Update September 14th: Human Rights First says lets resettle 85,000.
Thanks to a faithful reader for sending me the link to the US State Department’s briefing yesterday that spawned this eye-popping story about how tens of thousands of Iraqis would be coming to the US in the next fiscal year which begins in just a few week (Oct.1).
You can read the transcript here and note there is a film of the press briefing.
I only had a few minutes to skim it, but the huge number of refugees they are discussing is because in addition to the 17,000 normal Iraqi refugees they plan to admit to the US, the Kennedy bill (which we have discussed on several occasions) allows up to 5000 special visas for Iraqis (living inside Iraq, normally refugees are those who have left the country) each year. Since we only took a few hundred of those this past year, apparently we can go back and fill last year’s quota and add it to the FY’09 allotment—thus bringing the number to the tens of thousands Foley says in this briefing.
Here is what I reported yesterday. May have more later. I did notice in my skimming through the briefing that no one asked how many refugees were rejected because of links to terrorism.
Oh, and not once in this politically correct briefing was the word Christian used. No one asked and no one volunteered any information about the truly persecuted Christians or for that matter any of the persecuted minorities.