Rep. Brian Babin called the Australia deal, where we would take ‘refugees’ who failed in their asylum claims to Australia, and place them instead into your American towns, “madness.”
If you don’t know what deal I’m talking about, click here.
From The Sydney Morning Herald(hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum):
Donald Trump “will do everything in his power” to halt the refugee deal between Australia and the US, according to a hardline Texan congressman who is confident no resettlements will ever take place from Manus Island or Nauru.
More than two months after the agreement between outgoing President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was announced, slow progress on applications and lengthy security vetting by the US Department of Homeland Security is raising fear among those held in the Australian offshore immigration detention centres, ahead of Mr Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
More here.
By the way, it was this news that sent me to the ‘Processing Country’ maps that I wrote about earlier to see if we processed anyone in from Australia lately. I didn’t see any.
I wonder if the ‘Hill’ youngsters know that Lincoln was a Republican? This isn’t about refugees per se, but as you get geared up to go to battle with Congress to push them to get tough on immigration and to reform/trash the US Refugee Admissions Program, this might be a helpful guide to what the other side is going to do!
They know, as you should, that the battle will ultimately be in Congress!
Sent to me by a reader, click hereto learn more, and go here to access the document.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Right!
If you’ve been a longtime Tea Party activist and weren’t sure you were getting things accomplished, you will be happy to see that the other side thinks you were highly successful!
I admit I didn’t read the whole thing yet, I just thought I should get it out quickly. Let me know if you see anything that we should make particular note of!
Investigative journalist, author and popular speaker James Simpson has penned an excellent overview of the Refugee Admissions Program published at The Federalista few days ago.
Full of facts and figures with many links to more information, it is entitled:
Simpson concludes with this prescription for the incoming Trump administration reflecting my views as well:
The resettlement program is dangerous, expensive, and unfair to Americans. Its structure encourages endless growth, systemic corruption, cronyism, secrecy, and duplicity. The refugee program must be put on hold. Members of Congress have called for a moratorium, and such legislation is circulating. H.R. 3314, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act, has 86 co-sponsors.
James Simpson
But legislation isn’t needed. On his first day in office, Trump can pause the entire program by simply resetting the annual refugee targets to whatever number has already been reached this fiscal year.The 1980 Refugee Act gives him authority to do this, and subsequent court decisions have declared Congress’s refugee resettlement oversight authority as advisory only.
Trump has stated his desire to halt resettlement from nations of terrorism concern. It would be wiser to pause the entire program.
Once paused, the entire system must be either trashed or completely reformed. Congress must do that, and by pausing the program it puts the hammer over reluctant Congressional leaders’ heads! If they want to admit refugees to the US, they can reform it or completely scrap the present law and start all over. But, that fight must be fought.
Trump could easily do what George Bush did in the wake of 9/11!
There is precedent for pausing the program. George Bush partially paused it in the two years following 9/11. I just had a look at the ORR Annual Report to Congress for 2003 and entry tables*** are telling. We went from admitting 94,226 refugees in FY2000, and 87,110 in FY2001 to the following numbers for FY02 and FY03: 45,850 and 39,177 respectively.
Going back to my previous post where I reported that we have admitted 25,671 refugees in the first 90 days of this fiscal year, if that rate continues until January 20th (adding another 5,704) that means by inauguration day the number for this fiscal year will be 31,375. And, if Trump doesn’t pause it until January 30th, then we are looking at 34,228 having entered by then (not far off of the Bush numbers).
Your work is not over because Trump must take the initiative to change the law, not just halt or slow the flow during his term in office. So, pausing, or giving the program a ‘time-out,’ when Trump enters office will not be unprecedented or unreasonable to help assure our safety and will throw the ball to Congress where the law must be changed or in 4-8 years we will be back to square one.
***BTW, I was interested to see the dramatic drop in Somali numbers from 2001 (4,940) to 2002 (242!). Worried about Somalis weren’t they!
I find it interesting to examine Wrapsnet’s ‘Processing Country’ maps when they are updated at the end of each month. We don’t know exactly who is being processed through each country (these are not necessarily the countries of origin of the refugees being placed in your towns), however we can make educated guesses. Kenya for example….
UNHCR camp (Dadaab) in Kenya where Somalis wait for a ticket to your town. This is why Kenya is the #2 processing country for refugees arriving in the US.
Since Kenya, considered a safe country that has hosted huge United Nations camps primarily for Somalis, is the second largest processing country, we can assume that we are working hard to help the UN clean out camps like Dadaab and that large numbers of Somalis are arriving from the camps Kenya would like to close! The Kenyan government believes Islamic terrorists are harbored in the UN camps. In the first three months of the present fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2016-December 31, 2016) we admitted 25,671 refugees, a much higher number than I have seen for the last 10 years and in keeping withreports like this onefrom Rochester, NY where the resettlement contractor says they can’t manage the huge flow coming in.
Of the 25,671, Iraqis account for 3,624, Syrians 3,566 and Somalis 3,488 (all terror producing countries).
If Donald Trump doesn’t pause the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program when he takes office, and this rate of entry continues, we will have the highest years for Syrians and Somalis (in 30 years for Somalis!) entering the US.
So here (below) is the latest ‘Processing country’ map (I did not reproduce the South American portion, but know that we are processing small numbers in from there).
Not obvious on this map, and not in the top ten, but noteworthy are the island nation of Malta (in the EU) that sent us 170 illegal alien boat people (calling them refugees) who landed on Malta in just those three months. They are the European Union’s problem, not ours! I have written dozens of posts on this practice that began in the Bush Administration! See here.
Also maddening is the fact that we are doing the same thing in South Africa where we are taking that country’s illegal aliens (such as the unwanted Somalis) to the US as refugees. In the first three months we took in 338 from S. Africa. These are not persecuted whites we are admitting! South Africa is supposed to be the welcoming RAINBOW NATION, so why must we take their rejected asylum seekers? Why are their immigration problems ours?
There are so many reforms Congress could be making even if they don’t have the stomach for a complete rewrite of this program, including disallowing such practices as we see going on with S. Africa and Malta!
Here is the ‘Processing Country’ map and note that in many cases these are Muslim countries we are processing from.
Here are the Top Ten Processing countries (remember we don’t know which nationalities are being processed in these locations):
