He did it! President Donald Trump signed the executive order on refugees

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http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-refugees-20170127-story.html

I happened to catch him signing as I came in just before 5 p.m. today.  But, will have to wait for the exact details of the order’s text.
***Update January 28th*** Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart reported late last night about the details of the Executive Order, click here. Here is the language.
We believe it includes a 120-day moratorium, a cap on refugee resettlement for this fiscal year at 50,000 and some kind of inter-agency directive to improve the vetting process (the so-called extreme vetting).  Earlier today we pointed out that 50,000 was not that great a reduction, here.

Now the ball must be placed in Congress’ court!

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Every effort must be made in those 120 days to pressure Congress to begin to reform the entire Refugee Admissions Program.
I suspect many members of Congress gave a sigh of relief that Donald Trump was going to take the heat (and oh, there will be heat, more on that later), so they can pretend something is being done and THEY DON’T HAVE TO DO IT.
Trump has taken the monkey off their backs, you must put it right back on!
I’m telling you that if the law is not changed we will be back to square one come the end of May!  The President’s pen and phone can only do so much. The next President can undo it all, if the law is not rewritten.
So Trump should threaten to extend that moratorium unless Congress begins the hard work of reevaluating and ultimately rewriting the Refugee Act of 1980.
And, if there are any brave Senators or Members of Congress willing to take the lead, that legislator should hold field hearings around the country to hear directly from citizens about the impact more immigrant labor is having on local workers, to hear about the economic challenges local and state governments are facing, and to assess the cultural upheaval communities are experiencing.

Do not stop doing whatever you are doing in your pockets of resistance, but make sure everything you do gets to the ears of your member of Congress and US Senators.

See our complete Trump Watch! archive here.

Comment worth noting: Rohingya are economic migrants, fake refugees, do not admit to US

The other day I told you that I believe that the Trump team doesn’t have a good understanding of where all of the questionable ‘refugees’ might be coming from.

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https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/01/25/trump-watch-dont-leave-the-rohingya-off-extreme-vetting-list/

We have been taking tens of thousands of refugees from Burma (Myanmar) over many years. Most have been Christian minorities that the Buddhist government there was forcing out. Now we are stepping up and taking Rohingya Muslims from Burma and Bangladesh.
I told you about it here just the other day.  Bangladesh is a Muslim country and so is Malaysia, one of several countries in the region harboring Rohingya boat people.

Why are the Rohingya our problem?

(Obama admitted 13,500 during his term in office.)
I have followed the Rohingya story since I first began writing RRW in 2007 and I can assure you the media has skewed the news to make it appear that the Rohingya are pure as the driven snow.  They never mention that the latest round of conflict began when Muslim men raped and murdered a Buddhist girl.  I have no time to go back over the 194 previous posts in my Rohingya reports category, you might want to have a look yourself. The writer, below, reports things that I found to be true over the years.
This is a comment we received in response to my post here (I don’t know this person). Emphasis is mine.
Winthan Aung:

Those so-called Refugees “Rohingya” Muslims are “economic” refugee. Basically, they are from Bangladesh. They will claim they are from Myanmar, for getting a refugee status and blame Myanmar government with bias fake stories. Trump must not take them into the US anymore. These people are good for nothing, and but for troubles. In Myanmar, they have caused a lot problem. They are with Mujahideen Terrorists.

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Burmese monks making their views clear!

The “Rohingya” name pop out not long ago, ridiculously they wanna claim themselves as new ethnic of Myanmar. In fact, The “Rohingya” word is not mentioned in any dating back to Arakan (now Rakhine) Kingdom years, not long before 1950 as well. In fact, there was no historical report about fighting for Burma Independent movement at all. The ‘Rohingya’ was totally unknown to the British administration of Burma.

In WWII, British India region merged Burma/India border, that opened freely Western border of Myanmar. The people who lived Chittagong of Bangladesh and India got opportunities to travel and work in Western of Myanmar.

The Partition of India gave East Chittagong Bangladeshi people ideas that they could take advantage on the Western part of Burma as well. There was 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the Urdu-speakers was “Non-Bengalis” that time. That worries for Chittagong Bangladeshi, they wouldn’t be considered as Bangladeshi in Bangladesh.

From 1946 a separatist, the jihadist uprising had gripped Arakan and in support of their political agenda, the ‘Rohingya’ myth was created after.

At Uprising of jihadist Chittagong Bangladesh (now Bengali Muslims) chanted “Pakistan Zindabad” while killing Rakhine Citizen. Mujahideen took advantage and encroached Rakhine land at WWII. There were the mass killing of Rakhine people and hundreds of villages burned down in 1942. On 28 March 1942, Bangladeshi Muslims from Northern Arakan massacred around 20,000 Buddhists in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. At the same period, around 5,000 Muslims in Minbya and Mrauk-U Townships were also killed by the Arakanese Buddhists.

However, Myanmar government intervened the Mujahideen movement by the time of 1962. The Myanmar Government banned all Bangladeshi illegal immigrants who are already in Rakhine state (Western Part of Myanmar) not to travel all states of Myanmar. The economic illegal immigrants stuck in Rakhine state, mostly Maungdaw township, Buthidaung and Rathedaung Townships of Northern Rakhine State.

Due to the poverty of Bangladesh, the economic immigrants from Bangladesh never stop coming to the Western part of Burma. More than 26 million live under the poverty line in Bangladesh, they live on less than $1.25 a day. the Government is not willing to do anything for them.

On the other hands, Myanmar Government was totally corrupted and the Junta was notoriously threatening to all ethnic groups in Myanmar. The Shan, Kachin, Kaya, Kayin, Chin, Rakhine ethnic groups suffered and they become refugees in Thailand and Malaysia. Real ethnic groups of Myanmar got opportunities to settle down in third countries after suffering.

When UNHCR focuses on Myanmar for ethnic crisis, Bangladeshi fake refugees approached and got aids by UNHCR as well, the people who didn’t make $1.25 a day got the opportunity to live with UN aids in Burma is their fortune, as long as they fabricated with fake stories to convince UNHCR staffs of their so-called people beaten up by Junta and harsh treatment of Myanmar Government. In order to convince UNHCR, they had pretended they were one of ethnic, “Rohingya”, which never existed in History of Burma.

When refugees crisis is the focus by internationals. They take advantages of getting resettlement. fake media will promote for their rating. Their advocates gain access to so many political, social and academic platforms to promote their sole agenda. Meanwhile, Myanmar government unethically approached them as well, issue “White card” as temporary identity card and forced them to vote for their Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) at Election. On the other hand, Global Muslims (grassroots to imams) gang up on the people of Myanmar (all over internet and media). Speaking of “Rohingya”, there is no ethnic name in Myanmar, If you have ethnic, you must have own language, they don’t have Rohingya language, they speak only as Chittagong Bengali, breath as Chittagong Bengali, they are only recognized as Bengali in Myanmar, nothing more than that. They are not really stateless, their motherland is Bangladesh.

By staying in the refugees camp in Bangladesh or getting aids from UNHCR office in Myanmar couldn’t make them satisfied. In Myanmar, they cannot travel only in Rakhine state. They later learned about resettlement program of UNHCR. But UNHCR in Myanmar didn’t have any resettlement program for them. However, UNHCR at Malaysia and Thailand provides the refugee to resettlement in third countries.

Getting into Myanmar is easy, bribery helps them to get inside of Myanmar easily. Or just cross over the river where there is no border guard. However, getting to Malaysia is hard for them. Smugglers convinced Bangladeshi how they could earn $1000 in a month in Malaysia. Indeed the Bangladeshi who made to Malaysia could get a better living. Thus, Bangladeshi are deliberately paying smugglers about US$200 to $250 to travel to Malaysia to become economic Refugees. The people who move in this route, bet with their lives at risk. But this is the only way they could effort to travel. If they got lucky, they will get a chance to get resettlement in third countries instantly.

Any Refugees coming to Malaysia/Thailand are usually sent to countries like Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States for resettlement. However, Thailand route has long wait time to get to third countries. Their best destination is the Malaysia. There is already 42,230 Rohingya under UNHCR protection in Malaysia. That is the main motivation for them to get to there, and it is the cheapest way for traveling to Malaysia if they are not very lucky, they usually end up in Thailand, wait for more years to get the resettlement or travel again to Malaysia.

After arriving in Malaysia, they filed asylum (application) at UNHCR for refugee status, UNHCR aid these refugees, and provides monthly allowances for them until they get the settlement in third countries. Anyhow, they could easily go back without problems if they don’t get refugee status (but they are not willing to go back, even without refugee card, they could earn money) or if they have money, they usually buy refugee status in Malaysia. Some smuggler applied UNHCR card for selling the Refugees status in Malaysia. They usually pay Malaysia RM-3,500 for the card. UNHCR aware about those fraudulent activities, but they kept on silences.

The economic refugees are traveling again and again to Malaysia until international leaders push pressure to Bangladesh. Sooner or later, you will see another boat come out from Bangladesh, and claims they are from Myanmar since the topic is hot. In that case, Myanmar government is easy to blame. They have kept doing for the decade. This time they got caught by authorities (Thai, Malaysia, Indonesia) who got enough of their problems (too many crimes cases with Rohingya in Thai, Malaysia), and push back to sea.

The people are sneaking into other countries without papers by boats, they left the Bangladesh, they have only 2 points in this immigration – firstly try to get UNHCR status or get a chance to work in any country, because they don’t get enough to make living in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has been overcrowded you can view the Dhaka video – https://www.facebook.com/Rmbds/videos/1245958078756125/, they cannot make up living at there, some of Bangladeshi in that country even sell their organs just little as $5000 well.

If you call these fake people a “Refugees”, then we fail to support real refugees who really need for. We must save cards for real one, not these fakes.

This post is filed in our ‘Comments worth noting’ category here, and in our Rohingya Reports category, here.

Trump Watch! Is rumored refugee cap reduction to 50,000 that significant?

One more post on numbers and the rumored executive order on refugees, and then I am moving on to a lot of other refugee news that has gone unreported for days as we watch and wait for President Trump’s delayed order on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.

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The Bush Administration was favorable toward refugees, and yet he had 4 years where the numbers admitted were under 50,000. Bush’s average was around 58,750.  So, if Trump comes in at 50,000, it isn’t a shockingly unprecedented reduction.

The rumor (and who leaked the draft executive order anyway?) is that Donald Trump will cap the refugee admissions for FY2017 at 50,000.  Obama had proposed 110,000 (and the refugee resettlement contractors have been busy finding new sites for their placement).
As of today we are at 32,094 (see previous post).
(Trump will be setting the numbers for FY2018 in September of this year.)
But this is what you need to know:  50,000 doesn’t represent a shocking reduction when you look at the history of resettlement since 2001. (These numbers, below, came from this chart, Wrapsnet, and from ORR annual reports to Congress).
Here are the numbers we admitted through the Bush and Obama Administrations (Bush had 4 years under 50,000!). Remember the resettlement agencies are paid by the head, so it is to their financial benefit to see high numbers:

2001: 87,259 (this year’s number would have been proposed by Clinton in the fall of 2000)

2002: 45,896

2003: 39,554

2004: 79,158

2005: 69,006

2006: 41,223

2007: 48,282

2008: 60,191

2009: 74,654

2010: 73,311

2011: 56,424

2012: 58,238

2013: 69,926

2014: 69,987

2015: 69,993

2016: 84,994

Again, 50,000 might look like a great reduction when compared to Obama’s 110,000 proposed number, but it isn’t that significant a reduction.  I bet the media will report this as Trump cutting the refugee numbers in half!
See our Trump Watch! category for all the news about the delayed executive order.

My methodology when using Wrapsnet (the DOS data base for incoming refugees) explained

Sorry, I got screwed up in my math last night and had to change the headline of my post.
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For new readers, here is the Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet) website where you find the numbers of refugees entering the US—where they are from and where they are going.
Click here and see the various choices you can make in pulling up data. Try it yourself!
By the way, this was information not available to the general public for many of the early years of RRW.  It was a password protected site.
The problem (and one that caught me yesterday) is that we don’t know exactly when in the course of 24 hours data is being posted, so by going back later in the day on any given day, one can get deceptive results.
So, I’m going back to my previous (safe) methodology of checking numbers at only one time of the day, between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., and capture all the entries for a previous 24 hour period.
This is what I know:
On the morning of President Trump’s inauguration the number of refugees admitted to the US this fiscal year (which began on October 1, 2016), the same fiscal year that Obama had proposed entry numbers of 110,000 *** (the highest since way before 9/11), it was 29,895.
This morning, one week later the number is 32,094.  That means 2,199 refugees arrived in the US since Inauguration Day. That is a daily rate of 314 per day!

Here are the numbers I recorded each day (all between 5 and 6 a.m.):

January 20th: 29,895

January 21st: 30,063

January 22nd: 30,063

January 23rd: 30,063

January 24th: 30,063

January 25th: 30,885

January 26th: 31,521

January 27th: 32,094

We added 2,199 refugees in the week. It is still a mystery why there were no refugees being recorded on those 4 days. The data began to be updated in the afternoon of the 24th.
If you play around with Wrapsnet, you can find out how many refugees of each nationality were placed in your towns (since 2002).

New readers looking for which resettlement agencies are working in your cities and towns, go here.

***Obama proposed 110,000 for this fiscal year, and as of today we are already at 32,094. If Trump changes the number to 50,000, yes that is a reduction from Obama’s proposal, but it is not that significant when looking back ten years.  Obama had 2 years under 60,000 and Bush had 4 years under 50,000. (See my next post)