Just two hours ago the UN Observer reported that the  ‘Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act’ which was attached to the Defense Authorization bill at the end of September is now in conference committee.  You can read about it in this news report from EPIC (Education for Peace in Iraq Center).    EPIC joined some of the volags, who coincidentally will receive federal funding to resettle the refugees, in lobbying for this measure.

All last week, EPIC and our colleagues from Amnesty International, Human Rights First, Church World Service, and International Rescue Committee (IRC) met with House lawmakers to urge them to support these important Senate provisions on protecting Iraqi refugees, and suggested ways to strengthen the language to go even further.

We have covered Iraqi refugees extensively and we encourage readers to review our coverage here.  As we have mentioned previously, the US State Department already has the authority to admit Iraqi refugees.  If you notice the groups involved in the drumbeating have opposed the war and by making a big issue of the refugee situation, they get in their licks against the Bush Administration.

Just an hour ago, before your kids even got their Halloween candy spread out on the kitchen table to properly  examine the loot, the AP was reporting the end of the month count on Iraqi refugees resettled to America.   You would think they could have waited at least until the official end (about 3 and a half hours from now) of the first month of the new fiscal year to complain.

I can just see the press officers of the multi-million dollar refugee industry organizations madly dialing their press contacts telling AP and others in the mainstream media to nail that dastardly Bush Administration TONIGHT!   [Additional comment on Nov. 1, things are improving in Iraq so now you will be hearing more on the refugee subject because the left needs to continue bashing their boogey man Bush .]

Horrors!  Only 450 Iraqi refugees have arrived this month and advocacy groups were promised 1000 a month for each month of FY 2008.

The slow pace of admissions for members of what is the world’s fastest-growing refugee population has sparked criticism from refugee advocacy groups and lawmakers. They complain that Washington is not doing enough for those who have fled the violence in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

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The blame has been placed on bureaucratic slowdowns — including bickering between the State Department, which is in charge of refugee resettlement, and the Homeland Security Department, which must screen would-be admittees. Another factor was a lack of cooperation from some foreign countries, notably Syria, which hosts the largest number of Iraqi refugees.

The article reminds us that it is the United Nations that is picking the refugees for us.

In my view, here is how it works.   What works you ask?  The great taxpayer rip-off of course.   It doesn’t matter whether the groups are left-leaning environmental groups or the ten volags (non-governmental organizations) bringing refugees to America, the strategy is the same.   There are probably many more hands in our pockets then we can imagine,  it just happens I know about these two pets of the liberal big government crowd.

Lets take Refugee Resettlement, the subject of our blog of course.  And, lets take for a specific example, The International Rescue Committee (IRC).  Today I noticed this drum-beating article  in something called “The Globalist” (what else!) about Iraqi refugees by Anne Richard, a VP at the IRC.   The title of the article is, “Americas responsibility to the Iraqi refugees”.  There is absolutely nothing new in this opinion piece dressed up as news.  This is boiler plate; if I’ve seen one of these articles I’ve seen ten.  They are all the same, they are everywhere.  These articles are meant to tug at the heartstrings of Americans, you know to soften us up, to make us feel obligated to bring millions of Iraqis to America NOW.

By the way,  Anne Richard is a former employee of the US State Department having worked for Madeleine Albright  (the revolving door in action).    She makes a salary of between $100,000 and $200,000 (based on the salaries of other VP’s at IRC).  But that is ‘chump change’ compared to the IRC CEO’s salary.  Dr. George Rupp, former Pres. of Columbia University, brings in a cool $357,657 a year salary according to the organization’s 2005 Form 990.   Thats more than the Vice President of the United States, the Speaker of the House, or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court receive (no wonder public service is so unpopular).

The IRC is a $200 million plus a year organization that recieves close to half of its income from you, the taxpayer.   Actually it was $88 million from government grants in 2005.  The immigration industry is big business and in order to stay in business it needs to find “refugees” to move around the world.

So, the circle goes like this: 

*   Beat the drum in the mainstream media to bring more refugees while wearing the ‘white hat’ (its about feeling good).

*    Convince Congress, the President and the public that we must do something.

*    More of your money goes out to these private groups through grants and contracts with the federal government.

*    Employees of these NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS make big salaries while wearing the ‘white hat’.

*    To stay in business (and get more of your tax dollars) they need to beat the drum (create the crisis) to bring more refugees to America.

I wonder if there are actually courses in this because the M.O. is the same from one leftist cause to the next.

Last week I posted on a report from the Brookings Institution entitled, Iraqi Refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic, in an effort to answer the question, who are the Iraqis who have fled to Syria?  Since the United States has already begun resettling this fiscal year’s goal of 12, 000, it’s important for us to know who is coming to America.   See also Judy’s post about Christian Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

More from Brookings, who are they?

* “… many [are] urban, moderate or secular Sunnis who do not want to live under the sway of Salafi insurgent groups.”    Salafis are the hard-line fundamentalist Muslims.

* “Many of the Kurds seem to be crossing into Syria in the hope of obtaining third-country resettlment….”  Apparently in May, Kurdish men were crossing into Syria to register as asylees but then freely returned  home making them not true refugees.

*  Shia Iraqis are entering Syria looking for better economic conditions, to escape hardline Islam and to obtain resettlement in third countries.

* Many Christian Iraqis went to Syria in the 1990’s to escape the Saddam Hussein regime.  Others had worked for that regime and left after the regime was toppled.   Many Christians who stayed in Iraq worked for foreign organizations or the multinational forces and have now left Iraq.   The report mentions several times that Christians who sold alchohol were especially driven from Iraq by hard-line Islamic groups.

There are additional reports of radical Sunni insurgents asking Christians to pay the jizya to the Mosque or leave the country.   The report describes the jizya as “a head-tax that non-Muslims historically paid in Muslim states.” 

Brookings says the Iraqi Christians expect they cannot go back to Iraq but “that leaving Iraq will lead to the disappearance of their communities and their distinct identities.” 

* Then there were 30,000 Palestinians in Iraq, “favored under Saddam”.    Many have gone to Syria and some are in refugee camps along the border between Iraq and Jordan.   Somehow Hamas is involved in the “deadlock around the Palestinian refugees blocked between Iraq and Jordan.”   Incidentally recent reports are that some of these Palestinians are being resettled by Brazil.

*  Finally the report discusses the Sunni and Shia radical groups that have left Iraq and entered Syria.  The first group right after the invasion were members of the Saddam Hussein regime and then in the last couple of years the radicals are likely a result of stepped up military action by the multi-national forces (the Surge?).

According to Brookings some of these are coming as refugees, others come “for rest-and-recuperation, or even to check up on whether other members of the group are living cleanly, in keeping with strict Islamic instructions.”

At the end of this Brookings report, there are some statistics gathered from interviews of 192 Iraqis in Syria.   Although the sample must be too small to be accurate it is nonetheless worth mentioning.

44% of the Iraqis living in Syria are Sunni

22% Shia

13% Christian

73% are men

69% are aged 18-50

41% left Iraq in 2006

1% say they left due to an affiliation with the international presence

2% operated liquor stores

23% left due to sectarian violence

I kind of got a chuckle out of the statistics above.  The primary reason given by the mainstream media for the persecuted refugees who must come to America immediately is because of their involvement with the US government (as translators and such), yet only 1% gave that as a reason for fleeing Iraq.  

A couple of months ago a Congressman asked why isn’t our friend and ally, Saudi Arabia, helping to solve the Iraqi refugee “crisis” by taking some Iraqis to that country on a temporary basis?  I didn’t know the answer.  But, I guess we know how they feel about the topic as they proceed to build a 550 mile high-tech fence to keep their northern neighbors out.   So much for Muslims helping Muslims (what would Mohammad do?) 

Here is an article from the American Thinker with a mention of the super Saudi fence.

One country that clearly recognizes the value of a good fence is Saudi Arabia. Fearing an inflow of unwanted refugees from neighboring Iraq, the Saudis have decided to erect a high-tech barrier [click here to see this engineering marvel] all along their 550 mile border. Justifiably proud of their common sense, one Saudi familiar with the details boasted: ‘It’s being done in true Saudi style. State-of-the-art equipment and no expense spared.’ The project’s estimated cost is $1 billion. Our politicians should blush crimson knowing that the Saudi fence will incorporate many technologies invented and perfected in America.

Guess that helps answer our previous post on the “welcoming” Saudi Arabia.

More on fences.    I’m not always on top of the news so I may have missed it; I do know there has been enormous international criticism of the Israelis for building a fence to protect themselves from terrorist Palestinians, but the silence on the Saudi fence is deafening.