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Notes -
I want to briefly talk about the massive Somali fraud network in Minnesota. UPDATE adding a more reputable source. Apparently Somalis have committed welfare fraud at least half a billion, maybe more, over the last couple decades. Much of it going home to Somalia to fund terrorist groups.
The surprising thing, looking into it, is that this seems to have been a bit of an open secret? Independent journalists were reporting on it for a while, and nobody seemed to care.
I think this story represents an overall change in the cultural climate, where this sort of information is finally becoming more popular to discuss. I'm reminded of the Rotherham scandal in the U.K. as well. Where there has been a major scandal involving mostly minority/immigrant groups that was covered up or just not really discussed, due to the Problematic nature.
I'm curious if this trend will continue moving forward, and we can perhaps have a more honest conversation about immigration and assimilation? We'll see...
Wouldn’t be the only thing coming out of Minnesota. Sigh. Reactions are as one would expect.
The political class will continue to do nothing until the problem lands on their doorstep. Western countries have no idea how to integrate people. Nor do they have a desire to.
This country needs a radical transformation of the immigration system with a simplified (albeit still strict) pathway to citizenship. I actually have a friend of sorts who works in tech and previously used to work doing malware analysis for the NSA. At one point in his life he lived in Mongolia and did work there.
One thing he told me was that the very hard and industrious working Mongolians frequently emigrate out of the country leaving the more complacent and indolent workers who are content to sit around and do whatever their thing is from within the country. He never told me where they ones who moved often went to, but a preferential policy of selecting for and seeking the best and brightest who are willing to work should at the very least be given priority in that regard.
That article immediately veering from introducing the identity borrower into 'wah wah wah red tribe making it harder for immigrants' is kinda hilarious tonally. Then the guy kills somebody in a traffic accident after being deported 3 times.
Also the deliberate brain drain thing does come up a lot, especially now in 2025 that diffusion of technology and the messiness of a lot of spots in the West means that the QOL gap between 'nice part of developing world' and developed world is pretty damned close. I moved from Australia to SEA a year ago and whilst I do miss a few things from Australia there really isn't some massive development chasm between where I'm at and where I was. Plus everybody with half a pulse/brain from the developing world immediately fleeing to the West to attempt to commandeer random laptop jobs and do-nothing middle class neutral-sum bureaucracies doesn't really do anything useful for anybody.
The worst is that I actually can feel for the ID thief. It sucks that he probably does have his ducks in a row now and that he has dependants yet can't get a stable, legal status to support them.
The problem is that the solution was decades ago, when he should have been prevented from moving in, prevented to work and prevented from coming back when deported. Or even earlier, by Reagan not making that amnesty deal, not giving illegals hope that their situation will eventually be regularized. He would be working and taking care of his dependants in Guatemala, and if he's as good a guy as the journalist tries to make him out to be, would be making Guatemala a slightly better place by his presence. But now, unless you're giving up any pretention to controlling immigration, the damage from regularizing this guy's situation now would be felt 10-20-30 years from now by the people enboldened into sticking their heads into the same trap by his outcome.
I do feel for him on some level but his presence in the USA also directly led to an innocent bystander dying (and even if he wasn't at direct fault I'd be quite surprised if his car were at the absolute pinnacle of maintenance standards). He's trying his hardest to have a 'better life', though it's not like Guatemala is an active warzone at present
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