Here is my column from LDR today. If you have been watching Fox News this afternoon you will have to admit I am really timely today.
THE MINNESOTA CONNECTION
Federal officials arrested six men over the weekend and charged them with conspiring to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization. Four of the young men, ranging in age from 19 to 21 were arrested in Minneapolis and two more were detained in San Diego where they had driven to buy fake passports. They had hoped to cross into Mexico and continue to Syria from there.
These men were among several dozen Americans who have traveled or tried to travel to Syria to join ISIS in recent months. The Americans arrested so far have been a diverse group, with ages ranging from early teens to late forties, including many women, and have either been converts to Islam or children from Muslim immigrant families. About 100 Americans are being tracked by the FBI because of their travels to Syria.
Lauri B Regan, writing in the “American Thinker” website, quotes Brigitte Gabriel, a New York Times best-selling author and social commentator: “There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today - of course not all of them are radicals. The radicals are estimated to be between 15 to 25 percent (but even at that) you’re looking at 180 million to 300 million people dedicated to the destruction of western civilization. That is as big as the United States.”
If you follow these news stories about young Americans becoming radicalized and attempting to leave and join the Islamic state, you may have wondered about the common thread winding through them, namely the fact that many of them come from Minneapolis.
When I began to prepare this week’s column I soon realized there was much too information for me to cover in one week, even if I only give you a brief overview, so I will take this week to give you the Minnesota connection and then follow up in another column with more details about the many terrorist cells elsewhere in the U.S.
After civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, millions of Somalis fled to refugee camps but some sought refuge in the U.S. There is a certain process to qualify as a refugee here and the U.S. State Department ultimately decides where the refugees will live. A major factor is the voluntary agencies, called VOLAGS, that contract with the State Department.
Minnesota has some very active VOLAGS like the Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities and World Relief Minnesota. It is agencies like these that help the refugees get settled, learn English, find housing, get health care, and begin a new life. Members of these agencies invest a significant amount of time and labor and resources to help refugees settle in.
The Christian charities work quietly behind the scenes, using millions of dollars in federal grants to resettle the refugees. Somali children get integrated into American life. They are placed in foster homes, taught English, educated in public schools and provided government health care through Medicaid.
The refugees have the opportunity to move but most of the Somalis stayed in Minnesota, approximately 30,000 of them, partially because of the strength of the VOLAGS as well as the many governmental programs to help them. According to Front Page Mag, Minnesota has the most generous welfare and charity programs.
After the first wave arrived, a second wave of relatives and friends soon followed. The number of Somalis resettled in the state has more than tripled in four years. Over the past 25 years the U.S. has admitted about 100,000 Somali refugees. Close to 40 per cent live in Minnesota. Columbus, Ohio, San Diego, California, and Lewiston, Maine, have also served as refugee resettlement hot spots. Most Somali refugees are practicing Muslims and attend a local mosque or Islamic center.
The Somalis in Minnesota have been recruited by radical Islamists, either at a local mosque or on the Internet and dozens have succumbed to the indoctrination, choosing to return to Somalia to wage jihad against the Western-backed government, or have joined ISIS.
Last month two Americans from Minneapolis had linked up with ISIS and were killed on the Syrian battlefield. One was a Somali refugee and the other was an African-American with ties to the Somali community in Minnesota.
Since 2007 at least 22 young Somali refugees have left Minnesota to join al-Shabab in their homeland. Some have died there and were praised as “Minnesota martyrs” in an al-Shabab video released last year. Some have been recruited to fight with Islamic rebels against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
Ann Corcoran, an activist who has written hundreds of articles about the Refugee Resettlement Watch for Somalis, believes the Christian charities resettled them in Minnesota because the welfare is so good.
Corcoran has been studying the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program for the past seven years. She is especially concerned about young Somali Muslims entering the U.S. and the costs, both in terms of tax dollars and in the mounting evidence that the program is becoming a breeding ground for global jihad.
“We let the refugees in, they get radicalized here, and they go back to Somalia to fight as jihadists,” Corcoran said.
THE MINNESOTA CONNECTION
Federal officials arrested six men over the weekend and charged them with conspiring to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization. Four of the young men, ranging in age from 19 to 21 were arrested in Minneapolis and two more were detained in San Diego where they had driven to buy fake passports. They had hoped to cross into Mexico and continue to Syria from there.
These men were among several dozen Americans who have traveled or tried to travel to Syria to join ISIS in recent months. The Americans arrested so far have been a diverse group, with ages ranging from early teens to late forties, including many women, and have either been converts to Islam or children from Muslim immigrant families. About 100 Americans are being tracked by the FBI because of their travels to Syria.
Lauri B Regan, writing in the “American Thinker” website, quotes Brigitte Gabriel, a New York Times best-selling author and social commentator: “There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today - of course not all of them are radicals. The radicals are estimated to be between 15 to 25 percent (but even at that) you’re looking at 180 million to 300 million people dedicated to the destruction of western civilization. That is as big as the United States.”
If you follow these news stories about young Americans becoming radicalized and attempting to leave and join the Islamic state, you may have wondered about the common thread winding through them, namely the fact that many of them come from Minneapolis.
When I began to prepare this week’s column I soon realized there was much too information for me to cover in one week, even if I only give you a brief overview, so I will take this week to give you the Minnesota connection and then follow up in another column with more details about the many terrorist cells elsewhere in the U.S.
After civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, millions of Somalis fled to refugee camps but some sought refuge in the U.S. There is a certain process to qualify as a refugee here and the U.S. State Department ultimately decides where the refugees will live. A major factor is the voluntary agencies, called VOLAGS, that contract with the State Department.
Minnesota has some very active VOLAGS like the Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities and World Relief Minnesota. It is agencies like these that help the refugees get settled, learn English, find housing, get health care, and begin a new life. Members of these agencies invest a significant amount of time and labor and resources to help refugees settle in.
The Christian charities work quietly behind the scenes, using millions of dollars in federal grants to resettle the refugees. Somali children get integrated into American life. They are placed in foster homes, taught English, educated in public schools and provided government health care through Medicaid.
The refugees have the opportunity to move but most of the Somalis stayed in Minnesota, approximately 30,000 of them, partially because of the strength of the VOLAGS as well as the many governmental programs to help them. According to Front Page Mag, Minnesota has the most generous welfare and charity programs.
After the first wave arrived, a second wave of relatives and friends soon followed. The number of Somalis resettled in the state has more than tripled in four years. Over the past 25 years the U.S. has admitted about 100,000 Somali refugees. Close to 40 per cent live in Minnesota. Columbus, Ohio, San Diego, California, and Lewiston, Maine, have also served as refugee resettlement hot spots. Most Somali refugees are practicing Muslims and attend a local mosque or Islamic center.
The Somalis in Minnesota have been recruited by radical Islamists, either at a local mosque or on the Internet and dozens have succumbed to the indoctrination, choosing to return to Somalia to wage jihad against the Western-backed government, or have joined ISIS.
Last month two Americans from Minneapolis had linked up with ISIS and were killed on the Syrian battlefield. One was a Somali refugee and the other was an African-American with ties to the Somali community in Minnesota.
Since 2007 at least 22 young Somali refugees have left Minnesota to join al-Shabab in their homeland. Some have died there and were praised as “Minnesota martyrs” in an al-Shabab video released last year. Some have been recruited to fight with Islamic rebels against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
Ann Corcoran, an activist who has written hundreds of articles about the Refugee Resettlement Watch for Somalis, believes the Christian charities resettled them in Minnesota because the welfare is so good.
Corcoran has been studying the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program for the past seven years. She is especially concerned about young Somali Muslims entering the U.S. and the costs, both in terms of tax dollars and in the mounting evidence that the program is becoming a breeding ground for global jihad.
“We let the refugees in, they get radicalized here, and they go back to Somalia to fight as jihadists,” Corcoran said.
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