Forget Pet-Eating Migrants, What About Those Who Support ‘Honor Killings?’
The Media is Suspiciously Uninterested in a Shocking Kidnapping & Honor Killing Case Involving Yemeni Immigrants in Buffalo
Forget Pet-Eating Migrants, What About Those Who Support ‘Honor Killings?’
It was crazy, counterproductive and yes, a little weird, for Donald Trump to accuse migrants of eating pets at the ABC debate. Weeks later, his opponent and the media are still obsessed with Trump’s claim. But meanwhile, a serious point has been lost in what’s become quite an ignorant debate. The crux of what Trump and some residents of Springfield, Ohio are complaining about is that migrants from undeveloped countries often cling to customs and practices we detest. Reports of pet eating in Ohio may be bogus, but there are plenty of other very real cases of shocking migrant behavior the national media conveniently ignores.
Take, for example, the case of Yemeni immigrants in Buffalo, my hometown, who kidnapped a family member and tricked her into going to war-torn Yemen, where they held her against her will for 18 months and threatened to conduct an “honor killing” if she didn’t comply with their plan to sell her into an arranged marriage there for $500,000.
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, announced a plea deal for one member of the family, Waleed Abughanem, 32, who was apparently less involved in the crime than his brother, Adham, and father, Khaled, who are set to go on trial this month. Mr. Abughanem is described in The Buffalo News as a citizen of Yemen who lives in the U.S., though it’s unclear when he arrived or if he has legal status in the country. It’s worth recounting the chilling details of this (alleged) crime to highlight how outrageous it is that the national media and a host of left-wing women’s groups that purport to care about women’s rights have shown zero interest in the case because the alleged criminals are members of a protected class (immigrants.)
In September 2021, the unnamed victim, a student at the University of Buffalo who is the daughter of Khaled Abughanem, traveled to Mexico to see her fiancé there, a Mexican national. Members of her family allegedly didn’t approve of the relationship, so they traveled to Mexico and forcibly returned her to Lackawanna, the working class, heavily Yemeni community south of Buffalo that became notorious in 2003 thanks to the so-called Lackawanna Six case, involving six Yemeni-Americans from the neighborhood who pled guilty to providing material support to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan prior to the 9/11 attacks. There, they tricked the victim into traveling to Egypt and then allegedly took her against her will to war-torn Yemen, where they held her hostage until 2023, as they sought to sell her into an arranged marriage for $500,000 according to authorities.
A Father Who Wanted to Bury His Daughter in the Backyard
While in Yemen, the victim was "held as chattel for her family and brother to sell off to someone that they deem to be a suitable husband," Assistant U.S. Attorney Maeve Huggins said in a court hearing. According to the Victim, her father said she “would be traveling outside the United States whether she liked it or not, or he would bury her in the backyard.”
Authorities say that her brother, Walleed, said (in Arabic) “if she doesn’t straighten up, she should be killed, and no one would say anything.” According to the victim, her father, Khaled warned her, “you are no longer in the West, you are in the Middle East, women like you are killed.” Authorities say he wanted his daughter to remain in Yemen so he could have her killed in a so-called “honor killing” there without repercussions. He left Yemen and his daughter escaped. She claims he told her, “I should’ve killed you before I left Yemen, you bitch, my biggest mistake was to keep you alive.”
In April 2023, the victim returned to the U.S., with the protection of armed, plain clothes federal agents. According to The Buffalo News, her sister tried to recapture her at the airport, grappling with the agents in the process. It’s unclear whether the victim, Ms. Abughanem, was able to resume her studies, or marry the love of her life in Mexico. You’d think that our Vice President—who constantly crows about protecting our freedom to love who we want—would be interested in this case. But, at least so far, neither she, nor the left-wing media, nor any women’s rights groups have championed the story. Perhaps if the perpetrators were QAnon supporters, rather than Yemeni immigrants, or if Ms. Abughanem had been denied the right to an abortion, they’d be interested in her awful story.
Arranged marriages, including some forced arranged marriages, are still unfortunately common in some parts of the world. I encountered many arranged marriages when I worked at the American embassy in (now North) Macedonia from 2002-4. In some cases, the families intended to live together as man and wife in the U.S. In others, the point was to traffic someone into the U.S. for money. In one harrowing case I dealt with, a young Kosovar held an American woman he’d been set up with captive, holding her passport against her will and threatening to kill her if she tried to escape. Luckily, she tipped the embassy off to her plight so when they came in for their visa interview, we had the man arrested and I arranged to have her stay in a women’s shelter in Skopje until she could return to the U.S.
The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 5,000 women and girls are victims of honor killings around the world each year. The AHA Foundation says that although most honor killings occur overseas, it has also happened in the U.S. For example, in 2009, an Iraqi immigrant murdered his 20-year-old daughter, Noor Almaleki, in Arizona, running over her with his vehicle because he thought she’d shamed her family by becoming too Western and refusing an arranged marriage to an Iraqi man.
Demonizing all immigrants by suggesting that they’re all pet-eating monsters is wrong. But it’s also wrong to think we can assimilate large numbers of migrants from countries with, let’s be honest, very backward cultures with retrograde attitudes toward women. It isn’t racist to prefer migrants from countries where barbaric practices like honor killings and female circumcision aren’t practiced. Rather than dismiss outright the concerns from Americans in places like Springfield, the left should be honest about some of the downsides to mass migration from countries where women are devalued. You’d think a party that talks about girl power endlessly would get this, but it doesn’t seem like they do.