are becoming familiar with in the cities, like Columbus and Lewiston, that have “welcomed” diversity. The Columbus story adds an interesting and new piece of information about the creative ways refugees are defrauding Uncle Sam.
From the Lewiston Sun Journal (by the way, when I type ‘Lewiston fraud’ into our search bar this is what I get—lots of previous posts):
AUBURN — A Lewiston couple denied in court Thursday charges that they schemed to defraud the government out of welfare benefits over the past nine years.
Amina H. Ege, 42, of 105 Shawmut St., was indicted by an Androscoggin County grand jury on two counts of theft by deception, four counts of aggravated forgery and 12 counts of unsworn falsification. Six of the charges are felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The remaining charges are misdemeanors.
Abdi A. Hassan, 43, of the same address, was indicted on two counts of theft by deception, seven counts of aggravated forgery, one count of negotiating a worthless instrument and five counts of unsworn falsification. Nine of the charges are felonies, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and one of the counts is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. The rest of the charges are misdemeanors.
According to court documents, the two are accused of lying about the fact that they were living together while Hassan was providing Ege with financial support. She was accused of failing to disclose that she had received a workers’ compensation settlement.
Because of those omissions, according to the indictment, Ege received more than $10,000 worth of benefits from programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Section 8 housing, among others.
Read it all.
Who knew that the federal ‘No Child Left Behind’ program was paying Somalis to educate kids!

http://crc.columbus.gov/uploadedImag...ah%20Farah.JPGMussa Farah is a spokesman for the central Ohio Somali community and on Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s Community Relations Commission.

From the Columbus Dispatch (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):
Columbus City Schools are stepping up oversight of independent tutors paid for by the federal No Child Left Behind program, terminating eight contracts this school year.
The problems have ranged from students’ signatures being falsified to employees who weren’t paid, according to district documents.
Last week, the district sent a letter to Horn of Africa, a tutoring program in Linden, stating that it was rescinding its contract based on evidence that employees “falsified dates, times of attendance and student signatures on attendance forms.”
The district conducted an inspection in January of Horn of Africa and said it had found students on computers not receiving instruction, including some playing online games, according to a district report.
“No instruction taking place,” the district representative commented on the form.
Mussa Farah, who owns the service that was paid almost $83,000 in federal money during the 2009-10 school year, said an illness in his family distracted him from running the center, which he voluntarily closed after being notified recently of the problems.
Farah said that the claim that a student’s signature had been falsified came because a student who had signed in left tutoring early because of an illness.
“I never did anything wrong,” said Farah, who is a spokesman for the central Ohio Somali community and on Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s Community Relations Commission. “The decision to stop came from me. I had to fire the teachers and everyone who was there.”
Farah still operates a tutoring center for South-Western City Schools that runs on federal money.
[....]
Under federal law, parents of students whose schools are low-performing can choose to get tutoring from any provider who signs up with the state. Columbus schools paid more than $3.7 million last school year to 53 providers, Braverman said.
There is much more, read it all!
I’ll bet they had been laughing all the way to the bank about us dumb infidels!
If you are on facebook, don’t forget to ‘like’ Diversity’s Dark Side a new page to highlight stories like this one about legal and illegal immigrants bringing crime and cultural tensions to “welcoming” America.

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...columbus-ohio/

Maine: Rule change could reduce welfare for some immigrants

Posted by Ann Corcoran on December 27, 2013

Update December 29th: Be sure to see Daniel Greenfield’s article on Somalis and welfare in Maine at Frontpage magazine.
In 2009 we wrote a post which has become one of our most-visited posts at RRW (Tenth most visited with 9,088 views). It is entitled, ‘Somali Migration to Maine: it’s the welfare magnet, stupid.’ I’ve wondered since then what Maine was doing with its giveaways that made it so attractive. This article in ‘The Portland Daily Sun’ gives us some hint.
https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/...73220678_n.jpgThe Maine Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a rule change to bring Maine’s welfare program in line with federal guidelines that require 5 years of residency before a legal immigrant (non-citizen) can access the program and of course a legal outfit is challenging the proposed rule. (Refugees get welfare right away, see our ‘fact sheet’ for more on how that works).
The Portland Daily Sun (emphasis mine):
A legal advocacy group has warned city and state officials that a proposed rule change at the Department of Health and Human Services could cut off benefits to members of Maine’s immigrant population.
Robin Merrill, a senior policy analyst with Maine Equal Justice Partners, met with members of the Portland City Council and the legislative delegation on Monday and talked about a proposed rule change that could cause some members of the immigrant community to lose general assistance.
“This would be devastating for Portland and for Lewiston,” Merrill said.
The rule being proposed by DHHS would block anyone from receiving general assistance if they do not qualify for federal assistance, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Maine Food Supplement program, because of citizenship status.
The rule change was proposed to align Maine’s public assistance programs with federal ones, according to DHHS, and the federal government does not provide coverage for legal non-citizens until five years after their arrival. The state will no longer fund general assistance for that population, DHHS said, though municipalities may still use their portion to assist them. [Newly resettled refugees get all the available federal government programs right away---ed]
DHHS will hold a public hearing on the rule change on Jan. 10 at its Augusta office, and written public comment will be accepted until Jan. 24.
Here is the website for the Maine DHHS. I did a quick search and didn’t find a reference to this meeting, but if you are a Mainer, and wish to comment, call them!
Related story: Earlier this month Gov. Paul LePage charged that there is extensive welfare fraud going on in Maine, and here a women’s group criticizes the governor for saying such a dreadful thing about poor innocent people in Maine. Just for fun I typed the words ‘Maine fraud’ into our search function and up popped pages of posts with Maine fraud stories—food stamp, medicaid, housing, etc.

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...me-immigrants/

Maine: Somalis/others protest welfare rule change proposal

Posted by Ann Corcoran on January 11, 2014

Update January 13th: More here by Daniel Greenfield at Frontpage mag.
Leftist community organizers bused them in to the state capital from Portland and Lewiston, the twin hubs of the Somali/immigrant centers in Maine.

[IMG]http://media.pressherald.com/images/300*431/20140111_360830.xml-20140110_ga_2+A.jpg[/IMG]

Somali community organizer Fatuma Hussein: “We are the future of Maine. We are the face of Maine.”
Photo Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

The Portland Press Herald story begins with an immigrant success story, a man who made it in Maine having come from a non-Muslim country. Of course to persuade you how much refugees contribute they aren’t going to tell you about the asylum-seeking/welfare mooching Tsarnaev family nor Esar Met in Utah (the horror I will get back to shortly).
Here is the Portland Press Herald where the words ‘asylum seekers’ feature prominently in the title to gain your sympathy (hat tip: pungentpeppers). Emphasis is mine:
On Friday, he [the star of their story] was among more than 100 people who turned out to oppose a proposed rule change that would prohibit hundreds of asylum seekers and some other immigrants from receiving General Assistance while waiting for their work permits.
“This is what the program was designed for – to help people with similar situations become self-sufficient,” he said.
Immigrants, attorneys, faith leaders and advocates for the poor urged the Department of Health and Human Services to withdraw the proposal, saying it is illegal, mean-spirited and morally wrong. They argued that it would cut off a life line for many people who arrive in Maine and apply for asylum – a process that can take years.
The rule change is being proposed by Gov. Paul LePage’s administration. The governor has made welfare reform a priority in his three years in office, and a major theme of his re-election campaign. [Gee, maybe Gov. Christie could try something bold like this!---ed]
Asylum-seekers do not get on federal welfare until they have been granted asylum. Remember that! It was mentioned in our gay Russian post recently. Refugees resettled by the US State Department and their federal contractors get taxpayer goodies immediately (see our fact sheet).
The change would align Maine’s program with federal aid programs, which don’t provide benefits to immigrants until they have been in the country for five years, said DHHS spokesman John Martins. General Assistance is funded entirely by the state and local governments, and is based now only on financial need, not citizenship status. Cities or towns that want to provide the aid could continue to do so, without state money, Martins said.
Advocates estimate that as many as 1,000 immigrants who are seeking asylum in Maine would lose access to General Assistance. [Maine has that many in the court system seeking asylum? I don't believe it.---ed]
Opponents of the rule change were bused from Portland and Lewiston, cities with significant immigrant populations, for a hearing Friday before DHHS officials in Augusta.
[.....]
The change would affect primarily new immigrants who are not yet citizens and are not refugees resettled here by the federal government. [Catholic Charities is the primary federal resettlement contractor in Maine---ed]
The taxpayers of Maine are paying a lot of money to support all these immigrants on welfare:
In fiscal year 2012, Maine communities provided a total of $17.5 million in General Assistance, $13.2 million of which came from the state budget, according to the DHHS. Portland provided $9.6 million in General Assistance to 4,376 individuals and families in the last fiscal year, with 90 percent of that money spent on food and shelter, according to the city.
Of the total spent, $2.4 million came from property taxpayers and $7.2 million came from the state [taxpayers!--ed].
Now get this! Somali community leader says they are the future of Maine [and you better take care of us!---ed].
“This proposed rule will result in increased homelessness and hunger for immigrant women and their children,” said Fatuma Hussein, the director of Somali Women of Maine. “We are the future of Maine. We are the face of Maine. The face of Maine is changing.”
Here is our previous post on Governor LePage’s initiative. Go here for all of our extensive coverage on Lewiston, and here on our coverage of Maine (lots of crimes and welfare fraud stories). One of our top posts of all time at RRW is this one: Somali migration to Maine: it’s the welfare magnet, stupid!

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...ange-proposal/

More diversity is beautiful in Lewiston, ME

Posted by Ann Corcoran on December 21, 2013

http://www.sunjournal.com/files/imag...racP123013.jpg

Sudanese refugee Deng Mirac attempted to kill his wife with a kitchen knife, and remains behind bars until trial. Photo Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Here is another gift to Maine, most likely thanks to Catholic Charities which is still, I believe, the top resettlement contractor in that state (they say on their website that they are the only federal contractor in Maine).
From the Lewiston/Auburn Sun-Journal:

AUBURN — A judge sided with prosecutors Thursday in an attempted murder case, saying DNA evidence collected from the defendant shortly after his arrest was legal even though police hadn’t executed a search warrant.
Sudanese refugee Deng Mirac, 42, of 158 Blake St. in Lewiston was in Androscoggin County Superior Court for a hearing on his motion to suppress evidence. He was assisted by an interpreter.
He is accused of stabbing his estranged wife, Adut Adong, 34, in the face and abdomen with a kitchen knife in the driveway of her Blake Street apartment in Lewiston in April.
Mirac’s attorney, Nicholas Worden, argued that police should have secured a search warrant before collecting samples of a reddish-brown substance that appeared to be blood on Mirac’s hands and the black leather jacket he was wearing. He said there was no risk of his client destroying or hiding evidence because he was in police custody in an interview room at the police station in Lewiston with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Worden said those circumstances gave police enough time to seek a warrant before taking swabs of DNA from Mirac’s hands and jacket. His Fourth Amendment rights were violated, Worden said.
Justice MaryGay Kennedy disagreed with Worden and denied his motion.
For our many many posts on “welcoming” Lewiston, click here. One of our most popular posts of all time is this 2009 post about Catholic Charities and Maine as the welfare magnet.

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...n-lewiston-me/

Lewiston: First Somali elected to school committee as write-in candidate

Posted by Ann Corcoran on November 23, 2013

http://www.sunjournal.com/files/imag.../21/jama_0.jpg
Jama Mohamed waits for the recount Thursday in Lewiston.

Here is the news from the Lewiston Sun-Journal via Hiiraan online:
LEWISTON — A School Committee write-in candidate picked up 10 votes in a ballot recount Thursday, making him the city’s first African immigrant to be elected to public office.
Jama Mohamed will represent Ward 5, which comprises the downtown.
[.....]
Serving on the School Committee “is a lot of responsibility,” he said. Being the first African immigrant is like a door opening for him and others who come from different countries, he said. He hopes more will follow his lead.
[.....]
Mohamed, 29, is a native of Somalia. He came to the United States in 2004 and to Lewiston in 2008. He works as a case manager and interpreter at Trinity Jubilee Center in Lewiston. He is co-founder and communications director of the Somali Bantu Youth Association of Maine, an organization that mentors students.
A father of six, he told the Sun Journal last month he was running for office because “it is my duty to serve.”
Wow! most of 1,204 ELL students are Somali!
Lewiston has 5,239 students, 23 percent of whom are English language learners; most of the ELL students are children of Somali refugees. With so many Lewiston students being Somali, “we need representation from the Somali community on the School Committee,” Lysen said.
For background on how so many Somalis “found their way” to Lewiston, read our 2009 post about Maine the welfare magnet. Our complete archive on Lewiston is here.


http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...-in-candidate/

This is how it all started and CAIR, Muslim Brotherhood, was more than involved.

Somali Migration to Maine: it’s the welfare magnet, stupid

Posted by Ann Corcoran on November 22, 2009

Yesterday I brought to readers’ attention that now that the Somali population in Lewiston, ME is large and well-established, the demands for accomodation of Muslim religious practices has begun, see CAIR threatens, here. Among those who study Islamic supremacism around the world, this is known as the Stealth Jihad (see our entire category here)—changing a country from within to bring about Islamic dominance.

In my post I attributed a role to Catholic Charities in bringing the first Somalis to Maine, and after a little research I found that assertion was accurate. However, the majority of the thousands of Somalis now continuing to upset Lewiston are secondary migrants resettled by Catholic Charities and other federally contracted agencies in Georgia. Here is the best summary I’ve found so far about how Lewiston got to the point it’s at now with CAIR breathing down the necks of school adminstrators. I’ve only taken a bit of this very long and thorough 2002 article, so please read the whole thing.

LEWISTON — Every week, another four or five Somali families arrive in this workaday city on the Androscoggin River.

They are refugees from the clan-wracked ruins of their homeland on the Horn of Africa, from years of waiting in camps in Kenya. And they are migrants from their place of first resettlement in America, more often than not trekking 1,000 miles from the heat and multihued humanity of metropolitan Atlanta to this sparse, wintry, whitest of all states.

They are nomads, their ancient instincts honed to a 21st century edge. Pioneers in a new world, they discovered Lewiston and claimed a bit of it for themselves.

“It’s like finding a small island in the middle of the Pacific,” says Mohammed Abdi, who last year moved here from Decatur, Ga., and was quickly hired as the liaison between the city’s schools and the burgeoning Somali community.

“We put it on the map.”

They were originally resettled with American blacks and that wasn’t going so well, an issue we have discussed at RRW on previous occasions.

In their exodus, they say they are looking for peace and quiet, cheaper housing, a more benevolent welfare system, better schools and a place to raise their children — families of seven or more are common —with fewer perils and temptations. That they are leaving a metro area renowned as an African-American mecca to resettle in Maine, home to fewer than 7,000 blacks in 2000, is less a matter of irony than intent, given the prickly state of their relations with African-Americans and a desire to protect their children from assimilating too quickly.

Scouts sent out! But, I will bet you anything they had some hints from their friends at Catholic Charities which was already resettling Somalis in Portland, ME.
Fed up with life in Atlanta —he was robbed twice — Abdiaziz Ali said members of the Somali community there researched other places on the Internet, comparing crime rates, the cost of housing, test scores. Then they sent scouts to a handful of cities — Kansas City, Mo., Nashville, Tenn., San Diego, Houston and El Paso in Texas, and Portland and Lewiston in Maine.

Maine was preferred, and Portland was full.

It is cold but the welfare is oh so good! Note when you read the article that some of the men stayed back in Georgia to continue to work while the wives and kids went to Maine for the welfare.

Indeed, in moving from Georgia to Maine, Somalis are trading one of the nation’s least generous welfare systems for one of its most generous.

Lewiston provides general assistance to anyone in need, splitting the cost with the state. Such relief was unavailable in Clarkston. In Georgia, there is a four-year time limit for receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. In Maine it’s five, but even that can be extended. About a quarter of Lewiston’s Somali families receive that form of welfare, according to the state. And in Maine, a state-funded program assists single parents while they attend college.

There is a waiting list for public housing in Lewiston, but not nearly as long as back in Georgia. About a third of the more than 90 apartments at Hillview, Lewiston’s largest public housing project, have Somali tenants, and about 35 more Somali families have received Section 8 vouchers, which subsidize the rent on private apartments.
[...]
Fulfilling that expectation [that people work] is complicated because so many of the Somali families are single mothers and children, the fathers dead, missing, still in Africa or still in Atlanta.

“The men don’t like it here — it’s too cold or too quiet or too behind,” says Fatuma Hussein, whose own husband still drives a taxi in Atlanta, making frequent visits to her and their three young children.

The role of Catholic Charities

There were no Somalis in Lewiston prior to the colonization that began after 9/11. Note in the article that Somalis are quoted as saying Portland was “full.” That would be full of primarily Somalis and Sudanese resettled in Maine by Catholic Charities, the only refugee resettlement contractor in the state for 30 years. That makes it easy for us to check the numbers Catholic Charities brought. Not nearly the tens of thousands resettled in other states, but from 1983-2005, Catholic Charities resettled 498 Somalis and 607 Sudanese (I mention the Sudanese because we have heard lots about problems with the “Sudanese community” of Portland recently). You will see later that the number 498 is inaccurate because in just 3 individual years during that time period, reported in annual reports to Congress, below, the number exceeds 498.
To this day, Catholic Charities is resettling new Somalis in Maine. The stats aren’t out for 2009 but in 2007 the number of Somalis resettled was 118 and in 2008 it was 60 (that drop may be because of the discovery by the State Department of the fraud in the family reunification program).

I don’t believe the Somali scouts found Lewiston all on their own—-I think there is a really good chance that earlier resettled Maine Somalis and Catholic Charities (CC) in Atlanta tipped-off the scouts to the lucrative welfare in Lewiston. So, I checked the Office of Refugee Resettlement annual reports to Congress for the years 1997, 1998, and 1999 to see how many Somalis CC had brought to Maine in the years preceding the migration. Sure enough, in 1997, CC resettled 228 Somalis to Maine, in 1998 the number was 168 and in 1999, 277. What are the chances that a few of those Somalis were “related” to Atlanta Somalis and told them to ‘come on up, the public assistance is great!’

Piven must be so proud!

Note to readers in Maine: I have many more discoveries I want to share with you in another post, things that need further research, but this is getting too long!

To all readers: If you want to learn more about the Lewiston multicultural experiment, search RRW for ‘Lewiston,’ we have written a lot on the topic.

For new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the USin the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing. That specific program has not yet been reopened, but will be soon. Nevertheless, thousands of Somalis continue to be resettled as I write this.


http://refugeeresettlementwatch.word...magnet-stupid/

CAIR threatens Lewiston, Maine School District

Posted by Ann Corcoran on November 21, 2009
November 28th: Watch a TV report on the controversy, here.

November 22nd: For more background on the Somali migration to Lewiston and the role of Catholic Charities, go here.

Here we go! Lewiston, the city that has struggled for years ever since federal government contractors, such as Catholic Charities, chose it as a site for refugee resettlement [correction: I am alerted by a reader that Catholic Charities didn't choose Lewiston, see comments] and after a secondary migration of mostly Somali refugees picked this city in “welcoming” Maine, the joys of multiculturalism have come home to roost. And, darn, just when town fathers thought citizens were finally getting the memo that diversity is strength something like this happens.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) the subject of an important new book entitled, “Muslim Mafia:Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” has the audacity to threaten to bring action against a school district that supposedly denied a Muslim girl the right to pray during school. Here is the story from the Sun Journal today. Hat tip: Mars

LEWISTON — A national Muslim civil rights organization has filed a formal request with the Lewiston School Department to allow a middle school student to pray on school property. The group also wants Lewiston to modify existing policy and provide “constitutionally protected religious accommodation,” such as a designated prayer room.

The group has also requested the school department institute diversity training for school staff, and to ensure the middle-schooler won’t face retaliation because of her request to pray at the Lewiston Middle School.

According to the Washington, D.C.,-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, seventh-grader Nasra Aden had been routinely “praying discreetly during her free time or lunch break in a corner of a school hallway.” But, on Tuesday, CAIR asserts a teacher told Aden “never to pray on school property” after Aden was seen preparing to kneel in prayer in a corner of one of the hallways.

After Aden told her mother, Jamad Warsame, what happened, Warsame spoke with school Principal Maureen Lachappelle and asked the school to accommodate her daughter’s desire to pray. According to CAIR, Warsame’s request was rebuffed and she has been “forced to pick up her daughter every day and take her to a nearby park to pray.”

Lachappelle said Aden is not being forced to leave school to pray, but that the district accommodated her mother’s request for her to leave the campus this past week for prayer.

Lewiston Superintendent Leon Levesque, who learned of CAIR’s written accusations hours after a press release had already been published on various Web sites, said, “Students are free to pray quietly during class if they choose as long as it’s not disruptive,” because “prayer is constitutionally protected in schools.”

“A stunning scenario of lack of multicultural competency” —they have learned the lingo!

In a written statement, Ismail Warsame called school officials’ alleged actions in responding to Aden’s effort to pray “a stunning scenario of lack of multicultural competency” and “clear violation of our constitutional rights to free religious expression.”

Warsame also accused Lachappelle of hanging up on him as he was asking whether the school department would accommodate the family’s request to accommodate the specific religious needs of certain students. Lachappelle acknowledged she did end a phone conversation with Warsame abruptly because “he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

According to Lachappelle, after an involved conversation about the school’s position on allowing silent prayer, she said she told Warsame that “this is what the ruling is. We’re disagreeing, and I’m following district policy. I feel we need to end this conversation.”

Readers should know that we have had reports from many cities about the fact that some Muslim men do not respect female school teachers and administrators, so that may explain what happened in this phone conversation.

Ibraham Hooper threatens: Do what we say, or else!

CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said Friday that if the Lewiston School Department did not address its four requests to allow prayer, modify school policy, institute training and protect Aden from retaliation, “we wouldn’t really have much choice but to take the case further” because “the student has the legal right and the constitutional right to pray in school in a manner that is not disruptive to the learning environment.”

I wonder what Lewiston Mayor, Larry Gilbert, thinks now? This sort of coincidence has happened before. I had something to post earlier in the week about the Mayor of Lewiston and didn’t get to it, and then sure enough something like this story comes along and the two pieces fit nicely together.

On the Mayor’s website just a couple of days ago appeared a report of a meeting where the City Council had a briefing about refugees and the resettlement programs in Maine. It is there that we learned this:

Catholic Charities Maine (CCME) has been the only refugee resettlement agency in Maine during the past 30 years.
Read the glowing account of how great the refugee resettlement program is and then note this conclusion by the mayor.

I hope that sharing this information will assist in allaying the many misconceptions and fears that somehow permeate our community.

As I have mentioned in previous columns, it is only through communication with those who may appear to be different from us, that when we engage in conversation, we find that we have far more similarities than differences. Our skin color may be different, our language may be different and our customs may be different. What we do find is that we seek the same things, quality of life, family life, employment, religion, education, music, arts, etc. We find that we truly are one-humanity. Assimilation may take a bit of time, but it will happen just like it has with all of our forefathers who have made us this richest country in the world, a country of immigrants.

If we truly believe that we are all God’s children, then we must therefore believe that we are all brothers and sisters created in His image.

Tell that to the Islamic supremacists at CAIR!

We have covered Lewiston Somali problems extensively, use our search function and you will see what I mean!

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/cair-threatens-lewiston-maine-school-district/