Half of 2023’s Diversity Visas to Be Given to Migrants from Muslim Countries
What could possibly go wrong?
While increasing numbers of Americans are wondering how they’re going to pay for both gas and groceries this month, the Biden administration is busy concentrating on what’s really important: celebrating diversity. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reported Thursday that “recently released State Department estimates indicate that a majority of those coming to the U.S. via the Diversity Visa Lottery during the next fiscal year (2023) will be Muslims, despite the fact that adherents of that faith account for less than a quarter of the world’s population.” What could possibly go wrong? Surely you don’t object to this, do you? Biden’s handlers are no doubt standing ready to brand anyone who dares utter a murmur of dissent as “racist” and “Islamophobic.”
There are other reasons why Americans may look askance at the prospect of bringing large numbers of Muslims into the country. While there is no doubt whatsoever that the overwhelming majority of Muslims will never become terrorists, there is no reliable way to determine, among those wishing to enter the country, which hold jihadist sentiments and which do not. The consequences in this case could be lethal.
One of the key elements of the Left’s rap sheet on me is that I supposedly fail to distinguish between “extremist” and “moderate” Muslims, but the real problem is that Muslims all too often don’t do so, either. Ibrahim Simpson and Nadir Soofi, the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadis who came to kill us all at the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest I co-sponsored with Pamela Geller in Garland, Texas in 2015, were members in good standing of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix. In January 2016, Abdul Shaheed (formerly Edward Archer) shot Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett multiple times at close range. He was a member of Philadelphia’s Mujahideen Mosque. The Tsarnaev brothers, who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013, were members of the Islamic Society of Boston, as were many other jihadists.
What’s more, With 42,000 jihad attacks around the world since 9/11, and numerous jihad plots in the U.S., and criminals quoting the Qur’an to justify their criminality, there is ample reason to be concerned about Islam. But to take note of such facts is “Islamophobic,” and so the CIS reported that the percentage of Muslim migrants to be given the next round of Diversity Visas would be much higher than it has been in the recent past: “This is up sharply from the FY 2020 level of about 18 percent.”
The CIS explained that “given our government’s reluctance to gather data along religious lines, this information is teased out of statistics dealing with the country of origin of the diversity visa holders. A more precise statement would be that, out of 43,129 expected diversity visas, 21,000 will come from five Muslim-majority nations (Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, and Uzbekistan), while 22,129 will come from the rest of the world, or so the most recent State Department Visa Bulletin tells us.” Iran? Yes, you read that right. And what efforts will be made to ensure that those coming from Iran aren’t going to engage in, say, kidnapping plots aimed at silencing Iranian dissidents? No such efforts will be made at all. They would be “Islamophobic.”
CIS added that “since there are 43 Muslim-majority nations in the balance of the world, most sending us diversity visa holders — and not counted among the five — it is clear that a majority of the lottery visas will go to people living in Muslim nations. These 43 nations sent us 5,746 lottery visa holders in 2020 and include Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria.” Meanwhile, “two heavily Muslim nations, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which used to provide large numbers of Diversity Visa Lottery winners, no longer do so as they have joined the list of major migrant-sending countries and are no longer eligible for the program.”
Aside from the possibility of admitting jihad terrorists, there will also be societal upheaval resulting from the admission of people among whom are many who have a vastly different idea of how societies ought to work from the one that Americans generally hold. The Qur’an calls for the beating of women “from whom you fear disobedience” (4:34). It allows a man to have as many as four wives (4:3), and these wives may be prepubescent (65:4). It allows for the sexual enslavement of infidel women (4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). Will every last Muslim who enters the U.S. next year believe in and act upon those beliefs? Of course not. But some will. And the people who set these immigration policies will not be among those who will be forced to pay the price for them.
Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is a best-selling author, the director of Jihad Watch, and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an.
Donald Trump and the Future of Western Civilization
The panoply of heads of state leaders at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II highlighted the dire reality that there are at present no resolute statesmanlike leaders capable of reversing the accelerating decline throughout the whole of the Western world, thereby averting the very real possibility of a global conflict with an allied Communist China and Russia.
The West, in particular the United States, is currently populated with patronizing, oblivious, and callous leaders more concerned about themselves and globalism than the people and the future of their respective countries. Nor do they acknowledge that Western Civilization, because of its roots in Christianity, has increased freedom, wealth, health, comfort and life expectancy to unprecedented levels throughout the world.
When virtually all Western nations pursue the same ruinous policies, and their ruling classes have the same self-absorbed characteristics, decline and collapse from self-immolation is inevitable.
In the debauched current state of Western Civilization, the sole path of reversing this decline and collapse is for a tenacious and intrepid egalitarian leader from one of the major Western nations to assume the mantle of leadership. The only experienced and successful current or past leader with these attributes in the West today is Donald Trump, who temporarily stanched and exposed the factors behind the downfall during his four years as president. With the specter of China/Russia hegemony and the accelerating deterioration of the West looming over the United States and Europe, Trump must seriously consider running for president again in 2024.
Early in his presidency, in a landmark speech delivered in Poland on July 6, 2017, President Trump delivered a Churchillian-style message about Western Civilization and its accomplishments -- and more importantly its future. That day, in a speech largely ignored by the entirety of the American and much of the European media, President Trump declared that he was resolved to stop the decline of Western Civilization. He stated:
Today, the West is also confronted by the powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence, and challenge our interests…. Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine those values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies. [Emphasis added]
Trump understood that the West is under siege not only from radical Islam and the Communist Chinese but also from within the United States and many countries of Europe. Such groups, oftentimes allied with the ruling classes, seek to destroy traditional culture and moral values, as they believe the State is more important than the family, the individual, or the nation. Trump also instinctively recognized that after decades of indoctrination and the re-writing of history, far too many in the United States had lost confidence in American and thus Western civilization.
Richard Koch and Chris Smith in their book, Suicide of the West, wrote:
One hundred year ago, most Westerners felt tremendous pride and confidence in their civilization. They knew what it stood for, and they believed in it. Today that sense is gone. That is largely because the six principal ideas which underpinned Western confidence -- those of Christianity, optimism, science, economic growth, [classical] liberalism and individualism -- have suffered a century of sustained attack. These ideas no longer inspire or unite the West as they once did…
There are three ongoing phenomena, either individually or collectively, that will precipitate the collapse of Western Civilization if not aggressively addressed. First, the degeneration and moral collapse of societies and subsequent acceptance of autocratic police states. Second, the willful destruction of economies and standards of living brought about by the inane determination to eliminate fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Third, the inevitable threat of Chinese global hegemony and their potential alliance with Russia.
Throughout all Western societies, Christianity is being replaced with secularism and fealty to the state. Child abuse, pedophilia and degeneracy are being normalized as the natural family structure, the fundamental building block of society, is under siege. Greed, apathy, narcissism, censorship and repression are rapidly becoming the hallmarks of Western Civilization. Cultural icons are being abandoned and destroyed as history is falsely re-written.
Other than Donald Trump, no Western leader in the past 20 years has addressed or even acknowledged these civilization-ending developments that are devastating and dramatically weakening the nations of the West. He did so in yet another powerful speech on July 4, 2020 as well as with his pro-family, anti-censorship, and religious freedom policies.
In an ongoing effort to transform the entirety of the Western world into a monolithic socialist oligarchy, the Western ruling elites, or globalists, have been promoting a “green agenda.” They are well aware that these policies will ultimately create massive economic decline and irreversible vulnerability. Yet, these “elites” claim to believe that a theoretically healthy relationship with the Earth requires making energy, the lifeblood of modern society, scarce regardless of economic or security implications.
Donald Trump has been the only Western leader to vociferously point out the duplicity of the globalists and that total reliance on unreliable renewables would greatly weaken economies, wipe out jobs, put money in the hands of authoritarian governments out to destroy the West and have no detectable influence on the world’s temperature or climate.
Meanwhile, Trump massively grew the American economy by expanding fossil fuel production, lowering the cost of energy and making the United States energy independent and able to supply other nations in the West. Unlike the timorous and imperious elites in Europe and America, Trump understood that having access to reliable, affordable energy isn’t just important for the economy, it’s a matter of national and regional security.
The avoidable invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the subsequent irresponsible determination to force regime change in Moscow by Western leaders has opened the door for an alliance between Russia and Communist China. If this alliance is allowed to come to full fruition, China will effectively subjugate Russia and its massive reserves of natural resources and fossil fuels.
While the West is willfully destroying their economies, a China/Russia axis would dominate and effectively control virtually all economic activity throughout the world. This coalition would have a massive manufacturing base, nearly unlimited energy sources, as well as an overwhelming military and nuclear arsenal to enforce their hegemony. Thus, potentially relegating the United States and the nations of Europe to subservience and ending Western Civilization’s global dominance.
Donald Trump was the first and still only Western leader to stand up to and definitively state that Communist China is the foremost threat to world peace and to change America’s defense strategy to include both Russia and China as the West’s major adversaries.
With the unprecedented success of the Abraham Accords among many other accomplishments, Donald Trump has become the most consequential and successful foreign affairs president since Ronald Regan, as he has shown he can negotiate once-thought-impossible peace agreements and avoid or resolve military conflicts. As such, he is uniquely qualified to shepherd the United States and the Western World through the perilous Chinese/Russia morass created by the current feckless Western leadership.
I had previously taken the position that Donald Trump’s overwhelmingly successful legacy was set in stone and as he and his family have sacrificed and paid a massive personal and financial price on behalf of the American people, so he should rest on his laurels and not run in 2024. However, the accelerating downward spiral of the United States and the rest of the Western world combined with the specter of Chinese/Russia hegemony necessitates that he should seriously consider running.
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 3.0 license
CAIR and the Anti-9/11 Families Who Shill for the Terrorists
‘Useful idiots’ cynically exploit the September 11th attacks.
When one hears the group name ‘September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,’ one likely envisions an assembly of mourning family members, who seek justice for those who took their loved ones’ lives, on the day Muslim terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. However, while this entity may very well consist of relatives of those who perished on 9/11, the main goal of the group is not to bring justice to the terrorists, but to assist the terrorists by claiming that they too are ‘victims.’ Katherina Feil, is a founder/leader of this outrage, and together with her CAIR-affiliated husband they make up a power couple for radical Islam.
Jacob Bender and Katherina Sabine Feil reside in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From there, Bender serves as the Creative Director for the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Previously, he served as Executive Director of the chapter.
CAIR has foundational and financial ties to Hamas. CAIR was established, in June 1994, as a part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s US Palestine Committee, under the leadership of then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In 2007 and 2008, CAIR was named by the US government a co-conspirator for two federal trials prosecuting CAIR’s fellow Palestine Committee member, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), and its associates for raising millions of dollars for Hamas. CAIR used its websites to raise funds for HLF, and CAIR’s Texas chapter founder, Ghassan Elashi, was HLF Board Chairman.
On September 4, 2022, Bender was honored with an award, at a banquet for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), who like CAIR was named an HLF co-conspirator. When HLF began, in 1988, ISNA’s (then and current) mailing address was used to receive HLF donations. Among ISNA’s founders was Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader and convicted terrorist, Sami al-Arian. During Bender’s ISNA talk, he claimed he had received $200,000 from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal for a documentary film he had directed. In April 2002, Bin Talal pledged $27 million to a Saudi telethon believed to have raised money for Palestinian suicide bombers.
It is ironic that Bender, a Jew who lived in Israel for a number of years and even worked at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, would be involved with entities associated with violence against his fellow Jews.
Feil, who grew up in Germany, also has somewhat of a Jewish background; her mother’s father was a Jew. She learned about it years past her childhood, as it had been kept a family secret to protect from the Nazis. Like Bender, Feil spent much time in Israel, and she was a curator at Yeshiva University Museum in New York City. Also like Bender, today, Feil is involved with something incredibly controversial. She is the Director/Project Coordinator of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a project of the Tides Center and a group that has a history of hindering fellow 9/11 victims and advocating for people involved in terrorism against the US.
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows has been lobbying President Biden to release $7 billion to Afghanistan. The funds had been frozen to keep them from the Taliban, following the Biden Administration’s botched 2021 pullout from Afghanistan that left the Taliban in charge. This has pitted them against other 9/11 families, who have been fighting to see the funds go instead to 9/11 victims. Biden has pledged half to Afghanistan and half to the victims, saying none will reach the Taliban. Yet, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “It is impossible to provide humanitarian assistance inside Afghanistan without engaging” the Taliban.
For over a decade, Peaceful Tomorrows has called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison, which holds many of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). In April 2011, the group expressed its “profound disappointment” that KSM was to be tried in a military commission. In a September 2020 article on the group’s website and co-written by its Guantanamo Committee Chair Colleen Kelly, Kelly backs: the “immediate transfer” of KSM and four others involved in 9/11; the “repatriation or resettlement” of all remaining 35 detainees; and the US paying for their “rehabilitation and reintegration.”
Recently, Peaceful Tomorrows filed Amicus Briefs in court on behalf of alleged terrorists Abu Zubaydah (October 2021) and Majid Khan (June 2022), claiming and/or insinuating that the rights of these two have been violated by the US government. Zubaydah is allegedly a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda, who was thought to be close to Osama bin Laden. Khan is a former courier for al-Qaeda, who, according to the US government, “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.”
Peaceful Tomorrows has been a roadblock to stop other 9/11 families from being compensated for the loss of their loved ones and from seeing that the terrorists who murdered their loved ones find justice for their actions. We have to ask ourselves why this group would seek to hinder their fellow Americans, who have suffered greatly and continue to suffer, and at the same time stomp on the memories of the fallen victims by providing assistance to the terrorists. To answer this, we must look into who the group is cavorting with, and we should look no further than Katharina Feil’s husband’s terror-related organization, CAIR.
For years, CAIR has co-sponsored a Day of Action with Peaceful Tomorrows to call for the closing of the Guantanamo Bay facility. In June 2021, CAIR co-signed with the group – along with the South Asian terror-related Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) – a letter to President Biden calling for an end to “extrajudicial killings” overseas. And in October 2016, CAIR co-sponsored a 9/11 “Commemoration,” featuring a film, which discusses the Peaceful Tomorrows’ founding. The contact for the event was none other than Jacob Bender.
The utter perversity of a group of 9/11 families partnering with CAIR is further amplified by the fact that CAIR was named as a defendant in a 9/11 terror lawsuit brought by the Estate of FBI agent John P. O’Neill, Sr., who was killed in the World Trade Center attack. The class action complaint states, “Council on American Islamic Relations and CAIR Canada (collectively, CAIR), have aided, abetted, and materially sponsored al Qaeda and international terrorism.”
It is no doubt that September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows’ intentions are malevolent. The group does not want to bring justice to the terrorists; it wants to free them. The group does not want to help the families of the victims; it wants to hinder them. But what is even worse is that some wish to legitimize the group. Peaceful Tomorrows has participated at a US Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, and it has, on more than one occasion, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Peaceful Tomorrows’ agenda needs to be exposed and scrutinized, and its cynical exploitation of the September 11th attacks to push its radical agenda must be stopped. It is time that people understand what this group is truly about, because what it is not about is advocating for 9/11 families.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
Joe Kaufman
Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was a 2014, 2016, and 2018 Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
Muslim Migrants to Obtain the Majority of Diversity Lottery Visas
Recently released State Department estimates indicate that a majority of those coming to the U.S. via the Diversity Visa Lottery during the next fiscal year (2023) will be Muslims, despite the fact that adherents of that faith account for less than a quarter of the world's population..
This is up sharply from the FY 2020 level of about 18 percent, as we reported earlier this year.
Given our government’s reluctance to gather data along religious lines, this information is teased out of statistics dealing with the country of origin of the diversity visa holders. A more precise statement would be that, out of 43,129 expected diversity visas, 21,000 will come from five Muslim-majority nations (Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, and Uzbekistan), while 22,129 will come from the rest of the world, or so the most recent State Department Visa Bulletin tells us.
Since there are 43 Muslim-majority nations in the balance of the world, most sending us diversity visa holders — and not counted among the five — it is clear that a majority of the lottery visas will go to people living in Muslim nations. These 43 nations sent us 5,746 lottery visa holders in 2020 and include Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria.
Millions of aliens apply for these visas each year; the requirements are that one must be from a nation that does not send us lots of migrants (Mexican nationals, for example, need not apply), that the principal applicant needs to have a high school degree or the equivalent, has a passport from the home country, and that the applicant applies (or has someone apply for her) online. A criminal record will disqualify an alien, if it is noticed. Diversity Visa Lottery winners can bring their immediate relatives with them. Only the winners are charged any fees.
Two heavily Muslim nations, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which used to provide large numbers of Diversity Visa Lottery winners, no longer do so as they have joined the list of major migrant-sending countries and are no longer eligible for the program.
No other nation in the world allocates any visas in this bizarre manner, except for a tiny program in New Zealand, dealing with a small number of Pacific Island states.
Ilhan Omar Knows What She’s Doing
The Democratic congresswoman says she has always been somebody who 'understands how words can be harmful and hurtful to people.' We believe her.
The Jews can never seem to live up to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D., Minn.) exacting standards.
The Minnesota congresswoman’s latest broadside came Tuesday afternoon, when she told CNN’s Jake Tapper that her Jewish Democratic colleagues "haven’t been partners in justice" and have yet to apologize for their allegedly Islamophobic comments.
Omar’s statement came after Tapper asked whether she regrets her comments last month comparing the United States and Israel with terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Taliban. Her answer was unequivocal: "I don’t."
That’s funny, because Omar at the time "clarified" that statement, which elicited a rebuke from Democratic leaders and a dozen Jewish Democrats, saying that she did not say what in fact she said: "I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries." To be clear, she also believes Israel is a terrorist nation.
Omar, as the kids say, is owning her truth. Her tap dance follows a pattern that is by now well established, in which the justice-seeking congresswoman makes nakedly prejudicial remarks, pretends to walk them back in the face of muted criticism from her colleagues, characterizes the criticism itself as Islamophobic, and proceeds to reoffend.
That pattern gives the lie to the apology Omar issued after arguing that American support for Israel is "all about the Benjamins, baby": Her offenses were born of ignorance rather than prejudice, she said, and thanked her colleagues for "educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes."
Omar could give a master class on anti-Semitism, and the pattern of her offenses makes clear she is using that knowledge to perpetuate it. That’s probably why a Punchbowl News report earlier this month indicated that "a number of Omar’s fellow Democrats believe Omar is an anti-Semite, even if they don’t say so publicly."
It is, of course, the only prejudice about which Democrats are tight-lipped and the only one tolerated in the party’s ranks.
It is also the latest indication that the party is following in the footsteps of the British left, led until recently by Squad ally Jeremy Corbyn. A report from the United Kingdom's Equality and Human Rights Commission implicated not just Corbyn, whose offenses are legion, but the Labour Party itself, which "at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it."
To the extent there is resistance in the Democratic Party to Omar’s relentless attacks on Jews and her condemnations of American power and influence, surely it is driven at least in part by the shellacking the British left took in the last national election there.
Should the Democrats continue down this path, we have faith that the outcome for the left will be the same here as in Britain, and that the more they see of Omar and her allies, the dimmer their prospects become.
Published under: Anti-Semitism, Ilhan Omar, Jeremy CorbynC
KARE 11 News reporter Lou Raguse reports that only seven of the 47 individuals were taken into Minnesota law enforcement custody, including two who were previously charged with passport fraud. Some of those have since been released from jail pending trial.
DOJ: 47 in Minnesota’s Somali Community Charged with Stealing $250M in COVID-19 Funds from Child Nutrition Program
Forty-seven individuals, primarily in Minneapolis, Minnesota’s large Somali community, have been charged for their roles in allegedly stealing $250 million in COVID-19 federal funds meant for a child nutrition program.
According to federal prosecutors, the 47 individuals charged across six indictments and three criminal informations committed conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering when they defrauded millions from the Federal Child Nutrition Program during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
Specifically, the 47 individuals allegedly used COVID-19 changes to the Federal Child Nutrition Program to oversee the massive fraud scheme via the Minneapolis-based Feeding Our Future and the for-profit restaurants as well as the food distribution services sponsored by the nonprofit.
In 2019, Feeding Our Future received and disbursed about $3.4 million in federal funds to feed underprivileged children in the Minneapolis area. By 2021, the nonprofit had received almost $200 million in federal funds.
The scheme included Feeding Our Future allegedly claiming to open more than 250 Federal Child Nutrition Program sites across the state of Minnesota. Most of the 47 individuals claimed to operate these sites by filing fraudulent documents purporting to be feeding children, prosecutors allege.
Feeding Our Future executives, prosecutors claim, knew all along that the fraud was taking place but continued to submit fraudulent documents to secure Federal Child Nutrition Program funds for the sites claiming to be feeding children.
In the process, Feeding Our Future was paid more than $18 million in administrative fees and employees of the nonprofit allegedly accepted bribes and kickbacks. When Minnesota regulators sought to provide oversight to the operation, a Feeding Our Future executive claimed the state was discriminating against the nonprofit.
Most of the individuals charged in the fraud scheme, prosecutors say, used the stolen funds to buy luxury vehicles, residential and commercial real estate, real estate in Kenya and Turkey, and to fund their international travel.
Those charged in the multiple indictments are:
- Aimee Marie Bock, 41, of Apple Valley, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery. Bock was the founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future. Bock oversaw the $240 million fraud scheme carried out by sites under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship.
- Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, 39, of Burnsville, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Eidleh was an employee of Feeding Our Future who solicited and received bribes and kickbacks from individuals and sites under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Eidleh also created his own fraudulent sites.
- Salim Ahmed Said, 33, of Plymouth, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Said was an owner and operator of Safari Restaurant, a site that received more than $16 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Abdulkadir Nur Salah, 36, of Columbia Heights, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Abdulkadir Salah was an owner and operator of Safari Restaurant, a site that received more than $16 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Ahmed Sharif Omar-Hashim, 39, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Omar-Hashim created a company called Olive Management Inc., a site that received approximately $5 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Abdi Nur Salah, 34, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Abdi Salah registered Stigma-Free International, a non-profit entity used to carry out the scheme with sites throughout Minnesota, including in Willmar, Mankato, St. Cloud, Waite Park, and St. Paul.
- Abdihakim Ali Ahmed, 36, of Apple Valley, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Abdihakim Ahmed created ASA Limited LLC, a site that received approximately $5 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Ahmed Mohamed Artan, 37, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Artan registered Stigma-Free International, a non-profit entity used to carry out the scheme with sites throughout Minnesota, including in Willmar, Mankato, St. Cloud, Waite Park, and St. Paul.
- Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud, 30, of Fridley, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Mohamud ran the Stigma-Free Willmar site. This site claimed to have served approximately 1.6 million meals and received more than $4 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir, 30, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Abdinasir Abshir ran the Stigma-Free Mankato site. This site claimed to have served more than 1.6 million meals and received approximately $5 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Asad Mohamed Abshir, 32, of Mankato, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Asad Abshir ran the Stigma-Free Mankato site. This site claimed to have served more than 1.6 million meals and received approximately $5 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Hamdi Hussein Omar, 26, of St. Paul, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Omar ran the Stigma-Free Waite Park site. This site claimed to have served more than 500,000 meals and received more than $1 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Ahmed Abdullahi Ghedi, 32, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Ghedi created ASA Limited LLC, a site that received approximately $5 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed, 54, of Columbus, Ohio, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. Abdirahman Ahmed was an owner and operator of Safari Restaurant, a site that received more than $16 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 33, of Savage, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and false statements in a passport application. Abdiaziz Farah was an owner and operator of Empire Cuisine and Market LLC, a for-profit restaurant that participated in the scheme as a site, as a vendor for other sites, and as an entity to launder fraudulent proceeds. Empire Cuisine and Market and other affiliated sites received more than $28 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Mohamed Jama Ismail, 49, of Savage, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Ismail was an owner and operator of Empire Cuisine and Market LLC, a for-profit restaurant that participated in the scheme as a site, as a vendor for other sites, and as an entity to launder fraudulent proceeds. Empire Cuisine and Market and other affiliated sites received more than $28 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Mahad Ibrahim, 46, of Lewis Center, Ohio, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Ibrahim was the president and owner of ThinkTechAct Foundation, a Minnesota non-profit organization that also operated under the name Mind Foundry Learning Foundation. ThinkTechAct and Mind Foundry created dozens of sites throughout Minnesota, including in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, Burnsville, Faribault, Owatonna, Shakopee, Circle Pines, and Willmar. ThinkTechAct received more than $18 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, 21, of Shakopee, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Abdimajid Nur created Nur Consulting LLC to receive and launder Federal Child Nutrition Program funds from Empire Cuisine and Market, ThinkTechAct, and other entities involved in the scheme.
- Said Shafii Farah, 40, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Said Farah, the brother of Abdiaziz Farah, was an owner of Bushra Wholesalers LLC, a shell company used to launder fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin, 32, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Aftin was an owner of Bushra Wholesalers LLC, a shell company used to launder fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff, 31, of Bloomington, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Shariff was the chief executive officer of Afrique Hospitality Group, a shell company used to fraudulent obtain and launder Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Hayat Mohamed Nur, 25, of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Hayat Nur, the sister of Abdimajid Nur, participated in the scheme by creating and submitting fraudulent meal count sheets, attendance rosters, and invoices.
- Qamar Ahmed Hassan, 53, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Hassan was the owner and operator of S & S Catering Inc., a for-profit restaurant and catering business that participated in the scheme as a distribution site and as a vendor for other sites. S & S Catering received more than $18 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Sahra Mohamed Nur, 61, of Saint Anthony, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Nur ran a site called Academy For Youth Excellence that used S & S Catering as a vendor.
- Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud, 32, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Mohamud ran a site called Academy For Youth Excellence that used S & S Catering as a vendor.
- Filsan Mumin Hassan, 28, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Hassan ran a site called Youth Higher Educational Achievement that falsely claimed to serve up to 4,300 meals a day.
- Guhaad Hashi Said, 46, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Hashi ran a site under the name Advance Youth Athletic Development that falsely claimed to serve up to 5,000 meals a day.
- Abdullahe Nur Jesow, 62, of Columbia Heights, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Jesow ran a site called Academy For Youth Excellence that used S & S Catering as a vendor.
- Abdul Abubakar Ali, 40, of St. Paul, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Abdul Ali ran a site called Youth Inventors Lab that falsely claimed to have served a total of approximately 1.5 million meals in a seven-month period.
- Yusuf Bashir Ali, 40, of Vadnais Heights, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Yusuf Ali ran a site called Youth Inventors Lab that falsely claimed to have served a total of approximately 1.5 million meals in a seven-month period.
- Haji Osman Salad, 32, of St. Anthony, Minnesota, is charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Salad was the principal of Haji’s Kitchen and received approximately $11.6 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Fahad Nur, 38, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Nur was the principal of The Produce LLC, a vendor and purported food supplier who received more than $5 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Anab Artan Awad, 52, of Plymouth, Minnesota, is charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Awad was the president of Multiple Community Services, MCA. Awad claimed more than $11 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Sharmarke Issa, 40, of Edina, Minnesota, is charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Issa created a company called Minnesota’s Somali Community and was the manager of Wacan Restaurant LLC. Issa fraudulently caused MDE to pay out more than $7.4 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Farhiya Mohamud, 63, of Bloomington, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Mohamud was the principal and CEO of Dua Supplies and Distribution Inc., a shell company that laundered millions of dollars of fraudulently obtained Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Liban Yasin Alishire, 42, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery, federal programs bribery, and money laundering. Alishire was the president and owner of Community Enhancement Services Inc., a company located in the JigJiga Business Center in Minneapolis. Community Enhancement Services was a cultural mall owned and operated by Alishire and co-defendant Khadar Jigre Adan. Community Enhancement Services received more than $1.6 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Ahmed Yasin Ali, 57, of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Ali created a second program site, run by Lake Street Kitchen, and located in the JigJiga Business Center in Minneapolis.
- Khadar Jigre Adan, 59, of Lakeville, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Adan was the CEO of Lake Street Kitchen, which was a program site located in the JigJiga Business Center in Minneapolis.
- Sharmake Jama, 34, of Rochester, Minnesota, is charged with wire fraud, federal programs bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Sharmake Jama was a principal of Brava Restaurant and Café LLC. Brava Restaurant received approximately $4.3 million in fraudulent Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
- Ayan Jama, 43, of Rochester, Minnesota, is charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. Ayan Jama was a principal of Brava Restaurant and Café LLC. Ayan Jama also created shell companies to launder fraudulent proceeds.
- Asha Jama, 39, of Lakeville, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. Asha Jama worked for Brava Restaurant and created shell companies to launder fraudulent proceeds.
- Fartun Jama, 35, of Rosemount, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. Fartun Jama worked for Brava Restaurant and created shell companies to launder fraudulent proceeds.
- Mustafa Jama, 45, of Rochester, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. Mustafa Jama worked for Brava Restaurant and created shell companies to launder fraudulent proceeds.
- Zamzam Jama, 48, of Rochester, Minnesota, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. Zamzam Jama worked for Brava Restaurant and created shell companies to launder fraudulent proceeds.
- Bekam Addissu Merdassa, 39, of Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
- Hadith Yusuf Ahmed, 34, of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
- Hanna Marekegn, 40, of Edina, Minnesota, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
KARE 11 News reporter Lou Raguse reports that only seven of the 47 individuals were taken into Minnesota law enforcement custody, including two who were previously charged with passport fraud. Some of those have since been released from jail pending trial.
Another individual is in custody after she booked a one-way flight to Ethiopia. Three of the charged individuals have already left the United States.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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