This is a strange turn of events. For the last couple of months we have been told (repeatedly) that the Obama Administration is on target to get its 10,000 Syrian Muslims placed in your towns by September 30th (the end of fiscal year 2016). We were told Obama sent an army of people to the Middle East to step-up the security screening process and now we are to believe that they can’t make the goal.
Don’t get me wrong, if true, that is good. But….
What’s up with this! Have they found more security concerns? Are the contractors downplaying expectations to protect Obama?
Here we have the Huffington Post (in a story that reads like it was planted) quoting many officials from the refugee resettlement companies matter-of-factly saying there won’t be 10,000 Syrians coming. Huh?
In September, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the U.S. would go from taking in 70,000 refugees per year to accepting 85,000 in fiscal year 2016 and 100,000 in the year after that. President Barack Obama specified, in the days following the Paris terror attacks in November, that at least 10,000 refugees taken in would be Syrian.
[….]
Kerry explained that the numbers of people resettled in America can’t realistically be any higher because of the rigorous post-9/11 screening requirements. The U.S. refuses to take any shortcuts on security.
[….]
It’s unlikely that the United States will resettle a total of 85,000 refugees in the 2016 fiscal year, let alone 10,000 Syrians, according to experts.
The quota is “not a hard and fast rule, it’s kind of just what people are hoping for. It depends on how processing continues overseas,” William Haney, associate director for external relations at Church World Service, one of the nine domestic resettlement agencies, told The Huffington Post.
Since Oct. 1, 2015, 2,805 Syrians have been resettled across the U.S., according to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration’s latest figures, released after May 31, 2016. That’s almost 30 percent of the 10,000 goal.
It’s progress from last year, when only 1,682 Syrians were resettled in total, said Eskinder Negash, senior vice president at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
“Things are slower than we anticipated,” added Helen Molinaro, the assistant director for refugee pre-arrival services at the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
But it’s rare that the U.S. meets its refugee resettlement targets, Negash said. Although it wouldn’t be unusual for the 10,000 figure not to be reached, it would represent “another disappointment,” he added.
[….]
Large pushes to reach the quota are common in July and August, before the fiscal year ends.
More than one-third of all Syrian resettlements so far this fiscal year happened in May, meaning that similar figures in the summer months could bring the U.S. closer to its target.
“I’m hopeful that there will be some expedited processing and we’ll have a better number to show,” Negash said.
What are the numbers so far?
I just checked the numbers and we have resettled 45,736 refugees this fiscal year as of June 15th. That means that in order to get to their dream number, 85,000 from all over the world, they have to get 39,264 seeded in towns in 49 states with only 3 and 1/2 months to go in the fiscal year. They might not make it!
Very strange in light of the fact that the O-man and Kerry bragged about this 85,000 goal for the year. And, they want 100,000 in here in 2017! (If Trump is elected in November he can halt the program or revise the numbers downward, but if Hillary is to be our next President, you can assume this program will not be slowed or reformed in any way.)
And what about that big Obama show in September at the UN, won’t he be embarrassed?
Could they have run into some really serious screening problems with the Syrians? Or, maybe they don’t have enough capacity in your towns to ‘welcome’ such large numbers? LOL! or maybe they couldn’t find enough Syrians who want to come to the US!