Got guts! This is a good sign from Congress (a sign perhaps that Trump’s victory is providing some backbone!). 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 hereand herelast 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):
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 #7in my ‘Ten Reasons there must be a MORATORIUM’ on refugee resettlement (first published in 2012!).
Our Australia category is here.
“I do believe that future flows will be affected significantly!”
(Doris Meissner reacting to Trump win)
Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart has a good piece yesterday, a compendium of views from the refugee contractors and immigration industry activists. Check it out here.
I’ve got a couple more stories I want to mention this morning. The first is one focusing on Rutland, VT which has just recently been chosen by the US State Department as a new site for Syrian Muslim refugee resettlement after months of strong opposition that roiled the political waters in the town. Will Rutland get its 100 Syrians, or not? http://digital.vpr.net/post/how-will-trump-presidency-impact-us-refugee-resettlement#stream/0 The articleat Vermont Public Radiofeatures quotes from Doris Meissner, a woman who is the doyenne of the Washington DC refugee/asylum/immigration circles.
Meissner was around for the passage of the original Refugee Act of 1980 and I’ve heard her speak a couple of times over the years. (Her bio ishere)
The first time was at the ‘celebration’ for the 30th anniversary of the Refugee Act at Georgetown University in 2010. I was struck by one thing Ms. Meissner said at a conference that seemed heavily weighted toward a discussion of the asylum portion of the Act and the opportunities it afforded to get more people in to the US.
She told the audience that the original discussions about asylum were geared toward the odd ballet dancer (referencing Russians I presume) who would ask for asylum when performing in the US. But, she and the audience seemed to be pleased that asylum was now a process that was getting tens of thousands in to the US each year as they feared the normal channel for refugee resettlement was constricting and not fast enough for their purposes.
In 2011, I wrote this post about asylum-seeking-Somalis at our southern border and suggested a Congressional investigation (where are you Trey Gowdy?) to determine if non-profit groups were actually aiding and abetting illegal aliens coming across the worldand who miraculously (who pays for the travel?) got the the US southern border and knew to ask for asylum. Meissner is quoted as saying that they have to wait too long in our normal process so they come here illegally. Congress should call Meissner to testify.
The specter of Donald Trump was haunting them already on October 29, 2015:
Again at Georgetown University, this time in October 2015, Meissner was the moderator of a panel on the upcoming 2016 Presidential election. Trump was on their minds and here is what I said in my post:
The “Trump phenomenon” has them obviously shaken and they are trying to figure out how to cope with it. The phrase “Trump phenomenon” was practically the first words out of Ms. Meissner’s mouth when she opened the session. They expected immigration to be an important issue in 2016, but with a different tone to the discussion, not Trump’s outright “anti-immigrant tone.” The whole presentation that followed was based on the understanding that this audience was all pro-Democrat/pro-Hillary.
The refugee resettlement industry needs your money (less money=fewer refugees)!
Back to the articleat Vermont Public Radio and what Ms. Meissner told them…
Doris Meissner is the former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute*** in Washington. She says given the strong language Trump used about refugees in the campaign, she expects big changes.
“It will not be business as usual where refugee resettlement is concerned once he’s in office, and that might in particular affect the Syrian program,” Meissner says.
Doris Meissner of the Migration Policy Institute is obviously pessimistic about future of US Refugee Admissions Program under President Donald Trump. Will she and her cohorts encourage more to come illegally and apply for asylum?
[….]
Meissner says that while it’s possible Trump would send back refugees now living in the United States, she thinks that would be a very costly and difficult. And given the deplorable conditions in Syria, she believes it’s unlikely.
“But I do believe that future flows will be affected significantly,” she says.
[….]
Meissner says U.S. immigration law sets a benchmark of allowing 50,000 refugees a year into the country. But she says the president has the power to come to Congress on an annual basis to propose boosting or cutting that number, and she expects Trump to call for reductions.
Funds for the coming year’s refugee resettlement programs are currently included in the federal budget. But that budget is part of continuing resolution, which means it needs to be renewed by Congress on Dec. 9.
Meissner says she expects those funds will remain, but admits nothing is certain.
Meissner gets it, they can’t function without the money Congress appropriates so once again I am pleading with you to call your member of Congress and your two US Senators and tell them to DEFUND the RAP in the lame duck session that is now upon us!
And, beware!
Look for larger numbers of border crashers to be asking for asylum. I’ll bet a buck that massive numbers of immigration lawyers are on standby waiting to process asylum claims especially if the RAP is slowed or stopped.
*** See what I said about the Migration Policy Institute here in 2011.
What is to be gained by admitting over 1,000 rejected Australian asylum seekers—-mostly Muslims?
Why are they our problem?
We have been writing about this stunning revelation for a couple of days, but it looks like it is going forward as Obama sends officials to the island of Nauru to start processing Australia’s rejected asylum seekers. Update thanks to a reader: ‘Refugees’ from Nauru wouldn’t arrive until after January 20th. I don’t see this as necessarily a good piece of news because as I read it, the processing will proceed which puts Trump in an even worse position and that is denying entry to ‘refugees’ that the Obama Admin. has screened and given promises to. See the story here, what do you think?
See our previous posts here and here. Can they do anything to stop the DEAL? Remember the so-called ‘refugees’ failed Australia’s asylum application process. Another news storyfrom AP gives us more details.
Apparently we asked Australia to take some illegal migrants that were parked in Costa Rica. WTH! Why are those migrants in Costa Rica our problem? I will bet a million bucks these aren’t even legitimate refugees but economic migrants:
Turnbull announced at Obama’s Leaders’ Summit on Refugees in September that Australia would participate in the U.S.-led program to resettle Central American refugees from a camp in Costa Rica.
It makes me wonder if Australia is trying to save itself from too many Muslims so is willing to take the Central Americans instead.
This deal smells and is emblematic of an issue I haven’t written about since 2015 when I last posted my Ten Reasons for a Moratorium on Refugee Resettlement, see that post by clicking here.
I was making the point that there is ample evidence that the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is being used for extracurricular activities of the State Department, not (as advertised!) to help poor downtrodden people who are pawns in these deals. Why did we admit thousands of Meskhetian Turks to America when Russia didn’t want the Sunni Muslims in their midst (those who came to my county had to sell homes in Russia when they resettled here)? They could hardly be ‘refugees.’ Why did we airlift Uzbek Muslim extremists to America in the Bush Administration and call them ‘refugees?’ What national interest was involved in helping the UN close camps in Nepal to move nearly 100,000 Bhutanese (Nepali!) people here over the last 9 years (many did not want to come here)? I suspect we were sucking up to the UN.
Now, what is to be gained by admitting over 1,000 rejected Australian asylum seekers—-mostly Muslims. Why are they our problem?
Here is what I said in my Ten Reasons for a Moratorium….
This is number 7. Only legitimate refugees should even be considered. Moving people around the world for other reasons should be specifically prohibited.
Congress needs to specifically disallow the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government,especially using certain refugee populations to address unrelated foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.
I don’t know if Trump and his team have any power to halt this DEAL before the 20th of January, but I sure hope he tries!
Think about this! In 2013 Australia, being invaded by boat people from mostly Muslim countries, declared anyone arriving illegally by boat would be turned back or sent to offshore islands like Nauru where they could submit asylum claims. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Only two more months of this guy! So how many refugees is he taking to his home?
Those rejected refuse to go back to their home countries, so guess what! The Obama Administration has agreed to take over a thousand of them to your towns and cities as full-fledged refugees with all the benefits of our welfare system available to them. How many of our illegal Mexicans and Central Americans is the prosperous country of Australia going to take off our hands?
We told you this was in the works, here, yesterday. And, now here is news from Aljazeera that we are going to do this. (If their asylum claims have been rejected by Australia they are NOT refugees by definition.)
Australia has reached a resettlement deal with the United States for refugees being held in offshore prisons after trying to reach the country by boat.
The Obama administration had agreed to resettle refugees among a group of almost 1,300 people held at on the island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Rights groups have been scathing about conditions at the prison camps.
Another 370 who came to Australia for medical treatment and then refused to return to the islands would also be eligible.
[….]
US Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that the US had “agreed to consider referrals” from the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. [If we are doing this and are sending Homeland Security people to screen the refugees, why does the UN have to have its nose in this business? Are they getting a cut of your tax dollars as middlemen?—ed]
[….]
US Department of Homeland Security officials are expected in Australia this week to begin assessing refugees.
Turnbull would not say how many refugees the US might take, but said the most vulnerable would be given priority. [And, prosperous Australia can’t take the most vulnerable???—ed]
More here.
See our Australia category by clicking here. And, if you are interested in learning more about this practice—of the US taking illegal aliens off the hands of other countries—see our Malta archiveas well.
Australia is always in the top three countries from which readers arrive at RRW.
When I wrote about this the other day, I didn’t really think our Department of State could be serious, but obviously the Obama Administration is going to shove it down our throats! How many more outrages will we see regarding refugees before January 20th when Donald Trump will be setting US immigration policy?
Watch the 2013 news about the asylum seekers, angry with Australia and the slow processing of their claims, burn down the asylum center. Link here if this doesn’t open: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoL6dASFh8M
German press (Deutsche Welle) is reporting that we are going to transform Australia’s failed asylum seekers, mostly Muslims, into legitimate refugees bound for Anytown, USA.
I would like to know, from the ‘brains’ at the US State Department, how these 1,800 boat people were vetted. And, most of all, why Australia turned them down! Deutsche Welle:
The US has agreed to accept 1,800 refugees held at Australian-funded camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, according to media reports. Human rights groups have criticized the conditions in the camps. [What? And, that means because conditions are supposedly bad in an Australian camp, its inhabitants become our problem!—ed]
The Australian newspaper reported on Friday that the US and Australia were close to announcing an agreement for up to 1,800 mainly Muslim refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia on the island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull declined to comment on negotiations with the US. “There’s always speculation about these things” Turnbull said on Melbourne Radio. “And we never comment on them.”
[….]
An agreement struck with the administration of President Barack Obama could be opposed by his successor, Donald Trump who has called for tight restrictions on Muslim immigration into the US.
Human rights groups have condemned the conditions in the camps which they have condemned as an abrogation of Australia’s responsibilities as a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention. There have been street protests over the treatment of the refugees (photo).
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said this week he was looking for countries that would accept all asylum seekers bound for Australia, including those who have had their refugee claims rejected, but who refuse to go home.
Donald Trump really can’t do anything yet, but your Washington reps can!
Call your US Senators and member of Congress!
I’ve been preaching for weeks/months that there is only one place right now (before January 20th) where you can have an impact if you choose to do the work! That is Congress. Call your representatives in Washington on Monday (they should be back to work on Tuesday, but their staffs should be working) and complain about this outrage. Use it as an example of how out of control the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program is.
Tell your representatives to call the US State Department (the Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration) to put a halt to this sheer insanity!
And, while you are at it, tell your members of Congress to DEFUND the RAP in the FY2017 budget that will be before them beginning on Tuesday.
