So here is our post from a couple of days ago. Heck if all the readers arriving at RRW today signed it, it would be close to being done! You did a great job with governors today! Don’t forget to call Congress (scroll down)!
Gates of Vienna reports that a petition in the wake of the Paris terror attack seeking the halt of all refugee resettlement to the US from Middle Eastern countries has been placed on the White House ‘We the People’ petition site. Please go to GoV, see comments and follow links!
And, don’t forget that a sure fire way to stop the influx is to persuade Congress to use the POWER OF THE PURSE. Go here for our post yesterday on that effort. We must make our voices heard in a big way!
Sign the petition!
And, then call your members of Congress and US Senators and tell them to pull the plug on the funding! Unload especially on Speaker Paul Ryan. (Remember that US Senators Patrick Leahy and Lindsey Graham are pushing for $1 billion to be ADDED to a funding package to reach the Senate floor on or before December 11th to increase the Syrian flow to America).
Day: November 16, 2015
The Hill is reporting that 16 governors want Syrian resettlement suspended due to security concerns
***Update November 17*** CNN says 27 now.
***Update*** More states here (scroll for updates).
Update of previous post! (Guess the NYT will have to update its map)
From The Hill:
Fifteen Republican governors and one Democrat have announced plans to block Syrian refugees from resettling in their states in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley issued statements Sunday saying that they wanted to prioritize the safety of the residents in their states.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a GOP presidential candidate; Arkansas Gov. Gov. Asa Hutchinson; Indiana Gov. Mike Pence; Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant; Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner; Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker; Florida Gov. Rick Scott; North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory; Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican presidential candidate; Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; and Maine Gov. Paul LePage joined them on Monday.
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, who is challenging Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) for her Senate seat, became the first Democratic governor to call for halting the acceptance of refugees until the vetting process is reviewed.
More here.
I don’t want to diminish this major breakthrough in garnering attention for this here-to-fore secretive refugee program, but tomorrow, when I get a minute I am going to have to remind readers about the thousands and thousands of Iraqi, Afghan, Burmese and Somali Muslims pouring into the US through the RAP (Refugee Admissions Program) every year as we fixate on the small number of Syrians so far.
I’m telling you they can’t screen most of those any better (especially those Somalis who have left Africa and traveled illegally to places like Malta in Europe where we scoop up their illegal aliens, call them refugees, and fly them to America—including to South Carolina as we learned earlier this year).
NYT: Eight governors (so far) have said they don't want Syrians resettled in their states
I’ve got to hand it to the New York Times, they sure can do some great graphic work! Look at this fantastic map (which doesn’t reproduce well, so check it out by clicking here).
[NYT has updated this map!–ed]
And here is how the NYT story begins. They have nailed it in the second sentence. Is this a state’s rights issue—do governors have any say in the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program? That is what we have wanted to know for the last eight years!
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris, at least eight governors have said they oppose the entry of Syrian refugees into their states. Whether they have the authority to block them is not clear.
Continue reading here.
***Update*** Florida Governor Rick Scott joins the chorus, here.
***Update #2*** Now there are 16 governors total, here.
***Update #3*** Now Tennessee, here, a real shocker since Haslam has been a hardliner in support of more refugees for Tennessee.
***Update #4*** Here comes Idaho! Christie is in too!
***Update Nov. 17*** CNN says 27 (with map).
OK everyone take a breath! The numbers are getting a bit wild!
I’ve been out all day but have had a chance to listen to talk radio inbetween other things (there is life away from the computer!) and some of the numbers I’m hearing talked about are just crazy—the craziest number I heard was Trump saying Obama wanted 250,000 Syrians in the US in the next year or so. Now, perhaps deep down Obama would like nothing better, but he hasn’t said that yet!
Please consider that although this issue is extremely important, it is also important to be factual in our criticism.
And, just a reminder this has been going on for 35 YEARS through Republican and Democrat administrations. It didn’t start last month or the month before that!
By the way, if you seriously want to know what Obama is looking for this year, read his State Department’s PROPOSED REFUGEE ADMISSIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2016 REPORT TO THE CONGRESS, by clicking here.
He is vastly underestimating the $1.2 billion price tag, but presumably Congress will be wrangling with him over that (Senator Lindsey Graham and Patrick Leahy want to add ONE billion to get more Syrians in here!)
Just a brief overview of where the numbers I’m hearing come from (in addition to the 65,000 the Jihad Caucus asked for and we reported on in the above June 2015 Youtube clip):
~70,000 is the number of refugees the Obama Administration has been proposing for resettlement in recent years, and they have been coming close to that (that is for refugees from all over the world).
~85,000 is the number of refugees he has proposed for FY2016 (from all countries). He said he would propose 100,000 for FY2017 which would be his last opportunity to set the ceiling, but he can’t and won’t do that until September 2016.
~10,000 of the 85,000 is earmarked for Syrians for FY 2016. 10,000 are not being sent to Louisiana.
We have brought around 2,000 Syrians since the civil war began (but I will next be rechecking that number)
~65,000 Syrians is a number that was initially proposed by the federal resettlement contractors (aka volags) earlier this year (and that was after an earlier proposal to bring in 15,000 for each of five years, which we reported here in 2014). They wanted the 65,000 relocated here before Obama leaves office.
~65,000 Syrians is also the number 14 Democrat Senators*** (we called them the ‘Jihad Caucus’) proposed bringing in before Obama leaves office.
~100,000 Syrians is now the number being proposed by the refugee resettlement contractors. They want them here before Obama leaves office.
~250,000 Syrians is what Pres. candidate Trump says Obama wants. ***Update*** a reader sends this, it is Hannity who was talking about 250,000 first. See how Hannity gets to that number, here.
If anyone wants links for any of the numbers I’ve mentioned, please ask, because I don’t have the energy to put them all in here.
*** These are the 14 members of the Senate Jihad Caucus who last May (at the behest of the resettlement contractors) sent a letter to Obama indicating that 65,000 Syrians was a good number:
Dick Durban (D-IL)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Al Franken (D-MN)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Christopher Coons (D-DE) LOL! Delaware hasn’t taken a refugee in a couple of years!
Tim Kaine (D-VA)
Edward Markey (D-MA)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Mazie Hirono (D-HI) LOL! Last I looked Hawaii took a whole 7 refugees last year!
I hope that helps clear up some confusion. Let me know if more numbers are being bandied about so we can run those down too!
AP (After Paris) two Governors say don't send Syrian refugees to my state
….and a third, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, wants answers from the federal government.
I had hoped to spend a lot of time this morning writing about the Governors, but unfortunately I have other duties today (of all days) that will keep me from posting all of the breaking news that is coming to us in the wake of the Paris massacre. But, LOL!, there are so many people writing about refugees now that I can soon retire!
Here (below) is the NYT on the governors (we told you about Michigan yesterday, here). What is so important about this news is that we are going to learn whether the governors have ANY POWER AT ALL TO SAY “NO” because we have long been told that they don’t by the federal refugee industry and its contractors.
If you are in one of these three states (Alabama, Michigan and Louisiana), you need to shore-up your governor now, because I suspect they are going to get hounded by the No Borders agitators and the refugee contractors (and so-called ‘church’ people) working there. Even if no Syrians have been admitted, or only a small number, you must make your voice heard now!
From the New York Times:
The governors of Alabama and Michigan said on Sunday they would not allow refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria to be resettled in their states, citing the attacks on Paris.
“As your governor, I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm’s way,” Gov. Robert J. Bentley of Alabama, a Republican, said in a statement.
In Michigan, which has a sizable Arab-American population, Gov. Rick Snyder, also a Republican, said his state would not accept Syrian refugees, and he urged the State Department to review its procedures.
Syrians have already settled in Michigan, with one agency relocating about 200 of them in the past year, The Detroit Free-Press reported.
“Michigan is a welcoming state and we are proud of our rich history of immigration,” Mr. Snyder said in a statement. “But our first priority is protecting the safety of our residents.”
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has asked White House officials for information on how many Syrian refugees have relocated to his state, The Associated Press reported. Governor Jindal, a Republican, said he sought the information “in hopes that the night of horror in Paris is not duplicated here.”
I wish I had more time to talk to you about Alabama and Louisiana as so-called ‘Wilson-Fish’ states (learn what that means here) because in those states (there are 12 of them), the state government has been cut out of the refugee resettlement decision-making process altogether with the program administered from Washington through a non-profit group. I’m not saying governors in other states have much (or any control), but in these 12 states, the state and local taxpayers are completely unprotected.
If Jindal and Bentley really want to do something they need to begin to understand the system in their states, and stop it!