Pew Research has done a handy little summary of where we stand with refugees admitted this fiscal year, but most importantly they made a useful graph of how many entered from travel-restricted countries since the first week of December, through Trump’s inauguration and up to last Friday.
There is nothing we haven’t already been talking about as we reported also from Wrapsnet over recent weeks and months, but they put it in a neat little package for your review on the eve of the 120-day moratorium on refugee resettlement. Pew Research Center:
A total of 2,466 refugees from six countries under new travel restrictions – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – have resettled in the United States since Donald Trump became president, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department data. The number of refugees from the six travel-restricted countries represents 32% of all refugees who have entered the U.S. since Trump took office.
Do you see that big spike ending on inauguration day? That is because the Obama State Dept. was working night and day to get as many Muslims in to the US as possible in the week before the Trump team took over.
Pew continues….
Including refugees from countries with no travel restrictions, a total of 7,594 refugees have entered the U.S. during Trump’s first seven weeks in office (Jan. 21 to March 10). Of these refugees, 3,410 are Muslims (45%) and 3,292 are Christians (43%), with other religions or the religiously unaffiliated accounting for the rest.
So far in fiscal 2017 (which began Oct. 1, 2016), refugees who hold citizenship from the six restricted countries have accounted for more than a third (34%) of 37,716 refugee admissions.
President Trump has set the ceiling for the entire 2017 fiscal year at 50,000, a number we explained here is not that low!
This post is filed in ourTrump Watch!category as well as ‘refugee statistics’and ‘where to find information.’ Endnote: It is amusing to me to see research/articles like this because for years and years (I started writing RRW in 2007) no one paid any attention to the numbers, religions and ethnicities of refugees entering the US. It is nice to see so many news outlets educating the public!
This is another in my series of inquiries about why it is our responsibility to take ‘refugees’ off the hands of governments where those asylum seekers (supposed refugees) are that country’s problem. (Is Israel taking any of our illegal aliens/asylum seekers?)
See my recent post on Russia, here. Or, see the dumb deal with Australia, here. And, I have been writing about this issue for years as it relates to Malta, here. This morning I want to know why we took 38 ‘refugees’ from Israel in the first 5 months of FY17. Whoever they are, they are not our problem?
(For background on the problems Israel has with illegal aliens, especially from Africa over the years, go to our category ‘Israel and refugees’ by clicking here).
This is the Refugee Processing Center data from Wrapsnet: There are a lot of countries on this list that beg the question, why are we taking refugees from these countries where refugees would be perfectly safe!
One more thing President Trump’s State Department could do, is to stop using refugees in deals with other countries, something I testified about several times here (see #7).
PBS has a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees which says that hundreds of thousands of those who fled Afghanistan over the last 30 years are returning home. The UNHCR is looking for western governments to give more money to Afghanistan to soften the blow on the economy there as this many people return.
Photo in the PBS story: Afghans wait to cross into their home country at the border post in Torkham, Pakistan, on March 7. Photo by Fayaz Aziz/Reuters (Where are the women and children?)
When I checked Wrapsnetto see how many we were bringing to America, I was surprised to see our ‘refugee’ intake from Afghanistan increasing, not decreasing.
First see what the PBS Newshour is reporting, here:
For years, Afghans have fled the violence in their country, seeking asylum in Europe or elsewhere in the Middle East. But over the past year, about 600,000 Afghans have crossed the border back into Afghanistan, coming from Pakistan, Iran and Europe when they are denied asylum.
Human Rights Watch says Pakistan is using a UN incentive program that gives refugee families a cash grant of $400 to voluntarily return home as a way to pressure Afghans to go back to Afghanistan.
[….]
United Nations High Commission for Refugees spokeswoman Ariane Rummery said at a press briefing last month the organization is concerned that the pace of those returning is outstripping the country’s ability to accept them. She urged donor countries to follow through on their pledges to support the Afghan government.
So how many are we taking and where are they going?
(I want to know why we are taking any!)
Checking Wrapsnet going back to FY03 (because prior to that we can’t get good data) up until today, this is what I learned.
From FY03-FY13 we admitted on average 674 Afghans (small compared to the massive numbers of Iraqis, Somalis and now Syrians we have brought). In FY09, our lowest year, we admitted 349 from Afghanistan.
In FY14 the number started to pick up and we admitted 753 Afghans.
FY15 was 910. FY16 jumped to 2,737 and in the first five plus months this fiscal year we admitted 1,008. The total number was 12,824 and 97% were Muslims of various stripes.6,537 were Sunnis and 4,531 were Shiites (once again admitting both sides of the religious divide!).
Here is where they were placed since FY03:
Florida is 319. Alaska got zero as did Hawaii, something we reported here as Hawaii (ha! ha!) sued the Trump Administration EO. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2017/03/10/hawaii-needs-refugees-sues-feds-over-refugee-pause-travel-restrictions-from-certain-muslim-countries/
For more on refugees from Afghanistan, click here.
You can’t make this up.
Surely you have already seen the news that the state of Hawaii is claiming that the Trump Administration’s latest Executive Order limiting travel to the US from certain countries and pausing the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program will hurt Hawaii! Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin spoke at Muslim Association of Hawaii, alleges they aren’t getting enough Muslim refugees (he didn’t really say that exactly), but they clearly need some! http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/hawaii-becomes-first-state-to-challenge-trumps-new-travel-ban/ I’m going to propose (when the refugee pause and the travel restrictions are lifted) that the state of Hawaii be placed at the top of the refugee-receiving list and get its FAIR SHARE of refugees especially from Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. to make up for lost time in reaping the rewards of diversity!
Hawaii resettled a grand total of 123 refugees in 14 years, 5 months and ten days (up to today).
I’ll show you below with more numbers how completely ignorant and ill-informed Hawaii’s AG sounds.
Here is Seattlepi:
Hawaii has become the first state to mount a federal court challenge to President Trump’s revised executive order blocking travel from six predominantly Muslim countries and barring Syrian refugees for 120 days.
Attorneys for the Aloha State on Wednesday asked a U.S. District Court judge in Honolulu to block the new Trump order.
“This new executive order is nothing more than Muslim Ban 2.0; under the pretense of national security, it still targets immigrants and refugees,” Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin said in a statement.
[….]
In its court filing, Hawaii argues that the rights of its citizens, and its tourism economy, will be damaged by the revised Trump order, which takes effect March 16.
The new executive order will damage Hawaii’s “economy, educational institutions and tourism industry,” the state argues in its brief.
Rolling on floor laughing my head off! Hawaii “welcoming persons from all nations around the world into the fabric of its society.”
“It is damaging Hawaii’s institutions, harming its economy and eroding Hawaii’s sovereign interest in maintaining the separation between church and state as well as in welcoming persons from all nations around the world into the fabric of its society.”
Ismail Elshikh, Muslim Association of Hawaii is a co-plaintiff in suit against Trump Administration. http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/hawaii-becomes-first-state-to-challenge-trumps-new-travel-ban/
Now, here is the real power behind the suit—Muslim Association of Hawaii!
The state’s suit has a co-plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, saying the Trump order “inflicts a grave injury on Muslims in Hawaii, including Dr. Elshikh, his family and members of his mosque.”
Let’s look at Hawaii’s refugee program!
Checking Wrapsnetthis morning, here is a summary of the refugees admitted to Hawaii in the last 14 years, 5 months and 10 days:
Of the total 123 refugees they “welcomed” to Hawaii, the largest number (66) were Vietnamese who came in the early years (FY03,04,05). Another 40 were Burmese (most Burmese are Christians). Only 5 from any Middle East country came. In 2004, 1 Iranian was resettled there and in 2013 they got a grand total of 4 Iraqis. None of the thousands of Syrians admitted to the US in the last 2 years were seeded in Hawaii!
A smattering of Russians and Ukrainians were placed there over the years.
There were no refugees sent to Hawaii at all in FY11 and last year! Zero Africans were planted in Hawaii in all those years. That is interesting since when I read some books on Obama’s father arriving in Hawaii in about 1960, see especially this book, I learned that Hawaiians were not partial to Africans and that Barack Sr. attracted much attention because of his race and demeanor. Hmmmm?
Why wasn’t the state of Hawaii begging for refugees over the last 14 years, 5 months and 10 days?
Seems it might be just the right time to send Hawaii its fair share of Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Congolese!
BTW, how is the welfare system in Hawaii, does anyone know?
Here is an idea! There are no travel restrictions between Minnesota and Hawaii. Maybe load up a few planes with excess refugees there and send them to Hawaii (I hear that the climate is much better!).
This post is archived in our ‘laugh of the day’ category, here.
Who is Lautenberg? You will see below. First the news that CNN is reporting this morning (that the new EO will likely come today).
And, the Wall Street Journal was suggesting last evening also that the newly revised Executive Order (the so-called travel ban) could come today. If early reports are correct, the new EO will express no preference for saving Christians of the Middle East and Africa.
Here are a few highlights that involve the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program, from the Wall Street Journal:
The new version is expected to still ban travel from several Muslim-majority nations, but unlike the original, it will leave Iraq off the list, several people familiar with the planning said. [The irony is that the refugee terrorists we have caught in the US were mostly Iraqis!—ed]
No preference for Christians?
The new order is expected to remove a provision giving preference to refugees who are members of religious minorities, which was expected to benefit Christians coming from Muslim nations, several people said. It is unclear if this or possibly other changes would be enough to address those concerns.
The revised order is expected to again temporarily suspend the admission of refugees to the U.S., but unlike the original, it is likely to treat Syrian refugees the same way as those from other countries, people familiar with the planning said. The original executive order suspended the entire refugee program for four months and indefinitely suspended admission of Syrian refugees.
Let’s talk about this issue of a religious test!
We have had a religious test for certain special groups since 1990! Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, served in the US Senate beginning in 1982. He died in 2013. He put into federal law a provision to FAVOR religious minorities from Russia, later expanded to include those from Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lautenberg
You will hear representatives of the federal resettlement contractors scream that we can’t possibly favor Christians because our Muslim friends will get mad at us, but……. We have been giving special treatment and admitting certain religious minorities AS REFUGEES for decades under a law commonly referred to as the Lautenberg Amendment!
How do you think we justified admitting religious minorities from Russia including since FY03, 1,965 Jews and 11,410 Russian Muslimsknown as Meskhetians (out of a total of 19,440 ‘refugees’ from Russia)! (Numbers from Wrapsnet) What on earth made them “refugees?”
Lautenberg was later extended to include Iranian religious minorities.
Our old pals at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society have been patting themselves on the back for decades for their work under Lautenberg!
From their website (emphasis mine):
The Lautenberg Amendment, first enacted in 1990 as part of the U.S. foreign operations budget to facilitate resettlement of Jews from the former Soviet Union, allowed HIAS to bring tens of thousands to safety. As the worldwide refugee situation changed, the Lautenberg Amendment was expanded to include persecuted religious minorities in other countries, such as Jews, Christians, and Baha’is from Iran.
Despite being a crucial part of U.S. refugee policy, it expires each year and must be reauthorized.
They then direct readers to a pdf, here.
This is a screenshot of the opening page of the document: https://www.hias.org/sites/default/files/lautenberg_amendment_backgrounder.pdf
I had a quick look at Wrapsnet for just this fiscal year (10/1/2016 to today) and learned that we admitted 1,637 ‘refugees’ from Iran (635 processed through Vienna, Austria as of January 31, 2017, data not yet available through February). Of those only 122 were Muslims, so the remainder (1,515) were religious minorities including 26 Jews.
We have a religious test!
We processed from Russia from the first day of fiscal year ’17 (October 1, 2016) to January 31, 2017, 251 so-called ‘refugees.’ 29 were Russian Jews.
We have a religious test!
I’m not a lawyer, but if the courts don’t allow a Trump Executive Order to give preference to African and Middle Eastern Christians, how is it that the Lautenberg Amendment (recently extended by Congress) is legal? And, has been legal and Constitutional for going on 27 years?
Can we rightly expect HIAS to stand in support of Trump’s original concept of a religious test that would allow Christians in majority Muslim countries to have access to the US Refugee Admissions Program? Don’t hold your breath!
