Australian press thinks its unlikely US will take rejected 'refugees' off their hands

Mr Trump! Forget Syrians for a minute! Are we going to suspend resettlement of all ‘high-risk aliens?’

Here is a story from Sky News Australia which links Trump advisor Kris Kobach’s proposals to Trump last weekend in NJ as evidence that the deal might well be dead on arrival.  See my earlier post this morning about a letter from two powerful members of Congress who want the fishy Australia deal stopped now!

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Trump meets with Kris Kobach. Leftwing media has been having fun with the enlargement of the memo in Kobach’s hand.

 
Sky News titters about photo that reveals some of Kobach’s suggestions to the Trump team on immigration:

An apparent bungle by US president-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration adviser shows just how difficult Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s US refugee re-settlement plan will likely be to pull off.

Kris Kobach, tipped to head the US Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, was clutching documents as he stood with a smiling and waving Mr Trump on Sunday in view of the media.

A photo taken by Associated Press, when zoomed in, shows the top page of the document is headlined ‘Department of Homeland Security. Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days’.

It lists aggressive proposals aimed at ‘high-risk aliens.’

‘Reduce intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under the 1980 Refugee Act,’ Mr Kobach’s plan states.

The plan also calls for ‘extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia Law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution’.

Mr Kobach was one of many potential Trump administration hires who met with the president-elect at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on the weekend.

More here at Sky News.

Readers, I am starting to get nervous about whether Trump’s closest advisors on immigration fully understand the US Refugee Admissions Program.
In my previous post I said that if Trump picks Romney in combination with Nikki Haley at the UN (where the UN has plans for who comes to your towns!), we shouldn’t expect any major shakeup of the RAP.

Let’s talk about HIGH-RISK ALIENS!

There has been enormous national attention on the fact that FBI Director Comey testified to Congress that Syrians cannot be vetted because they come from a failed state where records are not obtainable. And, it is understandable that the focus has been on the Syrians, but…..
….if you are a longtime reader of RRW you know this is also true for the vast majority of Somalis (tens of thousands) we have admitted over the last two-three decades.  In fact, in 2008 the State Department (DOS) cut off family reunification for Somalis because they discovered wide spread fraud—-Somalis lied about their family connections!  Family reunification was closed for years (all documented here at RRW). See the most recent news on Somalis who thumbed their noses at your generosity.
The DOS and DHS say they can vet the Iraqis.  But, they screwed up big time a few years ago and Iraqi refugee Al-Qaeda supporters were arrested and convicted on terror charges in Kentucky.  One of them actually had fingerprints on an IED shard in US government hands and no one ever made the connection. That IED killed American service men. These two had lied on their refugee application.

And, how are we possibly screening the Rohingya Muslims who have fled Burma, many on boats that ended up in Malaysia and Indonesia. We are taking thousands of them!  They don’t have ‘papers’ from the government of Burma (a Buddhist government that is all too happy to get rid of them)!
Other countries that produce unvettable (new word!) Muslims are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. Just those few countries mentioned above account for probably half of the flow to the US right now!
So, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kobach! Stop focusing on only Syrians! The problem is much much bigger!

Not good: Nikki Haley to be Trump Ambassador to United Nations

But I guess we should be glad that she isn’t going to be Secretary of State.  It would have been much better all around if she had been tapped as Ambassador to India (as several of our readers suggested!) See breaking news at The Hill.

haley-romney
Disastrous duo! These two will not rein-in UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program!

At the UN, Haley will replace the truly awful Samantha Power (our lengthy Power archive is here), but will she have the gumption to stare down the new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, an avowed Socialist, who, as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, presided over (and encouraged!) the refugee invasion of Europe and has been pushing the US and other western countries to permanently resettle hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants for the last decade.
For more on Guterres our archive is here.
Indeed the UN is picking the refugees the US has been taking and that is the reason almost all Syrians entering the US are Muslim and not persecuted Christians.
In recent months we have seen the Mormon Church (Mitt Romney is a Mormon) get behind the resettlement of refugees, including Syrians and Somalis, in a big way, see here. For eight of the nine years I’ve written about the program, Mormons stayed out of the issue. Also, remember that faced with the hard left calling him a racist, Romney squished-out on immigration in 2012 (one reason that cost him the election in my opinion).
A combo of Haley (who did nothing to stand in the way of the refugee resettlement program as it arrived full force in SC two years ago) at the UN and Romney in the State Department will (I predict) not bode well for reining-in the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program.  (What is Trump thinking?)
If Romney is selected as Secretary of State, he will show his true colors by who he picks (or encourages Trump to pick) to replace Anne Richard as Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration.
However, keep fingers crossed that Trump picks a hard liner on Muslim migration for State who can also keep Haley under control at the UN.
We will be watching……
Guess I won’t be retiring anytime soon!
P.S. Here is what Grover Norquist (who has been pushing for more Muslim migration to America ever since I began writing RRW in 2007) said on twitter this morning on hearing the news:

Grover Norquist Retweeted POLITICO

Great choice. Nikki Haley is the future of the GOP. Trump is playing the long game.

Grassley and Goodlatte blast Obama Admin on secret Australian 'refugee' deal

Got guts! This is a good sign from Congress (a sign perhaps that Trump’s victory is providing some backbone!).

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Senator Chuck Grassley

Senator Chuck Grassley and Rep. Bob Goodlatte chairmen of their respective Judiciary Committees have sent a strongly worded letter to the Obama Administration telling them to release to the public information on a secret deal to admit to the US rejected asylum seekers held in Australian offshore detention centers.
We reported the news here and here last week.
Remember readers, these are mostly Muslims (who attempted to break into Australia by boat) who have had their asylum claims rejected—Australia does not want them!
 
Here is the letter dated yesterday (hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum):
 
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Setting precedents!

There are many important concerns in this letter, but one issue in particular caught my eye—the idea of setting a precedent which is something I’ve been hammering for years.
Deals like this are going on elsewhere in the refugee program and it is wrong.
I’ll direct you to the issue of Malta and the FACT that we have been admitting aliens who arrived on the EUROPEAN island of Malta from Libya and other African hellholes (surely undocumented with only their personal stories to rely on!) by transforming them into refugees and placing them in your American towns ever since the Bush Administration.
These are Europe’s illegal aliens and not our concern! (just as this new batch is Australia’s problem).

Congress and the new President can quickly plug this hole (See our 8-year-old Malta archive here), and we must stop these foolish “deals” wherever they are occurring.

Of course, deal implies we get something in exchange, but what we get is never clear!
For new readers, this was point #7 in my ‘Ten Reasons there must be a MORATORIUM’ on refugee resettlement (first published in 2012!).
Our Australia category is here.

Refugee resettlement industry held emergency conference call on Friday: What will Trump do?

Update November 22nd: Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart investigated and found more details.  In an update to his earlier article, he reports that the US State Department claims they did not organize or participate in the conference call, see here.
They are worried. And, as my good friend Richard (Blue Ridge Forum) would say, it has a lot to do with rice bowls. What? you ask! Have you ever heard the phrase ‘breaking rice bowls?’ It happens a lot when a new administration comes in to power and a lot of people have their livelihoods placed on the line perhaps for the first time ever!
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In a story ostensibly about what is going to happen to the new resettlement site of Northampton, Massachusetts, the head of the local Catholic Charities tells us a good bit about what went on when 452 worried refugee resettlement workers got on a conference call with presumably leaders of the two main federal agencies that administer the program and dole out the federal bucks in Washington.
BTW, as we have mentioned previously, both the Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration and the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (as political appointees) will soon be on their way out.
Here is Masslive.com:

NORTHAMPTON — Asked if she thought a city refugee resettlement program would be subject to change under President-elect Donald Trump, Catholic Charities Executive Director Kathryn Buckley-Brawner pulled no punches.

“Of course it is,” Buckley-Brawner said. “Because Trump will be president. It’s less a question about ‘is’ as opposed to ‘will.'”

03/10/11 South Hadley Republican Photo by Mark M.Murray - Bishop Timothy McDonnell, Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield ,annouces the official begining of the 2011 Annual Catholic Appeal, during a press conference inside the St.Patrick Parish center kitchen thursday. Also on hand at right is David Bergeron, head of food services at the center , and Kathryn Buckley-Brawner, Direcor of the Catholic Charities Agency.
Kathryn Buckley-Brawner has been resettling refugees in Springfield, Mass. http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/kathryn_buckley-brawner_named.html

Buckley-Brawner participated in a 452-person nationwide “post-election national refugee advocacy” conference call Friday headed up by people in government. [Advocacy on the taxpayers’ dime!—ed]

The call leaders said “don’t overreact,” prepare to advocate and argue in favor of refugee resettlement programs and hold steady until something changes, Buckley-Brawner said.

But feelings of uncertainty permeated the discussion, according to Buckley-Brawner.

“People whose job it is to have their finger on the pulse of what’s going on in our government don’t have a clue,” Buckley-Brawner said in a MassLive interview following the call. “If they don’t have a clue, the rest of us are in the same position.”

Members of the call seemed to think the most likely way a Trump administration might impact U.S. resettlement efforts would be by blocking refugees from certain places — like Iraq and Syria. [LOL! If Trump asks me, I’ll say Somalia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Burma (Rohingya) need to be on the list too!—ed]

Trump told CNBC on Monday he felt more against allowing Syrian refugees into the country than ever, calling the prospect “one of the great Trojan horses.”

[….]

Several different scenarios were discussed during Friday’s conference call, Buckley-Brawner said.

Among these, a complete shut-down of funding for refugee resettlement — thought very unlikely. A tightening of vetting procedures and slow-down of refugee intake — thought very possible. Finally, a dramatic decrease in refugee intake across the board.

“We’re simply going to keep on doing what we’re doing until somebody says ‘stop,'” Buckley-Brawner said.

Continue reading here about the elected libs in Northampton and their enthusiasm for taking Syrian Muslim refugees.
Be sure to visit our archive on Springfield, Mass. where the mayor called for a MORATORIUM and begged for relief from Buckley-Brawner’s resettlement of refugees there for years.
Northhampton is fresh territory and I will bet that although it is only 20 miles north of Springfield, the folks in Northampton likely have no clue about all the problems Springfield has had (unless they have been reading RRW for years!).
Endnote: My apologies to the good citizens of Northampton! I have been spelling the name of your town wrong for months! Sheesh, just found that I had spelled it wrong above!

Minnesota resettlement contractors not increasing their refugee intake in FY2017

Schwartz, the Humphrey School dean, said the 110,000 national number for the year is a ceiling, not a legal obligation binding the new government.

Actually I don’t think they will have to worry about taking their share of the huge number Obama proposed for FY2017—110,000—because Trump will surely reduce that number one way or another.
For our readers in Minnesota this is a very useful article with lots of details about the contractors and the cities in which they are placing refugees.  Seems one big limiting factor is affordable housing!  I sure hope one of the Trump Admins first actions will be to kill Obama’s Affirmatively Furthering FAIR Housing initiative!
Here is the latest from Minnesota at the Star Tribune (emphasis is mine):

Minnesota, one of the nation’s busiest resettlement destinations, is aiming to keep its refugee arrivals steady in 2017.

eric-schwartz
Eric Schwartz was Obama’s first Asst. Sec. of State for PRM and thus Anne Richard’s predecessor. Both of them were Soros’ proteges. Go here for our file on Schwartz: https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/?s=Eric+Schwartz

Faced with a housing shortage and other constraints, the state is forgoing a larger role in an almost 30 percent national increase the Obama administration announced earlier this fall.

Now, that Obama goal and the nation’s longer-term approach are in question as a Donald Trump administration prepares to take over. On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to pause resettlement from “terror-prone regions” and took aim at Somali refugees in Minnesota. But he has not addressed the overall number of refugees the country resettles each year.

“There is complete and total uncertainty,” said Eric Schwartz, dean of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a former federal official who oversaw refugee admissions in the Obama administration.

In the fiscal year that ended in September, Minnesota took in 2,630 refugees, a 15 percent increase over previous year.

[….]

Kristina Hammell of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Winona says her agency is running into housing shortages in the Rochester area as well.

“If we can’t find affordable housing, we aren’t doing refugees any great favors,” she said.

See my recent post: Obama’s 110,000 is a CEILING and Trump can turn off the spigot on January 21, 2017. He can PAUSE THE WHOLE PROGRAM!

Schwartz, the Humphrey School dean, said the 110,000 national number for the year is a ceiling, not a legal obligation binding the new government. Although Trump has criticized resettlement from countries including Syria and Somalia, he has not discussed the United States’ role in addressing the global migrant crisis.

Presumably, the administration could block resettlement from some regions and shift admissions to others, but that would be a significant logistical challenge, Schwartz said.

This last is wishful thinking I believe.  Since the contractors are paid by the head and their salaries, office rent etc. depend on your tax dollars, I think they are hoping if Trump suspends resettlement from say Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth that he will make it up with numbers from non-Muslim countries.  I doubt it.

It is best to pause the whole program on January 21st and then “find out what is going on!” (As Trump frequently intoned on the campaign trail!)