Here is where the 291 Syrians who have entered the US in FY2016 have been placed. California, Texas, Kentucky, Arizona and Ohio make the top five. (I selected for my search October 1, 2015 to November 15, 2015 and assume the data base is up to date to the 15th, but can’t know that for sure).
The flood gates have been opened and they will arrive hot and heavy now (will the governors have any power?).
At theRefugee Processing Center (click on reports and select interactive reports, you will be able to figure it out!) you can also check the religions of arriving refugees. Here is the breakdown for the 291 so far this fiscal year (assuming data base is up to date as of November 15th, two days ago):
3 Catholics
1 Christian
1 Orthodox
286 Sunni Muslims
As we have reported many times, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees picks most of our refugees and in the case of the Syrians they come from UN camps populated by mostly Muslims. He has 20,000 chosen for usalready. At a recent immigration conclavein Washington, DC, we were thereto hear him say that the Syrian Christians are not persecuted because the “regime” (Assad) was protecting them. As long as the UNHCR is choosing most of our refugees, I don’t expect the percentage of Muslims in the stream to change much.
One other bit of confusion flying around in the mainstream media is that somehow we will be getting Syrians who have flooded into Europe, we won’t be (at least not in any great number for now).
We are going to find out as the latest news is that 27 governors have in one way or another said—count me out when it comes to Syrian resettlement. From CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/world/paris-attacks-syrian-refugees-backlash/
[I hope to get time today to post some other considerations—one that I want everyone to understand is that we have been admitting tens of thousands of Muslim refugees for years from Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma and Uzbekistan, just to name a few, and I am not confident they had any thorough screening either, especially the Somalis. And, please remember that the problems we (and France) are having with terrorists in the immigrant population is that most have been raised in the protective bosom of our generous social welfare systems. So the parents might have come in as (vetted) decent people, but their children became radicalized right here among us. All the vetting in the world isn’t going to save us from the toddlers coming in with Mom and Dad from Africa and the Middle East who thumb their noses at the ‘good life’ and become radicalized 20 years down the road. The only true solution is a complete moratorium on Muslim immigration. (See White House Petition). Will these governors have the will for that? I doubt it!]
Back to the news…..
CNN filed this storyabout the governors’ power (or lack of it). We know that ol’ Ted Kennedy and ol’ Joe Biden were very clever indeed when they crafted what became the Refugee Act of 1980which is run almost completely by the US State Department, the Dept. of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement and the‘non-profit’ contractors who play a huge role in changing the demographics of your states. There is very little role for Congress in the law either (short of the power of the purse which they are increasingly scared to use!).
(CNN)A wave of governors — mostly Republicans — issued a cascade of press releases Monday voicing objections to Syrian refugees landing their states, following the Paris attacks.
Appleby is the chief lobbyist for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the federal contractor that resettles the largest number of Muslim refugees in the US. Last time I looked the Bishops were getting around $70 million annually from US taxpayers to do this work. We have many posts on him here: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/?s=Kevin+Appleby
Experts say that while the states may not have the legal authority to block their borders, state agencies have authority to make the process of accepting refugees much more difficult.
“When push comes to shove, the federal government has both the plenary power and the power of the 1980 Refugee Act to place refugees anywhere in the country,” said Kevin Appleby, the director of migration policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the largest refugee resettlement organization in the country.
Appleby said one thing the states could do was to cut their own funding in the area.
This is the power the governors have—cut funding for welfare and other social services (most don’t even have a clue how much state and local taxpayers are shelling out for a program that was supposed to be fully-funded from Washington 35 years ago and with the additional financial help from the non-profit contractors).
American University law professor Stephen I. Vladeck put it this way: “Legally, states have no authority to do anything because the question of who should be allowed in this country is one that the Constitution commits to the federal government.”
But Vladeck notes that without a state’s participation the federal government would have a much more difficult time. “So a state can’t say it is legally objecting, but it can refuse to cooperate, which makes thing much more difficult.”
Indeed that is going to be the real test! It is easy to spout-off with a letter now (after Paris), much harder to really put action behind those words. Be assured we will be watching!
Well the good news is that our readership jumped to 65,000 over our normal daily reader average yesterday as a result of the sudden interest (AP=After Paris) in a federal program that has been quietly going on across America for 35 years. The bad newsfor me is that there is so much news it’s impossible to sort through it all by myself and prioritize it, let alone deal with the avalanche of e-mails with questions and with media requests. I apologize. I simply can’t begin to read it all, let alone respond.
For the immediate future, I can’t accept any more radio interview requests, or I won’t get anything written! I’ll be trying to focus that writing where I can highlight important messages/principles that I see need to be addressed in the midst of all the excitement. And, I plan to try to get to more research of the data so we continue to have our facts straight.
Please send me breaking news as you see it, but put NEWS TIP in the subject line so it isn’t buried. Thank you so much. Let’s hope and pray this is a real turning point in how the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is administered and not just a sensationalist event AP.
For those of you arriving here for the very first time, there are over 7,000 posts archived at RRW, the easiest way to find something is to use the search function, see our FAQs page, here, or go to this weekly roundup (scroll to New Readers) for more tips on using RRW. If you use the search window one thing you could start with is the name of your state and see what we have said about it over the last eight years.
Well the good news is that our readership jumped to 65,000 over our normal daily reader average yesterday as a result of the sudden interest (AP=After Paris) in a federal program that has been quietly going on across America for 35 years.