Utah political operative urges Utahns to oppose Trump pick for refugee program head

I told you the other day, that the Trump Administration is putting up Utah resident and former State Department Foreign Service Officer, Ron Mortensen, for the top post at the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. The position requires Senate approval and this is the beginning of what lies ahead for Mortensen on The Hill.

Holly Richardsen
Holly Richardson wants Utah’s Senators to block Trump nominee to head refugee program

There is nothing of major significance in the opinion piece by Holly Richardson (it is the same old stuff used against anyone with Mortensen’s views), but we learned a few more nuggets about the Mormon Church’s open borders viewpoint and its welcoming attitude toward Muslim migrants.  And we learned more about Senator Mike Lee (once the darling of the conservative Tea Party movement in America).
From the Salt Lake Tribune:

The irony is thick. The very week that The New York Times published an opinion piece on “What Islamophobic Politicians Can Learn From Mormons,Donald Trump nominated an immigration hardliner, Utahn Ron Mortensen, to oversee refugees and migration. As the Times piece points out, since 2015, 49 states have had Republican officials publicly attacking Islam. The one standout was Utah. Now, one Utahn with strong anti-immigrant positions could ascend to a position of prominence.

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New data from Pew: Americans turning more negative on refugee resettlement

My subtitle:

Nearly half of US Catholics believe it is not our responsibility to resettle refugees

Most of the media blames the change in attitude on Trump’s rhetoric, but I think there has been a sea change in media reporting.  There is more and more news available to the general public about the kinds of things I mentioned in my previous post this morning—stories about refugees scamming our welfare programs for example that previously were not published, but are now spread widely by social media!

Erol Kekic with mug
Erol Kekic of Church World Service:  “We have seen an unfortunate rise in xenophobia globally.”

Ten years ago (nearly 11 now) when I first began writing this blog, stories in the media about refugees were in the genre I called ‘Refugees see first snow’ stories!  All were meant to paint refugees in only the most glowing terms.
Now we do see more crime stories like food stamp fraud, Medicaid fraud etc, but also stories about refugee-perpetrated violent crimes and terrorism in the US and around the world.
Here is USA Today on the Pew numbers:

Fewer Americans believe U.S. should accept refugees

Fewer Americans believe the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees, a shift that has been spurred by President Trump’s efforts to limit them from entering the country, according to a poll released Thursday.

More than half of Americans — 51% — still believe the United States should welcome immigrants fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries, according to the poll conducted by the non-partisan Pew Research Center. But that number is down from 56% during a similar survey in February 2017.

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Maine: Somali refugees charged with welfare fraud

What else is new!  The only thing new is the change in location from Minnesota to Maine and this time it is medicaid fraud and not daycare fraud.
This news is from the Somali capital of Maine—Lewiston—and from earlier this month.
Tip of the iceberg?
From the Sun Journal (hat tip Frank):

PORTLAND — Two men from the Twin Cities charged with welfare fraud appeared in federal court Monday seeking release from jail.

Lewiston like Somalia
No mugshots of Ahmed and Osman that I could find, but figured this older photo would suffice to illustrate the story!

At an afternoon hearing, U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge John Rich III ordered Abdirashid Ahmed, 38, of Lewiston released on $5,000 bond after seizing his passport.

Rich said Ahmed would be equipped with an electronic monitoring device to ensure he does not leave Androscoggin County.

Ahmed was kept Monday night in federal custody at Cumberland County Jail. He was expected to be escorted Tuesday morning to Lewiston and released into the custody of the U.S. Probation Office. He must get permission from that office if he were to seek to leave Androscoggin County in the future, Rich said.

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Trial opens in case of another Uzbek refugee charged with plotting terror in his home country

We remember when Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested attempting to leave the country in 2012 and I have wondered what the heck was going on that his case was not going to trial.

Jamshid-Muhtorov--30291984_3085_ver1.0_320_240
Why didn’t we just let him leave? Why was protecting the Uzbek government our problem?  Indeed, why was he here in the first place?

Before reading on, you might want to revisit another notorious case of an Uzbek refugee sentenced to prison in Idaho who subsequently tried to kill the prison warden where he had been incarcerated, see here.
Now to the story from Denver about Jamshid Muhtorov where we learn the trial delay was due to his lawyer’s efforts to challenge the use of information from NSA surveillance:

Trial underway for refugee who challenged NSA surveillance

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Trump nominates Ronald Mortensen to head State Department refugee program

Who is Ronald Mortensen?
I had never heard of him, but CNN and other outlets call him an immigration hardliner, a “fellow” at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Screenshot (1298)
Clearly a Trump supporter in Romney country, Mortensen said in August of 2016 that Trump is our only hope against corrupt elites.   http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=4276026&itype=CMSID

Doing a quick scan of the Utah native’s writing at CIS, we see that he has mostly written about DACA and illegal alien issues, so his experience with the refugee program is apparently limited.
The most recent op-ed I found from him is from 6 months ago at The Hill about how to structure an amnesty for the DACA ‘children’ entitled:

Want to pass the DREAM Act? Let’s combine mercy with justice

Hmmmm?
As a retired Foreign Service officer, he surely has a good feel for the countries and cultures that feed in to the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, and if approved by the Senate (a very long shot!), he might be able to find some experienced people to surround himself with who know where the problems are with the USRAP.
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