“If we don’t get a deal by the summer we will lose credibility vis-à-vis public opinion and we cannot afford that because it would fuel support for populist and extremist parties across the country.”
(Unnamed diplomat from a frontline country)
PoliticoEurope is reporting that the European Union is working to get in place (by June) a new plan to redistribute migrants from frontline countries, but those frontline countries are not happy.
Invasion of Europe news….
Of course no where is it mentioned that they must first stop the boats arriving from North Africa (European equivalent of BUILD THE WALL)!
“I saw first-hand the flagrant abuses and scams that permeate the refugee program.”
(Mary Doetsch, retired Foreign Service Officer)
Will President Donald Trump and soon-to-be Secretary of State Pompeo, do what must be done and overhaul the USRAP?
Mary Doetsch is a retired US State Department Foreign Service officer who spent eight years (of a 25-year career) as a Refugee Coordinator serving on four continents.
As someone who has worked on the inside, her op-ed at the Washington Examiner today carries more weight than anything I could ever write as an outsider looking in!
Entitled:
US refugee program needs a complete overhaul
Ms. Doetsch opines (emphasis is mine):
During my career in the State Department, I became a refugee coordinator in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, or USRAP, because I wanted to help and support persecuted persons in legitimate need of international protection. But the pervasive fraud I saw during my eight years in the field was alarming.
It cries out for a fix, and President Trump might just be the person to do it.
Undoubtedly, many individuals who work within the refugee field have humanitarian aims. But refugee resettlement has morphed into a numbers-driven, financially motivated business, growing blindly at the expense of the American public and our national security.
There once was a time when private charities, civic groups and faith-based organizations provided the bulk of funds and volunteers to resettle and help assimilate refugees in the United States. Today’s deeply flawed system relies almost exclusively on nine federal contractors (paradoxically referred to as “Voluntary Agencies” or VOLAGS) to resettle refugees.
[….]
The contractors have a vested interest in processing ever-larger numbers of applicants, since they make money on every refugee settled. And as non-governmental organizations they can and do lobby for advantageous changes to law, something they could not do if they were government agencies. Their lobbying umbrella wields enormous influence over refugee admissions policy, pressuring Congress and the bureaucracy to increase admissions and provide ever greater funding.They stage political rallies, file lawsuits against unfavorable policies, and lobby for causes that coincidentally help their bottom lines, yet this linkage is rarely, if ever, mentioned.
This isn’t just important from the oft-discussed security perspective, but also because of the rampant fraud and abuse that has permeated this program for generations.
[….]
As a former Refugee Coordinator who served throughout the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Cuba, I saw first-hand the flagrant abuses and scams that permeate the refugee program. I witnessed widespread exploitation and misuse, from identity fraud to marriage and family relation scams, and from private individuals profiting from their involvement in USRAP to distortion of the actual refugee definition to ensure greater numbers of people who should really just be migrants are admitted as refugees.
[….]
While refugee admissions have been declining under the Trump administration, without structural reform in the USRAP these numbers could again skyrocket under a new administration more favorable to the refugee industry.
Midway into fiscal year 2018, fewer than a quarter of the 45,000 individuals proposed in the FY18 refugee ceiling have entered the country. This slow-down in admissions may reduce the problem of fraud, but it cannot be eliminated without a complete overhaul of the program.
I’ve only snipped a portion of Doetsch’s op-ed, click here to read it all.
What you can do…. Contact the White House and tell the President it is now or never to overhaul the US Refugee Admissions Program, or once out of office the program will go back in to high gear. Reducing numbers for a few years is not enough!
I’ve written many times over the years about how the world (not just Mexicans and Central Americans) is arriving at our southern border to seek asylum (if caught). I’ve mentioned Somalis and Iraqis on other occasions and now it is Syrians according to a report in the Washington Times(hat tip: Joanne).
You might want to visit a post I wrote in 2011 in which I suggest the illegals know how to use the system and ask for asylum because they were taught the system. I believe there exists a cabal of immigration lawyers working closely with our usual gang of NGOs facilitating the process. Washington Times:
The Treasury Department slapped sanctions Wednesday on a Syrian man and his criminal syndicate, blaming them for smuggling “hundreds” of illegal immigrants from Syria and Lebanon into Mexico and then helping them to jump the border into the U.S.
I’m not one of those wishing to oust Attorney General Sessions. This is the kind of work I want him to do. How we handle immigration is more significant for America’s future then if he was embroiled in the Russian meddling non-issue.
Nasif Barakat and his syndicate, which authorities labeled the Barakat Transnational Criminal Organization, charged about $20,000 to complete the smuggling. The money paid for bribes and for fake documents, including false European passports, to help illegal immigrants hide their identities. The fees also covered transportation from Syria through other Middle Eastern countries to South and Central America, the journey north through Mexico, and final help sneaking into the U.S.
[….]
“The day I was sworn in as attorney general, President Trump sent me an Executive Order to dismantle transnational criminal organizations,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Many of these organizations use human smugglers to bring people across our borders with little regard to their safety or our national sovereignty.”
[….]
The Treasury Department said his network would recruit customers from Syria and Lebanon, send them through either Turkey or the United Arab Emirates, where they would catch flights to Brazil, then make their way north through Venezuela, Colombia and Panama, then up through Central America and Mexico.
That turns out to be a common route for people being smuggled from terrorist-connected countries.
The newest batch of 50 will join the 233 already here. An Australian official who was originally involved with making the “dumb” deal with Barack Obama predicts the US will take all 1,250 and maybe more!
For new readers who have never heard of this incredibly stupid arrangement, see my entire archive of previous posts by clicking here.
The Trump Administration has selected 50 more for you to welcome to your towns and cities. Where are they being located? It is a secret!
Former Australian Border Force commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg says he is confident the Trump administration will accept its upper limit of 1250 refugees under a deal with the federal government, and said the US might take even more people.
The government yesterday seized on reports a further 50 refugees in Manus Island and Nauru had been cleared for resettlement in the US to argue the government’s border protection policies were working.
Mr Quaedvlieg was removed from his job in March after an official investigation but previously worked on the deal originally sealed with the Obama administration.
It was the subject of a tense phone call between Malcolm Turnbull and US President Donald Trump.
“The US deal to settle refugees from Manus and Nauru was struck throughout the course of 2016 and was achieved through both formal and informal diplomatic channels,” Mr Quaedvlieg told The Australian.
“Many of us called in friendships and favours in relationships that we cultivated through the Five Eyes alliance.
(Click here to learn about Five Eyeswhich I had never heard of!)
“We were fortunate that President Trump honoured the deal that was struck with the Obama administration.”
Under the deal, the US agreed to accept as many as 1250 people as long as they passed “extreme vetting” procedures.
Mr Quaedvlieg, a former senior police officer, said he would not rule out the US accepting more than 1250 refugees.
[….]
Sky News reported 50 refugees had been cleared for resettlement in the US and would move to their new home within a fortnight. This would be in addition to the 233 people who had already moved to the US under the deal.
How ironic is this! The new New Zealand Prime Minister made a big show a few months back of offering to take some of the mostly Muslim men that Australia won’t take to its mainland, but not so fast!
Government papers obtained by the news outlet this month show Australia asked the New Zealand government to keep its offer on the table as a contingency plan in case the US deal fell through.
Interestingly, the government documents suggested there were concerns about detainees passing New Zealand’s own strict screening and security laws.
There is no sense directing you to the whole article (it is behind a pay wall), but take my word for it.
Donald Trump should have stuck with his original instincts and nixed the dumb deal in the first months of his presidency. It is not only dumb, but could set a dangerous precedent. This process is way outside of the norm for international refugee movement. And, if just one of these men (who have been incarcerated for at least 4 years) goes wrong, commits violence of some sort, it will be on the President! Contactthe White House! and tell the President what you think about this “dumb” deal!
Let me say at the outset that the Australia deal struck by the Obama Administration in its waning months is dumber than dumb and Donald Trump should have followed his first instincts and cancelled the whole thing (as even the Australians suspected he would) and been done with it in February of 2017.
Here we see that Australian immigration official Peter Dutton is being blamed for not allowing an Afghan family (who attempted to break in to Australia illegally) that have been split between the mainland and offshore detention to apply to come to the US. Dutton’s call to rethink the 1951 UN Refugee Convention has to make the No Borders agitators crazy! Out to get him now for sure!*
Not one word in The Guardian story about whether the US has any say in this!
I believe the US State Department has already said that we aren’t taking extended families of the detainees (so far 220 of Australia’s rejects, mostly Muslim men, have been airlifted to Your Town, USA!). For new readers, Australia had such an awful problem with boat people attempting to break in to their country that they made a new policy. Anyone breaking in would be detained in offshore detention facilities and would never be admitted to the mainland. That was about 5 years ago and they are sticking to the policy. However! Lefties in Australia have been beating up the government ever since, so they found a way to wiggle out—thanks to Obama—by sending those they won’t grant refugee status to to America! The Guardian:
Dutton urged to allow refugee families in Australia to apply for US resettlement
Split up refugee families stuck in limbo because of Australian government policy could be reunited if Peter Dutton let them apply for US resettlement from Australia, the opposition has said.
The comment follows revelations by Guardian Australia that a family of four had been split between Nauru and Australia since 2014.
Leftwing “shadow minister” Shayne Neumann blames Dutton for not allowing sick Shiite Muslim family to reunite and apply for US resettlement. Hey! Neumann, why should the US take on Australia’s migration problems!
Australian Border Force has told the 27-year-old daughter on Nauru that they could be reunited but only if her mother and sister returned to the island. The mother is in Australia confined to a wheelchair and awaiting surgery, and doctors have said she cannot go back.
While the mother and one daughter are in Australia they cannot apply for resettlement in the US, offered under a deal struck between the Australian government and the Obama administration. More than 220 have been resettled, out of a promise of “up to 1,200”.
By the way, something must have slowed the flow to the US. Last reportwas over a month ago. Wonder what that is all about!
“Labor strongly supports the US refugee resettlement agreement and wants all eligible refugees – including those in Australia for medical treatment – to have the opportunity to apply for resettlement in the US,” the shadow minister for immigration, Shayne Neumann, said.
“The long-term issue of asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru in Australia could have been avoided entirely if Peter Dutton simply allowed eligible refugees in Australia the opportunity to apply to resettle in the United States.”
Nuts! No offense to Dutton, but the US gets some say in this! More here. Asylum shopping!
Follow links back and see that this family with its health issues (including mental health issues) would be a huge burden on US taxpayers! Legitimate refugees are to ask for asylum in the first safe country they enter, however, the whole system has been perverted and that is why the 1951 UN Refugee Convention should be trashed.
I have dozens of posts on the Australia “dumb” deal, click hereto learn more.
*Don’t miss Dutton calls for reconsideration of outdated 1951 UN Refugee Convention, here. Contact the White House! Tell the President to cut it off now. 220 is too many already!
