Category: Obama

New FBI Director worried about Syria as “ungoverned space” and expresses concern about refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

More “worrisome” than Afghanistan!

FBI Director James Comey says intelligence agencies know little about the refugees moving into Europe.

Basically he says we don’t know who these refugees are “moving up into Europe or elsewhere in the Middle East.”  No kidding!

Partway into this Politico piece on Obama’s State of the Union speech and Afghanistan comes this telling section of the article:

The danger from Syria, for example, seems likely to linger for a long time. And it’s exactly the kind of danger that, in the wake of Sept. 11, was deemed by Republicans and Democrats to be unacceptable.

“As long as that conflict is going on, as long as people are learning how to kill other people and meeting really bad people, it’s going to be a big worry,” FBI Director James Comey told reporters recently.

“The conflict in Syria has attracted so many people from so many places, of so many motivations, including Americans, that it is an enormous challenge for all intelligence services, including the FBI, to identify the ones of bad intent,” he said. “To figure out where they’re going, why they’re going and to keep track of them. It’s something we’re spending a lot of time on.”

The new FBI director told reporters at his office that the FBI has a relatively good handle on Americans who’ve traveled back and forth to Syria, or made the attempt, but knows much less about the many others involved with or displaced by the conflict, including refugees moving up into Europe or elsewhere in the Middle East.

People inside the counterterrorism world have compared it to Afghanistan in the 1980s, Comey said, “but in some ways it’s more worrisome.” Syria is easier to reach, more people are involved, and the population is much more diverse, he said.

Christian Science Monitor editorial: Obama must bring in the Syrians

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
It would be so much less confusing if they would just drop the word “Christian” from their masthead don’t you think!

The mainstream media drumbeat is well underway!

Noticeably absent from this editorial from last week, however, is any mention of “Christians!”   The publication also suggests that Obama relax security screening that had been put in place after 911.

Demonstrating a complete misunderstanding of refugee resettlement in America (or is it an effort to mislead us) the CSM says this:

“It is time for Europe and the United States to be a safety valve and accept many more Syrians for temporary asylum.”

There is NO temporary asylum in America.  Refugees are permanently resettled in the US.  As a matter of fact, we received a comment recently where a reader assumed that refugees come here temporarily until their homeland is secure again.  NO!

Longtime readers know we have another immigration loophole called ‘Temporary Protected Status (TPS)‘ which is for those from certain designated countries who were in the US (visiting, on student visas, etc) when the problem happened back home—a civil war or natural disaster—who are supposedly allowed to stay only until the status is removed.  Syrians already in the US are now eligible for that program.  However, even when the trouble back home is solved, most of those on TPS NEVER leave, just ask the Salvadorans!  There are NO temporary refugees, so why the CSM editor says such a thing is beyond me!

Here is more of what the CSM says—to show our gratitude to certain Middle Eastern countries we need to take twelve thousand or so chosen by the UN! (and skip the security screening!):

The UN wants 30,000 of Syria’s most vulnerable refugees – mainly women and children – to be taken in by the US and Europe. About 20 countries in Europe plan to accept 18,000 Syrians. For now, however, the Obama administration has committed to resettling only “several thousand” Syrians.

One problem for the US is that post-9/11 laws make it difficult to screen asylum seekers from Muslim countries. The laws were designed to make sure terrorists don’t slip through. More than 135,000 Syrian refugees have applied for asylum. Last year, only a few dozen were allowed into the US. The Obama administration has legal ways to overcome the bureaucratic hurdles and begin granting far more temporary visas.  [There are no temporary refugees!—ed]

The US has called on Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon to keep their borders open. For both humanitarian and security reasons – and out of gratitude to those countries – the US must now also open its border to the huddled masses of Syrian refugees.

For security reasons?  Now what the heck does that mean?  Surely they don’t mean we have to take them to keep them from becoming terrorists!

The talking points have gone out!   The UN wants the US to take 12,000 this year, the contractors want it too.  Will Obama do it—legally he can!

Unaccompanied minors or victims of human trafficking?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We have written a lot lately about the spike in the number of illegal alien children coming across US borders without their parents—most recently here in December.  Those that aren’t turned over to family members (who may themselves be illegal aliens), end up in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and at least two federal refugee contractors—the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services––which of course are paid by you to take care of the kids.

One of the “kids” LIRS took care of. LIRS caption:
Rather than be forced to become a child soldier, Tesfaye Gebre fled Eritrea as an unaccompanied refugee minor. Photo Credit: The Lutheran/Lisa Helfert

Here is a story from the DC Clothesline a few days ago, that explains more about the steep rise in the numbers and how the Obama Administration is complicit in this human trafficking scheme (hat tip: Cathy):

US District Court Judge Andrew S. Hanen, in a December ruling, claims that the Obama administration’s Homeland Security Department has been openly violating US law by conspiring to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States. As if all the other scandals that are enveloping this administration weren’t enough, it seems they are now openly aiding an invasion of our country, which again, should be declared as treasonous.

The accusations were contained in the judge’s ruling against Mirtha Veronica Nava-Martinez, who plead guilty to attempting to smuggle a ten-year-old El Salvadorean girl, identified only as Y.P.S. in the ruling, into the United States in violation of federal law. Nava-Martinez was caught at the Brownsville & Matamoros Bridge checkpoint.

Patricia Elizabeth Salmeron Santos had solicited human traffickers, of which Nava-Martinez is an admitted trafficker, to smuggle her daughter into Virginia. She eventually agreed to pay $8,500 (paying $6,000 in advance) to traffic her daughter into the country.

The Texas federal judge accused DHS of delivering children, illegally smuggled into the US to their illegal immigrant parents. “This action makes the DHS complicit in aiding that Mexican drug cartels that control the people smuggling rings,” writes Hanen. He added that the “government is not only allowing (illegal immigrants in the US) to fund the illegal and evil activities of these cartels, but is also inspiring them to do so.”

Judge Hanen wrote that in more than one case that has been before his court, members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal agency under DHS, have arrested human traffickers, who are smuggling children illegally into the US, then “delivering the minors to the custody of the parent illegally living in the United States.”

Read it all, there is much more with lots of links.  The article does not mention the role of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and it contractors, but know that thousands of ‘kids’ not immediately sent to family members are now in your (the taxpayers’) care.

See also the Center for Immigration Studies report (The Reality of Childhood Arrivals: Seamy, not Dreamy) from mid-December highlighting another similar case.

Turkey: Could Syrian refugees help bring down Erdogan government?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Sure looks like it is possible!   And, it would be one explanation for why Turkey is a sieve and allowing Syrians to move through the country and out the other side into Greece and Bulgaria (both countries having enormous problems with illegal migrants mostly from Syria, but even from places like Algeria coming through Turkey!).*

From The Daily Star (Lebanon).  Emphasis is mine:

BEIRUT: A corruption scandal in Turkey may see embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad outlast his Turkish adversary Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the latest sign Turkish foreign policy on Syria is undergoing a major recalibration, analysts say.

[….]

Former ally Turkey emerged as the most vocal opponent of the regime in Syria, which, after protests against Assad’s rule were brutally repressed by government forces, has become mired in an all-out civil war. Erdogan was one of the first international leaders to call for Assad to step down. Turkey also hosts some 600,000 refugees and has also provided safe haven and material assistance to Syrian military opponents.

Turkey opens door to radical Islamists?

Pals! Erdogan is considered to be Obama’s closest friend among world leaders.

More recently, Turkey’s apparent open door policy to rebels crossing the border to fight Assad has drawn criticism both at home and from its Western allies for allegedly providing a base and military assistance to radical Islamists affiliated with Al-Qaeda to launch their attacks. [Wasn’t there a suggestion that Obama was sending weapons for Syrians from Libya (Benghazi!) to Turkey?—ed]

[….]

Those concerns have seen Turkey adjust its policy on Syria by tightening border security and boosting intelligence operations, in what analysts say reflects an embarrassing about-face once it became apparent that Assad’s regime would not fall as quickly as Ankara had hoped.

Potential for anti-Syrian refugee rhetoric and hostility?

While the left-wing opposition remains weak in Turkey, the anti-intervention position on Syria is likely to gain traction and party support is strongly divided over the Syria refugee issue.

That raises the potential for a wave of anti-Syrian rhetoric and hostility toward the 600,000 refugees in Turkey, Ulgen said, similar to the backlash against Syrians that occurred in Egypt following the military’s post-revolutionary coup.

A public opinion poll conducted by EDAM to be released in January found that 86 percent of participants agreed that no further Syrian refugees should be allowed in the country, while only 11 percent believed Turkey should continue to take refugees.

Refugees taking jobs the Turks would like to do (it is the same the world over!):

Ozel (a newspaper columnist) added that he feared hostility toward Syrians would increase.

“The unofficial figures say there are 1 million Syrians here. They are scattered all over the place, they are dirt poor, they are working at a fraction of the price than the Turks doing the same job. Sooner or later it will cause social tensions and this government has done nothing to address that.”

There is a lot more in The Daily Star article worth reading.

*Type ‘Greece’ or ‘Bulgaria’ into our search function for more on the Muslim migration into those countries.

Italy: Syrian refugees pose threat to European security

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yes, we agree.  And, we have Obama and Samantha Power to thank for the lawlessness that now rules Libya.  So much for the Power doctrine—the “responsibility to protect.” Protect the Jihadists?

Italian foreign minister Emma Bonino: Ex-jihadists or members of al-Qaida getting in with women and children.

From AFP (emphasis mine):

The exodus of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria represents a security threat to the European Union, Italy’s foreign minister said Monday, warning that potential terrorists could be among the displaced.

“Like all major humanitarian crises”, the Syria conflict “has political aspects and consequences that can have devastating effects”, Emma Bonino told reporters in Rome.

“If you consider displaced people, refugees and immigrants, we have millions of people moving around the southern Mediterranean,” she said.

“We have many reasons to believe that among the women and children, there are also less friendly immigrants — ex-jihadists or members of al-Qaida.”

“It is clear that uncontrolled landings on our shores have implications for the security of the European Union.”

While Bonino underlined the war in Syria as the main reason for displacement, she said poverty in the Sahel, insecurity in Somalia and lawlessness in Libya added to the problem.

“In the absence of any control over its territory, Libya is today becoming a sort of freeway where anything gets through — weapons, drugs,” she warned.

The EU has been examining proposals to beef up border surveillance and open up legal channels to reach Europe to deal with the boats packed with Syrian refugees that have been arriving in southern Italy.