US to up Iraqi refugee numbers to 17,000, Refugees International says it’s not enough

Update September 13th:   More on this story here.  State Department briefing

More here:   I had originally linked the Reuters story at the bottom of this post in which US State Department Ambassador James Foley says tens of thousands  of Iraqi refugees will come in 2009 because I don’t think it will happen and I wondered why he would say such a thing.  It will only set the State Department up for a year-long harrassment campaign from the refugee resettlement lobbyists and their friends at the Associated Press and others of the MSM.   They will whine and nag all year—you said tens of thousands (of course it will be a differant State Dept.)

And, because I think many Iraqis will start to go home to Iraq.

I thank all of you who have sent me the link in the last hour for your thoughtfulness and decided I better post it here at the top of the post I did a little while ago.   And besides maybe I’m wrong and you all are right about its significance!

 

Fiscal year ’09 begins in just a few weeks, October first, and each year the President makes a determination about how many refugees we will take for that year.   Actually let me correct that, he sets a CEILING.  However, the refugee lobbyists and the volags (non-profit government contractors) say it’s never enough and they, for sure, want the number to be the goal not the ceiling.   That way they can beat up the Administration when the number isn’t reached.

For this year the ceiling was 80,000 from all over the world, but as of the end of August we had just passed the 50,000 mark.   However, we did resettle the magic 12,000 Iraqi displaced persons that the State Department promised the advocates.

Never satisfied, Refugees International has put out a press release today complaining that the 17,000 Iraqi goal for next year is, what else, too low.  How about 90,000?  Or, would they still not be satisfied?

Washington, D.C. – Refugees International expressed disappointment today at the State Department’s goal of resettling only 17,000 Iraqi refugees for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins October 1. While the United States achieved its target of resettling over 12,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008, the needs are far greater. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that in 2009, 90,000 Iraqi refugees in the region will be in urgent need of resettlement. This number does not include vulnerable Iraqis who remain inside their country, or Palestinian refugees from Iraq, who live in desperate conditions at the Syria-Iraqi border.

The part that really bugs me is that Refugees International never talks about the truly vulnerable Iraqi Christians because I suspect if they mentioned them it would be politically incorrect to imply they were vulnerable because of Islam.  

And, Refugees International is always pushing for resettlement of the Iraqi Palestinians we mentioned here earlier in the week, but don’t let that C-word (Christian) pass their lips.   My suspicion is that they don’t want to upset any Muslim board members, or mess up their chances of schmoozing with the likes of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

See also the Reuters story today.

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