Nayla Rush writing at the Center for Immigration Studies poses a wide range of questions about how a man with two arrest warrants in Iraq got in to the US from Turkey in 2014, received extensive benefits from the US taxpayer, and lived here until now undetected.
Entitled:
Follow-Up Questions on Omar Ameen’s Refugee Resettlement Case
I have chosen two questions to highlight the fact that we allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and a non-profit Catholic group to do the initial screening of refugees entering the US from Turkey.
BTW, during Obama’s term in office, Turkey was the second highest processing country for refugees entering the US after Kenya.
Do you trust those two agencies to decide who your new neighbors will be?
Rush:
RSC Prescreening
Nine State Department-funded resettlement support centers (RSCs) abroad play an important role in the refugee admissions process: They conduct in-person prescreening interviews of resettlement applicants, record persecution stories, collect extended family information, etc., that USCIS officers use to determine applicants’ eligibility and credibility and adjudicate cases accordingly. RSC staff (who are generally citizens of the countries where they are stationed) not only prescreen refugees abroad, they help them build their cases to submit to U.S. officials for resettlement.
Question: Which RSC was in charge of Ameen’s case in Turkey? Was it the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), a resettlement partner of the U.S. government in the Middle East since the 1960s that operates the resettlement support center for Turkey and the Middle East (RSC TuME) and that is 49.9 percent funded by the U.S. government, according to 2016 figures? Will this RSC review its pre-screening system?
U.S. Reliance on UNHCR and RSCs
The United States relies on the United Nations (specifically, the UN High Commission for Refugees or UNHCR) for resettlement referrals and on the RSCs for the prescreening process and case applications of refugees. It is UNHCR that referred Ameen to the United States for resettlement and offered him a chance to become an American citizen. It is probably ICMC who prescreened and helped build Ameen’s
resettlement case.
Question: Will the U.S. government reconsider its near-total reliance on the UNHCR and RSCs for a range of pre-departure services linked with resettlement? Will the United States ask for enhanced accountability and control measures from these organizations?
We sure hope the White House is considering completely getting rid of the UNHCR as a partner in deciding who comes to America and who doesn’t!
See more of Nayla Rush’s insightful questions, here highlighting what an epic failure Ameen’s presence on American soil is!
See my previous post about the battles going on right now between the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and Homeland Security on the issue of security screening refugees. The Open Borders Left says Trump is doing TOO MUCH vetting!