I don’t want to say I wasted an hour and a half watching the Congressional “Oversight” hearing on the US Refugee Admissions Program put on by the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security because it wasn’t a complete waste.
I learned that we are in more serious trouble than I even imagined!
And, I’m not going to give you a blow by blow account because frankly I’m going out to work outside shortly (in nature) to clear my head and calm down!
![Screenshot (1019)](https://refugeeresettlementwatch.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/screenshot-1019.png)
When the hearing began with a good, strong, promising opening statement by Chairman Raul Labrador and a shorter statement by full committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, I still thought there was hope, but alas there wasn’t any hope that serious problems (of concern to you!) with the refugee program would be revealed in the next hour and a 15 minutes or so.
Go here and here for my previous posts on the hearing to see what we expected to happen and other details about the committee.
Here, briefly, are just some of my observations:
First, where the HELL were Republicans?
Besides Labrador, only Steve King and Mike Johnson asked any questions.
Where were Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, Lamar Smith, Jim Jordan, Ken Buck or Andy Biggs? Or, any Republicans from the full committee?
(If more Republicans were present they would have been able to dig in to other lines of questioning.)
The Dems were out in force with three women Reps who ate up the milquetoast men witnesses for the Administration.
Reps Zoe Lofgren, Pramila Jayapal, and Sheila Jackson Lee pounded the clearly nice guy (meek!) Scott Lloyd who is Trump’s Director of ORR over abortions for illegal alien children in ORR’s care. They were cheered on and supported by the rambling and obviously senile John Conyers.
The other day I joked about not throwing shoes at the computer screen, but I had to control myself from doing just that! Those tough you-know-whats totally destroyed the men testifying and monopolized the hearing with their pro-abortion line of questioning.
And, there was no line of questioning by anyone about local and state community involvement and consultation in the issue as promised!
We did learn a few things….
Yes, there was some discussion of fraud in the refugee program mostly centered on wannabe ‘refugees’ fraudulently getting in to the US through Resettlement Support Centers (RSC) run by non-profit contractors for the State Department around the world.
No one mentioned fraud by resettlement contractors operating in the US!
The GAO witness (a woman who escaped the wrath of the witches on the committee) did say they found cases of fraud where screeners (or interpreters) for these non-profit groups were asking for bribes to move cases along.
And, Rep. Johnson (R-LA) did ask the State Department witness about the travel loan repayment by refugees. The acting Asst. Sec. of State for PRM, Henshaw, said the repayment rate was 75% and when asked what happens to those 25% who never pay up he said something about how they would have a lousy credit score! OMG!
Oh, and Rep. Lofgren submitted testimony for the record from a whole host of refugee contractors (who depend on government payola) and groupies including (but not limited to): HIAS, LIRS, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, CWS, the Cato Institute, the Episcopal Church (that’s all I heard of the list as she rattled it off).
The record is open for 5 more days, if you feel like you want to contribute something, go back here and see the contact information for the committee and ask how to submit testimony.
But, frankly, I am sorry to conclude, Congress/the swamp is a waste of time…..
And, if Trump is going to permit such milquetoast men to represent his administration before Congress then he will be a one-termer! (But, that looks like the Republican leaderships plan!).
Put your limited energy and finances into local organizing like I said here.