Sunday, December 21, 2014

Refugee Resettlement Watch - Ann Corcoran: Sudanese refugee, with long record of run-ins with the law, murdered in Portland, Maine - "It’s America’s fault…"


Sudanese refugee, with long record of run-ins with the law, murdered in Portland, Maine
His former lawyer anguishes over belief that the system fails refugee children.  This may be the first Portland murder this year, but it sure isn’t the first crime involving refugees in Maine in recent years.  A quick look at our archives (five minutes!) and I see several cases we reported on of crimes involving youthful refugees in Maine.
The “system” has had plenty of opportunities to learn from run-ins with refugees and crime.  Surely you lawyers aren’t proposing special treatment for them?

No experience with refugee youth trauma in Portland? Have we forgotten Muktar? And, what about the victim’s trauma?http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/maine-somali-youth-sentenced-to-8-years-for-raping-woman-no-prospect-for-rehabilitation-says-judge/
Now to the latest, the murder of a Sudanese refugee in Portland.  From Central Maine  (hat tip: ‘Pungentpeppers’ crime researcher extraordinaire):
It’s America’s fault…
Richard Lobor’s family fled Sudan when he was a boy to escape the violence of civil war and the threat of execution.
But instead of finding safety in America, Lobor was shot in the head last month in the doorway of a Portland apartment, becoming the city’s only homicide victim this year.
Lobor, who was 23, was the oldest of the family’s six children and had been expected, in accordance with Sudanese tradition, to become the head of the family soon. Now his parents, Robert Lobor and Christina Marring, are asking themselves as they grieve how things went so wrong in a country they thought would lead their children to prosperity and a better future.
You can read the long discussion yourself of Lobor’s run-ins with the legal system.  Then this from his former attorney Gina Yamartino.  Honor the refugee experience she says.
The system failed him!
Although she ultimately relented and allowed him to be prosecuted as an adult, after Lobor insisted to her that’s what he wanted, she said she still feels “like the system failed him.” ...
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