Promises, promises: As we approach 100 days, Trump has dropped ball on refugee program reform

Here is a detailed story at Breitbart yesterday in which reporter Michael Patrick Leahy reminds us of what Donald Trump promised, especially in Minnesota, days before his victory in the 2016 Presidential contest.

With about a week to go until his administration reaches the 100-day mark, President Trump’s campaign promises to halt Syrian refugee resettlement and tighten up the refugee vetting process remain largely unfulfilled.

Trump has reduced the overall number of refugees resettled, something that he implied but did not specifically promise on the campaign trail, but the level of reduction falls far short of the virtual halt many of his supporters had hoped to see.

President Trump’s most explicit statements about the refugee resettlement program during the campaign came at a November 6 rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota, two days before the election.

“A Trump administration will not admit any refugees without the support of the local community where they are being placed,” he told a “crowd of more than 5,000 who greeted him at the Sun Country Airlines hangar of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport” (emphasis added):

“Hillary wants a 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees pouring into our country. And she wants virtually unlimited immigration and refugee admissions, from the most dangerous regions of the world, to come into our country and to come into Minnesota, and you know it better than anybody,” Trump said.

“Her plan will import generations of terrorism, extremism, and radicalism into your schools and throughout your communities,” he continued.

“When I’m elected president, we will suspend the Syrian refugee program and we will keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country,” Trump announced.

“Here in Minnesota you’ve seen first hand the problems caused with faulty refugee vetting, with large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval, and with some of them then joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all over our country, and all over the world,” Trump told the crowd.

“Everybody’s reading about the disaster taking place in Minnesota, everybody’s reading about it. You don’t even have the right to talk about it, you don’t even know who’s coming in, you have no idea. You’ll find out. You’ll find out,” he promised.

“And we will pause admissions from terror-prone regions until a full security assessment has been performed, and until a proven vetting mechanism has been established,” Trump added.

Continue reading here as Leahy lays out in great detail where Trump has dropped the ball.
We have extensive reporting in our ‘Trump Watch’ category on the many fumbles (if they are fumbles!) and the numbers the Trump Dept. of State is admitting with no sign of any “extreme vetting” having been put in place.
As of last Friday we have admitted 41,553 refugees in FY17, and, at the 900 a week rate, we could reach 60,000 (an average number since 9/11).
If I had to guess what caused the Trump big talk to fizzle, I bet it was the Chamber of Commerce Republicans who have convinced him that US companies need the cheap LEGAL refugee laborers now that the flow of illegals is slowing.
BIG MEAT needs workers willing to work for low wages, see here.  (So does BIG POULTRY, and the dairy industry, and Marriott hotels, and airport support services, etc. etc.). What a business model—pay low wages and the refugee family is subsidized through taxpayer-funded welfare programs!
Never forget! Refugee resettlement is not first and foremost about humanitarianism!

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