I don’t want to have to write a book (although I have written 201 posts on the topic at my Rohingya Reports category), so I’ll be brief with the background.
Burma is a Buddhist country and they want to keep it that way (I’m not judging them, you may). So as a result, the US has for years been taking tens of thousands of ‘refugees’ representing Burmese minority religions. The largest numbers have been Christians.
So when I saw this latest news about an uptick in violence between the Buddhists and Muslims (Rohingya) by the Associated Press (story below), I had a check of the number of Burmese being admitted to the US and how many are Muslims.
This isn’t just a story about far away Burma, this effects you—Americans—too!
The important takeaway from the numbers is that we brought no Rohingya to America in the first year I wrote RRW (2007), but I see that this year (2017) just over a quarter of the ‘refugees’ admitted from Burma are Muslim according to Wrapsnet.
The AP story references the 2012 riots between the Rohingya and Buddhists. I saw the reports as they were coming in and the media shamefully never mentions that the fuse was lit that year when a Buddhist girl was raped and murdered by a gang of Muslim criminals.
Here are the facts about Rohingya resettlement to America:
In FY2008: We admitted 18,139 Burmese ‘refugees’ to America. The vast majority were Christians. None were Muslim.
I then checked numbers for FY2012: We admitted 14,160 ‘refugees’ from Burma and only 759 were Muslims (5%). After that year the numbers have steadily risen.
This year, so far in FY2017, we have admitted 4,803 Burmese and 1,269 are listed as Muslim (26%).
Here is the AP story which should be entitled, ‘Rohingya insurgent group takes responsibility for latest violence.’ Instead that news is 19 paragraphs down in the story.
Violence in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state has driven thousands of ethnic Rohingya Muslims fleeing toward Bangladesh for safety, along with a smaller exodus of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.
A majority of the country’s estimated 1 million Rohingya live in the northern part of Rakhine state, where Rohingya insurgents launched coordinated attacks last week against police posts, setting off allegedly brutal retaliation by government forces.
Human rights groups and advocates for the Rohingya say the army retaliated by burning down villages and shooting civilians. The government blames Rohingya insurgents for the violence, including the arson.
[….]
Tension has long been high between the Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists, leading to bloody rioting in 2012.
Most of the violence since last week seems to be directed at Rohingya villages, but Rakhine Buddhists, feeling unsafe after the upsurge in fighting, are moving south to the state’s capital, Sittwe, where Buddhists are a majority and have greater security.
[….]
From my own personal and professional experience, I KNOW that irefugee resettlement has become a big business, aka the “refugee resettlement industry”, which is financed on a refugee per capita basis by taxpayers. Simply put, the more refugees who enter, the more faux humanitarian and greedy church-related refugee programs prosper.
Trust me when I tell you that the refugee resettlement industry has become virtually ALL about money–NOT compassion–and that whether or not refugees pose a threat to the country takes a back seat to these agencies’ bottom line. Oh, sure. Kind-hearted UNPAID volunteers drawn from the community are in it for the right reasons, but 90% of paid staffers are not. You must understand that.
With Trump’s refugee suspension under review by the Supreme Court (no ruling until October 1st) and his “determination” on the number of refugees to be resettled in FY’18 due for submission to Congress for funding mid-September, I would urge him to suspend his “determination” for FY’18 until after the SCOTUS ruling is reviewed and analyzed, this to assess whether or not it deleteriously impacts the President’s ability to properly manage the flow of assimilable refugees.
Having been besieged by improperly vetted and often unassimilable refugees over the years, and since the government’s primary duty is to safeguard the interests and security of American citizens FIRST, it is time for the feds to examine how cost-effective and beneficial this program has been to America and to suggest more reasonable vetting and resettlement standards. Such a careful study is LONG overdue.
While this comprehensive study is underway, the President should appeal to Congress to study assimilation outcomes among all refugee groups before permitting any but the most seriously vulnerable cases to enter the country. This is not to say their suffering should be ignored during the pendency of the study. Not at all. There is still ample opportunity and humanitarian justification for the US to properly assist needy refugees “in place” overseas until this study is completed and until the proper number and nationality breakdown of entrants is carefully determined–the resettlement lobbyists’ howls of protest and self-serving pleas for compassion be damned. In truth, it’s NOT necessary for refugees to come here to be properly cared for and protected until such time that conditions in their home countries permit them to safely return.
It’s not a case of resettle these thousands of refugees in the US or they die. That’s crap! I KNOW.
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Photo was found at an ABC story from January where ABC’s Supreme Court expert said Trump is likely to prevail in the Supreme Court. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-refugee-immigration-ban-recalls-past-exclusionary-laws/story?id=45046605