Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) warned the White House that it risks fanning the flames of anti-American militancy by cutting off remittances to Somalia.
The first Muslim lawmaker in Washington told a White House summit on countering violent extremism that, by enacting the policy, the administration is playing into the hands of terrorist groups.
“The violent extremist makes the case that America is at war with Islam and Muslims, and we have to assert that this is not true; not just in word, but in deed,” he said, according to The Guardian, in remarks, the paper said, that “drew applause from an audience of Muslim community leaders at the White House.”
Ellison said he came to the event with the “sole purpose of ringing the alarm bell” over the move to forbid the flow of money from the US to Somalia—an estimated $200 million annually; a sum roughly equal to one-sixth of all remittances that flow into African nation, and just more than 3 percent of its estimated Gross Domestic Product.
“On February 6, our financial services system stopped working with Somali money-wiring services to send money to Somalia,” the Congressman said. “This is important because in the region, the violent extremist wants to be able to say ‘See, they won’t even let your relatives send you money.’ They want to be able to say that and we have got to be able to stop them from saying that.”
Ellison, eight other House members, and Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.), had, on Feb. 6, sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking him to discuss with them how to create an emergency plan to enable the flow of remittances to Somalia.
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on Feb. 11, however, said that she wasn’t aware of the emergency appeal, and claimed the role of remittances shouldn’t be overstated while saying the matter is one “we take seriously.”
“I think the issue of economic opportunity–which I think it’s a bit of a stretch to draw that directly to remittances, but obviously this is an issue we are concerned about – economic opportunity in places like Somalia,” she said.
“I think we certainly understand how dire these challenges are, and that’s why we’re in touch with the community in the United States and why the United States Government continues to work on this issue,” she also remarked.
The UN Special Representative for Somalia, however, on Feb. 5, described remittances as “the lifeblood and survival mechanism for many,” and told Foreign Policy that, “from a humanitarian perspective it is clearly worrying if there is a complete stop in remittances.”
Wire transfers between the US and Somalia were effectively cut off earlier this month when the Merchants Bank of California said it could no longer process orders to the war-torn country while complaying with Office of the Comptroller of the Currency orders, The Los Angeles Times reported. It had been the only financial institution to transmit financial transfers to Somalia since Wells Fargo and US Bancorp stopped offering such services almost ten years ago.
“Somali-Americans said some relatives will be unable to afford food, clothing, rent or school fees if it becomes impossible to send money because of fears of illicit fund transfers to terrorists such as the Shabab, an Islamic militant group with ties to Al Qaeda,” the paper noted.
Ellison also on Wednesday criticized the administration’s response to the triple execution-style murder of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, N.C., calling on law enforcement officials to “prosecute hate crimes against Muslims.”
“It’s important that we at least admit that what happened in Chapel Hill probably was not only about a parking space,” he said. “This defies our sense of logic and common sense. This actually helps to support the false narrative of violent extremism; they want to make the case that America hates you, is against you, join us.”
More broadly, non-profit organizations hit out at the White House for its Countering Violent Extremism summit, saying that it stigmatizes Muslims, relies on flawed models of radicalization, chills political expression, and legitimizes “abusive counterterrorism practices.”
“The process for planning and organizing this summit has furthered the sense of mistrust already felt by American Muslim communities. From the outset, the administration has not consulted with a broad range of groups concerning the planning, content, and implementation of CVE,” the nine organizations–including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Council on American-Islamic Relations–said in a joint statement issued Tuesday.
Late last year, the Justice Department issued guidelines aimed at stamping out racial, ethnic and religious profiling by federal officials, but did not give the rules any legal heft and exempted border control and national security personnel from adhering to them. As The Sentinel noted, the issuance was criticized by Ellison, who said the rules deserve “a grade of C for protecting the civil liberties of all Americans.”
