Here is the first story (from Bloomberg) I’m seeing on the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing today on just how those Iraqi alleged terrorists got into the US through the Refugee Program. Sure sounds like it was a complete waste!
Obama administration officials defended policies for admitting Iraqi refugees into the U.S. at a Senate hearing on preventing terrorists from entering the country.
Programs such as granting special immigrant visas for Iraqis working on behalf of the U.S. government were intended to fulfill a “special responsibility” to these people, Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Officials make “every effort to streamline” the visa process while ensuring that those who receive them “do not pose a threat to the security of the United States,” Jacobs said.
Concerns about the program were underscored by the May arrests in Kentucky of two Iraqis who had entered the U.S. through the resettlement program and were charged with conspiring to provide weapons, money and other support to al- Qaeda in Iraq.
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, urged tougher controls in granting the special immigrant visas. He said he didn’t fault the government for “missing the needle in the haystack, but you need to make the haystack smaller. It’s hard to know who your friends are and who your foes are.”
About 58,000 Iraqi refugees have come to the U.S. since 2007, with about 30,000 still in Iraq who have been approved for resettlement, said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and her party’s ranking member on the committee. [possibly a few more needles in the hay stack!—ed]
I’ll see what other stories I find tomorrow.
By the way, these Special Immigrant Visas were one of the last “gifts” we got from Senator Ted Kennedy in a late night maneuver before he left to join Mary Jo (oh, that’s right he and Mary Jo are likely in different places).