Obama and refugees

Where does Obama stand on the question of refugees?   After a little searching around, I don’t have a definitive answer for you.   What got me thinking about this today (admittedly I should have already been looking into it) was a post at Gates of Vienna yesterday about Danes being inflamed by a 2007 report that Obama was going to insist that European allies in the Iraq War should step up to the plate and take more Iraqi refugees.   Denmark already has some experience with Iraqi refugees who were interpretors and turned out to be spys (here).

See the post about a Danish hubbub at GOV here first, then continue below:

The Europeans are already stressed by excessive Muslim immigration and don’t need Obama lecturing them about their supposed duty to bring more.

I am guessing that BHO will be in favor of increased refugee resettlement because it fits his Leftist (we love all of humanity) view of the world as we have been discussing in the category “community destablization.”  Professionals in the State Department are probably pretty excited about increased numbers and the Leftwing volags who hold all the government contracts are likely jumping for joy since they are paid by the head for each refugee resettled.

Only time will tell how the new Administration will tackle the issue at a time when unemployment is on the rise here and any sane person would see that bringing more people seeking employment to our country will only continue to sink the ship.   Already we have complaints across the country of refugees not finding work.

The Iraqi refugees now arriving by the thousands to America are complaining that they can’t find work.  Generally the Iraqis are more highly educated and skilled, unlike the Somalis who can be shipped off to the meatpacking plants.  The Iraqis want meaningful work and aren’t getting it.  See our recent post here and follow links to other unhappy Iraqi refugee stories.

One hint of how Obama feels about the subject is that he supported legislation passed into law last year to increase the number of Iraqi refugees to the US over what the Bush Administration was already doing.  See mention of that here.   That bill was pushed by Mr. Refugee himself, Ted Kennedy.  Kennedy is the chief sponsor of the Refugee Act of 1980 along with guess who, Senator Joe Biden—a law that set in motion the multimillion dollar government contract program to non-profit groups.

Although it would be nice to think that somehow we, at RRW, played some role (as suggested at GOV) in the slow trickle of Iraqi refugees to the US, all we have really been able to do is chronicle the situation (256 posts to date) from a distance.  There are all sorts of reasons given why the US was slow to start bringing Iraqis to America, I think a primary one was a rigorous screening process (365 “refugee” terrorists screened as of July) at Homeland Security.  I think the security people put brakes on the State Department for a long time.   But, all that is behind us now and the floodgates are open to Iraqi refugees.

Other than the truly persecuted Christians, we have been maintaining (in agreement with the Iraqi government) that Iraq needs its well-educated people to rebuild Iraq not cleaning motels in Baltimore.

I found a couple of things that might give us a slight hint at where things will be going with refugees in The One’s administration.

From the Obama/Biden website:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that America has both a moral obligation and a responsibility for security that demands we confront Iraq’s humanitarian crisis—more than five million Iraqis are refugees or are displaced inside their own country. Obama and Biden will form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find sanctuary.

At least there is no mention of an airlift to your town!   But the last line in this issue statement was interesting, although slightly off topic:

They will reserve the right to intervene militarily, with our international partners, to suppress potential genocidal violence within Iraq.

So, I guess if we leave Iraq and a bloodbath follows we are going back in?

An indication of where the Obama Administration might go on the subject of refugees comes from the lobbying arm of the Refugee industry, Refugees International (Chairman of the Board is Farooq Kathwari).  Note this message to Obama suggests a more subtle approach and doesn’t mention the word “resettlement.”

This is getting way too long, but I wanted to comment that at GOV Japan was mentioned.  Until now Japan has resisted taking refugees, but they were finally beaten down by the guilt-tripping “radicals who love all humanity” at the UN to begin bringing third worlders (Somalis!) to Japan.   See my post here in September.

I have no doubt that the pressure is on Japan to bring in Iraqis too.

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