In one short week, everything has changed in the political landscape around the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program, so much so that I’ve lost track! Here is a good US map and description (as of Thursday, the 19th). I know 48 hours is a long time ago considering how fast things are moving, so send a comment to this post if your state has since changed its position, or if you have anything new to add.
From Citylab (hat tip: Jim):
Go herefor more. If you live in one of the green states, you need to let your governors know how you feel!
Roanoke!
Check our archiveson that Virginia city, they have had their share of problems with refugees over the years. See especially the stories about the refugees (sent to prison in 2009) for planning to kidnap for ransom some prominent women in the town.
Come on mayors! We need some of you who have complained in the past to step forward now!
You just knew it had to be so, and I’m actually amazed that the Associated Press even wrote this story. Incredible!
We previously told youabout the discord in Allentown, PA as the local Lutheran contractor was surprised to see angry Tea Partiers show up a recent meeting. But, at that time we were being told that Allentown was ideal because of its large “welcoming” Syrian community. Pennsylvania Governor, Dem. Tom Wolf said in a statement that PA will continue to welcome the mostly Sunni Muslim Syrians to the state (even if the Syrian Christians are worried?): http://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/11/18/why-pa-continue-accepting-syrian-refugees/75979840/
In fact Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told that gathering at Georgetownwe attended that the Syrian American community was opening its arms to the new refugees—well maybe not so much!
[After the first six weeks of FY2016 admissions, PA is number six of the 50 states receiving 98% Muslim Syrian refugees, see here.]
Syrian Christian: We need to know who we are welcoming!
Here is the AP story at CBS News(What gives? MSM news outlets posting a story that doesn’t fit the Administration’s narrative!):
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A few days ago, a pastor asked Syrian-born restaurant owner Marie Jarrah to donate food to a welcoming event for recently arrived Syrian refugees. Jarrah, who said she regularly helps people in need, declined.
Like many of Allentown’s establishment Syrians, she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to bring refugees to the city. She clung to that view even before last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris. “Problems are going to happen,” said Jarrah, co-owner of Damascus Restaurant in a heavily Syrian enclave.
As debate intensifies nationally over the federal government’s plan to accept an additional 10,000 refugees from war-ravaged Syria, a similar argument is taking place in Allentown – one with a sectarian twist.
Pennsylvania’s third-largest city is home to one of the nation’s largest populations of Syrians. They are mostly Christian and, in no small number, support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – a dynamic that’s prompting some of them to oppose the resettlement of refugees, who are Muslim and say they fled violence perpetrated by the Assad regime.
Aziz Wehbey, an Allentown auto dealer and president of the American Amarian Syrian Charity Society, worries some Syrian refugees might have taken part in the fighting in Syria’s civil war and have “blood on their hands.”
“We need to know who we are welcoming in our society,” said Wehbey, who immigrated to the United States a quarter-century ago and became a citizen.
The article does go on to say some Christians are coming around.
One of the myths we have tried to explode over the years here at RRW is this idea that America is one big happy melting pot and that we can shoehorn many disparate cultures and races together (who have been fighting for hundreds of years where they came from) and expect them to live happily ever after in America.
We have reported case after case of clashes for example between African Americans and the new African refugees as they are shoved together in inner city neighborhoods. Now we are going to see if Middle Eastern Muslims will live side by side with Middle Eastern Christians.
Why would tensions be less here than they were in Syria? They won’t, and it’s this liberal clap-trap we must expose!
Senator Jeff Sessions, the long-time champion of the American worker and taxpayer took to the Senate floor on Thursday evening in an attempt to get the message to all of you that simply asking the fox (the Obama Administration) to guarantee that no terrorists would slip into the refugee stream, as the Ryan bill (here) did that same day, is not sufficient. Sessions: Administration will not give us full accounting of immigration histories of arrested/convicted Islamic terrorists in US. I sure hope this means that an effort to cut funding is still on the table following the Thanksgiving recess. Here is World Net Daily (Hohmann again) with details:
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is throwing cold water on President Obama’s plans to expand the number of Islamic refugees entering the U.S. from Syria, saying it’s a recipe for disaster similar to what’s happening in Europe.
He urged Congress to use its only real power – the power of the purse – to stop a president who has often “run over Congress” to get his way.
In a speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Sessions said Obama has ignored 72 documented cases of terrorist activity by suspected Muslim immigrants inside the United States since July of last year. Many of these terrorists came to the U.S. as refugees, a stark contrast to the “widows and orphans” meme put forth by the Obama administration and the myriad political and religious groups that support the resettlement business.
Sessions said his office sent the list of terrorist plots, many of them foiled by the FBI before they could be carried out, to the administration more than four months ago and asked for the immigration histories of each suspect.
Sen. Ted Cruz also co-signed the request sent to the Obama administration with an attached list of 72 individuals charged or convicted of terrorism.
“We asked for the immigration histories of each one of these individuals,” Sessions said. “Isn’t that a good thing to know?
Shouldn’t we as policy makers know how these terrorists got into the country? Well, stunningly, the administration just refused to respond. They think if maybe they ignore these requests then people won’t know and begin to question how things are being conducted. Congress should not acquiesce to the president’s refugee funding request when he refuses to even publicly disclose the immigration histories of these 72 terrorists, many of whom are connected to ISIS – al-Qaida and ISIS.”
[….]
The Syrians now flooding into the United States are more than 97 percent Muslims, and evidence is building that Muslim officials within the United Nations refugee camps discriminate heavily against Christians.
A new poll out this week by Bloomberg showed that a majority of Americans across all party lines, 53 percent, are against the resettlement of Syrian Muslim refugees in their cities and towns.
Sessions has called for Congress to defund the refugee program, rather than merely ask for greater assurances that refugees can be vetted, as does Speaker Paul Ryan’s bill, passed by the House Thursday.
“It would be unthinkable for Congress to acquiesce to the president’s refugee funding request when he refuses to even publicly disclose the immigration history of these 72 terrorists, many of whom are involved with ISIS,” Sessions said.
[….]
What should Congress do to stop a program that the people oppose and Congress has not approved?
“The answer lies in the power of the purse,” Sessions said. “Each and every year the president submits a request to congress to fund. Congress, who has been run over numerous times by this administration, must not write the blank check that the president is asking.”
Invasion of Europe news….
This story is confusing to me. Actually it discusses THE big question I have, and I have not seen any good explanation for what could happen.
First, we hear reports that Sweden and Germany are closing their borders. If that is so, and is happening already (or will happen), eventually what will become of all those migrants working their way northward? Won’t they build up as water might behind a dam?
Maybe these Balkan states are getting ready for that inevitable outcome.
Earlier this morning I saw this confusing (to me) report at the UNHCR website,here. So I looked for a more understandable news story and found this one at The Guardian. It still doesn’t answer my question, but does help to lay out the problem.
Have a quick look at the UNHCR interactive map that shows the migrant flow on a daily basis (yesterday 4,499 new refugees arrived in Greece) and imagine if the spigot gets shut off at the German/Austrian border or the Austria/Slovenia border, then what? All of those flowing northward will inevitably pile up in those states ‘downstream’ right?
And, I guess what those countries downstream are saying is that they don’t want thousands of economic migrants (they are NOT refugees) piled up in their countries. But, they will get a logjam of legitimate asylum seekers anyway. EU leaders should have stopped the boats months ago, it all seems too little too late to me!
Here is what The Guardianis reporting:
Countries along the Balkan migration trail have begun refusing to admit people of certain nationalities, amid a backlash against refugees in the aftermath of the Paris attacks last Friday.
Humanitarian workers active along the borders of Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia reported that refugees and migrants from countries other than Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq were now being stopped, raising the spectre of a migrant logjam in Greece.
The move comes after Slovenia, the most northerly country along the trail, suddenly tried to return 168 Moroccan migrants to Croatia on Thursday, in the first major development along the Balkan migration route since Hungary shut its border in September. [Moroccan’s are not refugees, they are not being persecuted!—ed]
The decision sparked panic among the countries to Slovenia’s south, who feared that Slovenia was about to block access to anyone who could not easily prove their need for refugee status, and consequently turned back all migrants from Africa and southern Asia.
Slovenia said on Thursday afternoon it had not made any permanent decisions, and promised to admit refugees as long as Germany and Austria continued to subsequently take them. But a police spokesman confirmed that Slovenia would discuss with its Balkan neighbours how to limit the flow of so-called economic migrants in the future.
More here.
The great build up behind a dam seems inevitable to me. One day Germany will stop the flow and surely Austria will too then and the pile up will happen in those countries less able to manage any of this invasion. Is anyone planning for this likely outcome? Go here for our complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive.
Expect a showdown in the next few weeks as hundreds of mostly Sunni Muslim Syrians(selected by the UN) are already en route to Democratic Party-run cities. Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is featured in the CNN article. Rawlings-Blake is working with Muslim Brotherhood affiliated charity Islamic Relief USA to bring in more refugees from Africa and the Middle East to beleaguered Baltimore. http://irusa.org/press-releases/rebuilding-a-city-rebuilding-lives-baltimore-welcomes-refugees/
I’m betting these mayors, who are bucking their mostly Republican governors, are also presiding over sanctuary cities for illegal aliens.
This news is from CNN:
WASHINGTON (CNN) —Democratic mayors across the country are clashing with mostly Republican governors who say their states shouldn’t accept Syrian refugees.
More than half — 31 — of the nation’s governors, most of the Republicans, say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states. The final say on allowing refugees into the country falls with the federal government, though governors can slow down the process and make placing and aiding refugees more difficult.
[….]
Because the United States Conference of Mayors has not changed its refugee policy since the Paris attacks, the group’s communications director Elena Temple-Webb told CNN Wednesday she believes the mayors will continue to welcome refugees.
More here.
At some point this will all make its way to the Supreme Court.
