I had to read Daniel Horowitz to see that I didn’t miss anything when I turned off the CNN 2016 Presidential debate halfway through on Wednesday night. Honestly, I couldn’t take it anymore, and as much as I felt it was my duty to watch (for you), my novel (about the Nazi occupation of Poland) was calling me. As of this writing, Carly Fiorina has a ‘D’ score on NumbersUSA Presidential score card on immigration and jobs even worse then Jeb’s C- https://www.numbersusa.com/content/elections/races/presidential/2016-presidential-hopefuls.html
Horowitz has been writing some great stuff on the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program so he too must have expected one of the most important issues of the year (the decade, the century!)—how wide is America going to throw open our gates to Muslim ‘refugees’ from around the world especially Syrians right now—to at least be mentioned.
Did CNN not want millions of viewers to know about it, and are the candidates too chicken to mention it? Or, was it both of those things! Indeed, because the CNN debate became a free-for-all, you know that if one of the candidates wanted to work in a comment about Obama’s outrageous Syrian resettlement plan, he or she could have.
From Conservative Review (hat tip: Dick). Emphasis below is mine:
Last night, there was time at the Republican presidential debate to discuss vaccinations and the ten-dollar bill but not a word was uttered about one of the most pressing issues – Obama’s imminent plan to bring in thousands of Islamic refugees from Syria.
Yesterday, the Obama administration announced that the plan to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees next fiscal year is just the beginning. Overall, they plan to expand the current refugee cap of 70,000 worldwide to 100,000 over the next few years, enabling them to admit tens of thousands more from the Middle East. And that includes places like Somalia as well.
Congress can and must put an end to this charade. Obama cannot bring in more refugees than the amount the annual appropriations for the resettlement program will support. It’s time they use the power of the purse to cut off the money spigot for Syrian and Somali refugees.Moreover, the originally refugee caps established by the Refugee Act of 1980 were set at 50,000. The increase of those caps was supposed to be done in consultation with Congress. It’s time for Congress to have a two-way conversation in this “consultation” and speak out for Americans. [Where are you Reps Goodlatte and Gowdy?—ed]
[….]
This is what the liberal westerners will never understand. They project their own hopes and aspirations on people who will never share their values. Sure, if I turned the clock back 30 years without the luxury of observing the history of Muslim immigration I would have also thought they’d appreciate our hospitality. But how many painful lessons must we learn in order to protect Americans from such threats? With the growing success of cyber-Jihad there is no way to ensure that these thousands of Syrian refugees of military age will not become radicalized and bite the hand that feeds them. In fact, undoubtedly many of them already have been radicalized.
Accordingly, the more salient question is not how many of them are connected to ISIS, although that is definitely an important point to consider. It’s how many of them dislike our values?For years, America was careful to exclude those who would become a public charge. Can’t we at least exclude those who will likely hate our democratic values?
For those wowed by Carly….
As for all the hoopla surrounding Carly Fiorina, this woman (me!) is not wowed. I’ve told you, right or wrong, I am a one-issue voter and Fiorina has a ‘D’ score right now on Immigration and Jobs at NumbersUSA, click here. And, until she says she was wrong, I can’t get past the ill-timed, uninformed speech she did shortly after 9/11, read about it here.
It sure sounds like it! How dare he! And, who invited him to insert himself into our political system?
Oh, no surprise John Boehner*** invited him! Previously we learned that Democrats are going to use the Pope’s visit to advance their goal of admitting 100,000 Syrians to the US in the next year!
Is Boehner working for Obama and the Democrats (just asking!)?
Citizens concerned about saving Western Civilization should be out in New York and Washington, DC protesting the message the Pope, we are told, will be spewing! According to the editor of a Catholic magazine he may even quote that historically inaccurate Emma Lazarus poem to guilt-trip you. Please spare us that lecture! In 2013, Pope Francis helped fuel the invasion of Europe by welcoming illegal aliens to the island of Lampedusa. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2013/07/09/pope-lectures-on-lampedusa/ If you can’t be out with a protest sign next week, every Catholic who disagrees with this Pope on immigration should pen a letter to your local paper that begins with:
This Pope does not speak for me!
This is the news featured at Drudge earlier this morning!
And the church wonders why so many of us have left it!
From the Financial Times:
When Pope Francis makes his maiden visit to the US next week, he will accomplish something that has eluded the 2016 presidential contenders — overshadowing Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
US television networks will provide wall-to-wall coverage of the visit, which will include the first speech by a Pope to Congress. [Thanks John Boehner!—ed]But while the pontiff will steal some of Mr Trump’s media thunder, he is also expected to wade into a debate about immigration — an issue that has helped propel the brash real estate magnate to the front of the Republican pack.
Since losing the 2012 election, party leaders have talked about the need to appeal to Hispanics, who are the fastest growing segment of the US electorate. But Mr Trump has upended that plan by campaigning against illegal Mexican immigrants, some of whom he has called “rapists”, and reopening a polarising debate that the Republicans had hoped to avoid in 2016.
Vatican officials say Pope Francis will focus heavily on immigration during his visit, which would insert him into the middle of presidential politics and could unsettle conservatives even more than his critiques of capitalism and environmentalist rhetoric.
“The Pope obviously has a very soft spot in his heart for immigrants,” said one Holy See insider. “He won’t say, ‘open all borders’, but there’s no two ways about it, he will say, ‘let’s give our immigrant brothers and sisters a fair chance’.” [So, if not all borders, how many, whose borders, and how wide? They will never answer those questions.—ed]
Give me a break! Emma Lazurus blah! blah! blah!
Robert Mickens, the Rome-based editor-in-chief of Global Pulse, the Catholic magazine, said that concern for migrants had been “one of the central themes” of Pope Francis’ social teaching. “He doesn’t need to scold the lawmakers but I think he will challenge them not to abandon America’s long history of welcoming immigrants,” Mr Mickens said.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Pope were to quote those evocative line’s from Emma Lazarus’s poem that adorns the Statue of Liberty — ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore’.”
There is more if you can stand it, click here. (Update: Looks like the Financial Times may only let you in one time, but its o.k. we snipped the important part)
And, one more thing! The Pope has made no appeal to put the persecuted Syrian Christians ahead of Sunni Muslims for protection by western countries. Correct me if I am wrong! Here, Hungarian Bishop tells Pope he is wrong on Syrians arriving in Europe, calls them invaders.
Here is another 2016 Presidential candidate suggesting that the resettlement of 10,000 (65,000 or 100,000) Syrians to American towns represents a security threat. Ben Carson: No brainer! ISIS wants to infiltrate refugee flow!
Strong positions have already been taken by Donald Trump and Scott Walker in the run-up to the CNN Presidential debate scheduled for tomorrow evening.
Carson: If we are doing such great screening how did the Tsarnaev Brothers get in? From CNN:
Washington (CNN) Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Monday recalled the men who orchestrated the bombing at the Boston Marathon to argue that the U.S. should not accept emergency refugees fleeing Syria.
The retired neurosurgeon, who is recently earning silver medals in national opinion polls, raised the specter of Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev***, the immigrant brothers who came to the United States in 2002 and a decade later organized the attack. Carson said the U.S. had not substantively improved how immigrants those like the brothers were vetted when they came as refugees from Kyrgyzstan.
“How did that screening process work for the Tsarnaev Brothers?” Carson told CNN’s John Berman on “The Lead.” “We don’t know whose those people are, and the majority of them are young males, and they could easily be people who could be infiltrated by terrorists.”
Carson said it was all too easy for Islamic militants to take advantage of the relaxed standards for refugees.
“If I was ISIS, if I were the global jihadists, and I knew the United States was about to take in 10,000 or 65,000 or 100,00 people from my region, I would infiltrate them with my people,” he said.
[….]
Carson also characterized his position on immigration as “probably not that far away” from Trump’s, despite having disagreed with Trump on the viability of deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Mr. Carson might be advised to question all those who will now dump hate-filled vitriol on him over his lack of humanitarian concern and ask them how many Syrian Christians are they planning to help since the vast majority of Syrian refugees (95%) taken in by the US now are UN-chosen Syrian Muslims.
Our security concerns might be dramatically lessened if Christians were the recipients of our generosity (they aren’t after all the ones doing the terrorizing!).
***The Tsarnaev brothers may not be the best example because they came in as children, and as asylum seekers. We did not select them abroad with or without the help of the UN. Better examples would be the Iraqi refugee terroriststhat we did select and who did go through our security screening process which failed miserably.
However, the Tsarnaev brothers do exemplify a more serious problem in my view and that is what we are seeing with many next generation refugees, most notably the Somalis from Minnesota some of whom are not assimilating and are becoming radicalized in America cities (probably in radical mosques).
Those young men who left to join Al-Shabaab and ISIS over the last 8 years or so, could not have been screened against and their parents might have been fine people. The point is, that even if the Syrian Muslims, or any other Muslims, being admitted to the US now are perfectly decent and peaceful, their children may not stay that way. Let’s consider Frank Gaffney’s proposal today—a moratorium on Muslim colonization of America! That seems to offer us the safest choice wouldn’t you say?
Breitbarthas news yesterday that the Mexican government might be planning to ‘welcome’ Syrians to Mexico. And, then they could do what Trump says they do—send us their problem people! Tell Trump! Mexico could send us their bad people—Syrians!
Prominent Mexican officials are calling on their president to open the doors for 10,000 Syrian refugees, though thousands of Mexicans per year are fleeing their cartel-controlled nation and its violence and seeking asylum in the United States. The move comes on the heels of Mexico accepting 30 Syrian students. Other nations south of the porous U.S.-Mexico border have already opened their doors for people fleeing the Middle East.
Considering the Mexican government’s inability to govern its own territory and the willingness of Mexican officials to accept cash bribes, one could question whether their screening process would exclude potentially dangerous individuals. Even in the case of an individual being identified having a connection to a terrorist organization, a wealthy benefactor or ally of the individual could simply pay off a decision-maker and get the individual through.
Update: It appears the last time either Judiciary Committee held required hearings on the annual refugee consultation was in 1999 (here). If anyone can find a more recent hearing record, please send it. Why haven’t they been doing their jobs?
We’ve been aware for several years that the Administration each September must consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on the President’s refugee resettlement plan for the upcoming year which must lay out how many refugees we will take, from where they will come, and why this is in our national interest.
(Last year’s Presidential Determination is here and an accompanying report can befound here.)
Reports I’ve received over the years are that the Committees responsible for “consulting” don’t change anything the President requests. I could be wrong, but at least in the 8 years I’ve followed the Refugee Admissions Program, the consultation and the required delivery of a lengthy report amounted to no more than State Department reps dropping off the report with committee staff. (I want to be corrected if there has been much more than that over the last decade!). According to a press release from Senator Charles Grassley’s office, Obama Sec. of State John Kerry and Asst. Sec. Anne Richard intimated that Obama might “open the floodgates” and use emergency authority to go beyond the number the Administration was proposing this week which is 10,000 Syrians for American towns this coming fiscal year.
On Wednesday, Sec. of State John Kerry and Asst. Secretary of State Anne Richard made a trip to the Hill to meet with Senators Grassley and Sessions (others?) where they discussed the 10,000 (some reports say 5,000) Syrians for FY2016 proposal.
They are calling that meeting a “consultation.” Were Members of the House Judiciary Committee present as the law requires?
Opening the floodgates?
This is what the Office of Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley said after the meeting with Kerry. It appears that Kerry left the door open for a much larger number of Syrians than the 10,000 being mentioned by the Administration so far.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley made the following statement after a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry and Anne Richard, Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration. The consultation regarding the number of refugees that the United States will admit into the country is required by law. In the event of an “emergency refugee situation” the administration may admit an additional number of refugees, but only after additional consultation with Congress.
“Secretary Kerry initially said that the Obama administration is seeking a reasonable increase in refugees allowed into the United States in the upcoming fiscal year. But when pressed, the administration indicated that they were considering opening the floodgates and using emergency authority to go above what they proposed to Congress in today’s consultation.The administration also has not ruled out potentially paroling thousands of Syrians into the United States.
Where is the hearing?
Below is a section of the Refugee Act of 1980 which lays out the process which should be happening right now regarding the “consultation” and subsequent final determination. Calling any lawyers out there to help decipher it! But, as I see it, both House and Senate Judiciary Committees are required to hold hearings!
((It can be confusing because the text intermingles two processes. One is for the annual determination (where we are right now in mid-September) and the other is for an emergency situation that might come up during the year.))
This is the statute:
STATUTE-94-Pg102
Here are the sections I’ve selected for your consideration. I doubt most of this ever happens!
“SEC. 207. (a)(1) Except as provided in subsection Q)), the number of
refugees who may be admitted under this section in fiscal year 1980,
1981, or 1982, may not exceed fifty thousand unless the President
determines, before the beginning of the fiscal year and after appropriate
consultation (as defined in subsection (e)), that admission of a
specific number of refugees in excess of such number is justified by
humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.
“(2) Except as provided in subsection (b), the number of refugees
who may be admitted under this section in any fiscal year after fiscal
year 1982 shall be such number as the President determines, before
the beginning of the fiscal year and after appropriate consultation, is
justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national
interest.
“(3) Admissions under this subsection shall be allocated among
refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States in
accordance with a determination made by the President after appropriate
consultation.
[….]
“(d)(1) Before the start of each fiscal year the President shall report to the Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and of the Senate regarding the foreseeable number of refugees who will be in need of resettlement during the fiscal year and the anticipated allocation of refugee admissions during the fiscal year.
The President shall provide for periodic discussions between designated
representatives of the President and members of such committees
regarding changes in the worldwide refugee situation, the
progress of refugee admissions, and the possible need for adjustments
in the allocation of admissions among refugees.
“(2) As soon as possible after representatives of the President
initiate appropriate consultation with respect to the number of
refugee admissions under subsection (a) or with respect to the
admission of refugees in response to an emergency refugee situation
under subsection (b), the (Committees on the Judiciary of the House of
Representatives and of the Senate shall cause to have printed in the
Congressional Record the substance of such consultation.
“(3)(A) After the President initiates appropriate consultation prior to making a determination under subsection (a), a hearing to review the proposed determination shall be held unless public disclosure of the details of the proposal would jeopardize the lives or safety of individuals.
[….]
“(e) For purposes of this section, the term ‘appropriate consultation* means, with respect to the admission of refugees and allocation of refugee admissions, discussions in person by designated Cabinet-level representatives of the President with members of the Committees on the Judiciary of the Senate and of the House of Representatives to review the refugee situation or emergency refugee situation, to project the extent of possible participation of the United States therein, to discuss the reasons for believing that the proposed admission of refugees is justified by humanitarian concerns or grave humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest, and to provide such members with the following information:
“(1) A description of the nature of the refugee situation.
“(2) A description of the number and allocation of the refugees
to be admitted and an analysis of conditions within the countries
from which they came.
“(3) A description of the proposed plans for their movement
and resettlement and the estimated cost of their movement and
resettlement.
“(4) An analysis of the anticipated social, economic, and
demographic impact of their admission to the United States.
“(5) A description of the extent to which other countries will
admit and assist in the resettlement of such refugees.
“(6) An analysis of the impact of the participation of the United
States in the resettlement of such refugees on the foreign policy
interests of the United States.
“(7) Such additional information as may be appropriate or
requested by such members.
To the extent possible, information described in this subsection shall be provided at least two weeks in advance of discussions in person by designated representatives of the President with such members.
Where is the report? Was it delivered two weeks ago?
What you can do!
Contact members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees (listed here) and tell them to hold PUBLIC hearings on the President’s plan!
It would be preferable to hold field hearings around the country in some of the largest resettlement locations in the country so that citizens who will be most affected by large numbers of Middle Eastern and African refugees could be heard. If those hearings hold up the official beginning of the resettlement year—October 1—so be it!
Note to Presidential candidates, this may be the most important issue America ever faces!
