House passes bill that doesn't do much; Senate says it's dead on arrival there

11/20/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: According to The Hill, top administration officials couldn’t get support from large number of Dems following briefing.
If you are looking for me to have the definitive word this morning on what has happened in the last week and where we go from here, I don’t have it. A week ago Thursday, at the request of ACT for America, Don Barnett and I participated in a briefing of Hill staffers on the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program and then Friday night hell broke loose in Paris. In 7 days the refugee resettlement program has been completely turned on its head in a way I could never have imagined this time last week.

Obama and Ryan — Speaker Paul Ryan and President Obama agree: there will be no preference given to Christian refugees from the Middle East (98% of those arriving in the last six weeks are Sunni Muslims). Selecting only Christians would be “offensive” said Obama. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-syrian-refugees_564cb1f9e4b00b7997f878f3

Over 30 governors have said ‘NO’ to Syrian resettlement, so federal resettlement contractors who are ‘welcoming’ Syrians now on a daily basis are in turmoil trying to figure out where to send them.
The House Judiciary Committee has held its first serious hearing on the program since before 9/11 and the full House has passed the only bill maybe since 1979 (when the law creating this program passed both houses) that seeks in any way to control the monstrosity that the program has become.
And, to top it off, talk-radio and cable news are talking about refugees 24/7! Can I retire now?
All of that is to say, I need to sort through the news, so much of which you are getting faster than me because Drudge is on top of it (Drudge even posted one of my posts on Somali refugees—don’t forget there are hundreds of Somalis coming into the US every month!).
That said, this is a good summary of the House action from Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily who has made this issue a top priority in his reporting since at least July 2014 (when we first posted on his work). Emphasis below is mine:

The House voted Thursday to approve a bill that would require a new “certified” screening process for refugees coming from Iraq and Syria, but the bill is unlikely to pass in the Senate, says Minority Leader Harry Reid, and some conservatives are saying the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough in keeping America safe.

The House vote was 289-137 and included 47 Democrats, just two votes shy of enough to override a presidential veto.

“[The American SAFE Act] is simply putting a pause on the Syrian refugee program until we can be assured … they can be properly vetted and background checks can be done before they are brought in,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. “Also, we require certification by the secretary of Homeland Security, FBI director and director of national intelligence. I think this is a very measured, well-balanced bill.”

[….]

Two Republicans voted against the bill: Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Steve King, R-Iowa, likely because the bill doesn’t go far enough in their eyes.

Critics have said the proposed law wouldn’t stop a single Islamic refugee from entering the U.S. And there are much tougher bills sitting in committees, including Rep. Brian Babin’s HR 3314, which would stop all refugee resettlement until the Obama administration can give a full accounting of the costs and national security risks.

“Speaker Paul Ryan is trying to protect Obama’s Syrian refugee resettlement programs today by passing a bill that only ‘pauses’ the program instead of stopping it,” said William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. “Also, Ryan’s bill is based on the false premise that refugees from Muslim countries can be adequately vetted when they can’t, as Sen. Jeff Sessions is pointing out.”

[….]

The legislation will now go to the Senate, where it may face a tougher path to passage.

Reid, D-Nev., vowed to block the House bill if it is considered by the upper chamber after the Thanksgiving recess.

[….]

When asked about the prospect of Obama vetoing the legislation, Reid said, “Don’t worry, it won’t get passed. Next question?”

[….]

WND reported earlier this week that Ryan was lining up a “meaningless show vote,” quoting a senior staffer on Capitol Hill. That’s exactly what happened, with a vote allowing Ryan and the GOP to sound tough on ISIS without providing any real teeth because the legislation still depends on the Obama administration to “certify” that every refugee is not a terrorist.

This is impossible, critics such as Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., say, because many of the refugees have clean backgrounds and become radicalized after they arrive in the U.S.

Continue reading here, there is much more!

Ryan: We won’t take Syrian Christians first!

The day before the vote, Speaker Paul Ryan made it clear that Christian Syrians would not be given preference over the mostly Sunni Muslim Syrians being admitted right now, here at the Huffington Post. (By the way, I could argue that with an arrival rate of 98% Muslim, that we are giving preference to Sunni Muslims for admission to the US!).
Find our here if your “faith group” is backing Obama in his Syrian Muslim resettlement efforts.
Appropriations?
Rep. Bridenstine and others propose a bill to cut the funding, here. I don’t know the future of efforts to bring the issue to a head on the FY2016 government funding measure that Congress must pass by December 11. But, here is news from before the vote that such an efforts was being prepared in the House.
In addition to the Oklahoma representative Bridenstine, the other three warriors on this effort were/are:

Joining Bridenstine were Reps. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Lamar Smith of Texas and Brian Babin of Texas.

Will try to get more news from Washington in the coming days…..

1,070 Iraqis admitted to US in first 6 weeks of 2016, 85% are Muslim

11/19/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since my two previous posts are so popular—the first is on Syrians admitted to the US in FY2016 (which began on Oct. 1) and the second on Somalis admitted in those same 6 weeks, I thought you might like to know about the Iraqis who have been coming into the US (over 100,000 since Obama took office. Here is one summary through 2013 and a large portion of 2014. I’ll get more complete numbers later).
My Somali post made it to Drudge! What an honor!
This is where the 1,070 have gone in the last six weeks. Top five Iraqi resettlement states so far this year are: Texas, California, Michigan, Washington and Colorado.

And here is how their religions break down (directly from the Refugee Processing Center data base, these are their categories and spelling):

Atheist: 3

Catholic: 69

Christian: 24

Moslem: 44

Moslem Shiite: 427

Moslem Suni: 435

Orthodox: 20

Yazidi: 40

Interesting isn’t it! When you see almost equal numbers of Shiites and Sunis don’t you wonder why we are bringing in both sides of the warring factions?
Supposedly the bill being supported by Speaker Paul Ryan that seeks to get administration assurance that no terrorists are getting in through the refugee stream to America only involves Syrians and Iraqis. What about Somalis? And, isn’t it a bit late considering we have admitted over 100,000 Somalis and over 100,000 Iraqis to live in your towns and cities?
Anyone want to write a book on the Iraqi resettlement, we have 673 previous posts going back 8 years on that resettlement.

Did your state get Syrian Muslim refugees in October? Kentucky still number one!

10/31/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update November 1: The UNHCR has picked nearly 20,000 Syrians for us, says our commitment is “open-ended” here.
The Obama Administration says they will resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the US in FY 2016 which began October 1. Here is a map showing where the first 187 Syrians have been placed (as of today). Two weeks ago, it had been only 51 (see here), but Kentucky is still the number one destination (here with 26).

Of the 187 admitted to the US this month, 183 are Sunni Muslims. There were 3 Catholics and 1 Christian. That is 98% Muslim. Last year the percentage of Muslims in the Syrian flow to America was 97%.
Go here to the Refugee Processing Center to see where I am getting the information.
If Obama wants to get 10,000 in here in one year, they will surely have to step this up. I expect the slow start involves the problem they are having doing the security screening. He will have to get almost 900 a month in here to make his quota.
If you missed my report on the UNHCR talk in Washington on Thursday, here, then you missed his explanation about why the Christians weren’t coming in any great numbers—he says they are not persecuted by the Assad regime so they aren’t refugees in need of resettlement. I guess ISIS doesn’t count as a persecutor!
Will Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul say anything about the colonization of Kentucky? I won’t hold my breath!

Think Progress has Rep. Brian Babin in its crosshairs….

10/21/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..not happy that Rep. Babin (R-TX) told Laura Ingraham we should only take Syrian Christian refugees.
No surprise that Think Progress should faint at the thought that someone might actually say ‘let’s prioritize persecuted Christians’ in our Syrian refugee stream.

Photos of Laura Ingraham in her studio after the Laura Ingraham Show, as she talks with her producers who are off camera. (Photo by Rich Lipski/The Washington Post/Getty Images) — In 2013, talk radio host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration.

Think Progress is the media arm of John Podesta’s Center for America Progress, one of Washington’s hardest left (if not THE hardest left agitation groups) and a great friend of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Here is one post we wrote on Podesta in 2009.
The article is a bit muddled indicating that the writer doesn’t understand the Refugee Admissions Program, but I’m posting this to show that the Left hates this argument—if we are going to bring in Syrians, why not Syrian Christians who we know are being persecuted and whose screening would be much simpler since they don’t have a reputation for terrorism.
Here is Think Progress writer, Emily Atkin, apparently gasping in outrage that someone should say such a discriminatory thing—America should prioritize Middle East Christians.

A Texas Congressman is calling for an immediate halt to the Obama administration’s plan to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees, saying the plan is a threat to national security and that more should be done to ensure Christian refugees are getting help.

Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) appeared on the Laura Ingraham show on Monday to tout his latest bill, which calls for an immediate suspension of the Refugee Resettlement Program pending a “thorough examination” of the program’s costs and national security risks. The program allows the U.S. government to admit refugees when it is justified by humanitarian concerns.

But according to Babin, the program is a conduit for terrorist groups like ISIS to “set up bases of operations” in the United States, and should be suspended. At the same time, though, he said the U.S. should be doing more to accept Christian refugees.

[….]

….the vast majority of refugees to Europe are coming from Syria — and among those, the vast majority are Sunni Muslims, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And advocates say biases about which religious groups should be prioritized for resettlement could leave many affected Muslims in the dust.

By the way, one of the top posts of all time here at RRW is this one—Laura Ingraham calls for a moratorium on Muslim immigration to America.
See posts on Rep. Babin, here.
Just a reminder readers, that the number of refugees matters too—the US cannot take in the whole world or our economy will surely collapse.

Be sure to see Leo Hohmann’s latest at WND (from last night) on how the Left is reacting to the resettlement pushback going on in many states, here.

US Conference of Catholic Bishops want 100,000 Syrians admitted to US this year….

10/11/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….invoke Pope Francis’s name in their appeal. Does the Pope have this huge number (100,000 mostly Muslim Syrians) in mind for America?

Archbishop Kurtz — Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Kentucky is the President of the USCCB and is advocating for 100,000 Syrian, mostly Muslim, refugees to be placed in your parishes!

We know that the Bishops are pushing for this outrageous number already, but many good Catholics may not. A Catholic reader directed my attention to the Bishops’ website, here.
Our reader, Mark, says he received an e-mail with a link to this site, which among other things, urges faithful Catholics to write a letter to Obama to try and persuade him to admit 100,000 Syrians PLUS another 100,000 refugees in one year.
The Bishops surely are not telling local priests and parishioners that they are raking in millions of dollars of cold hard cash from federal taxpayers for refugee resettlement activities. And, they aren’t telling them that they are NOT advocating to save the persecuted Christians of Syria through this program.
From the USCCB:

The political and humanitarian crisis in Syria is a serious concern for the Catholic Church and the bishops of the United States. In the past five years, at least four million Syrians have fled their country as a consequence of the civil war and the rise of ISIS. Most have fled to surrounding countries, especially Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, and many others have moved on to Europe with the hope of finding a place of peace and safety. Pope Francis and the Catholic bishops have called on the U.S. government and the international community to provide support to both Syrian refugees fleeing violence and to countries that have been at the forefront of this humanitarian effort. These recommendations include:

*Providing 100,000 annual resettlement slots for the most vulnerable refugees fleeing the Syria conflict.

*Designating an additional 100,000 refugees to be resettled in the U.S. from other countries.

See the Archbishop’s statement here.
The USCCB needs to admit loud and clear to every Catholic in America how much money they get from the taxpayers for their “Migration Fund!”

See here, over $80 million in one recent year. This is NOT Christian charity!

And, one more thing, we are hearing rumors that various Catholic Charities are gearing up in parishes across the country to increase their refugee load to your town or city this year. More later….