The deadline to send in testimony was yesterdayat 5 p.m. but we will continue to post your testimonies (a few a day) until I’ve exhausted my long list. There are a few of you who, let’s just say, didn’t restrain your passion and I may edit some words that are ones we wouldn’t publish here as a general principle. I’m posting the comments you sent in to the State Department because I don’t want them to be lost down the black hole, since the State Department continues to refuse to make them part of a public record. Where is Congress on that?
Here is Kathy who echoes some of what Brenda Walker said hereabout Europe:
Dear Mr Simon Henshaw, and the Bureau of Population,Refugees, and Migration,
Illinois has a very aggressive (progressive!) immigrant and refugee ‘rights’ group and here they are demanding more Syrians be placed in the state. http://www.progressillinois.com/posts/content/2015/11/20/syrian-refugee-advocates-meet-rauner-administration-call-acceptance
I am sending testimony today because I am extremely concerned with the proposals I’ve heard to bring tens of thousands of “Syrian” refugees to this country. I live in Illinois and have no idea where or how many refugees have been or will be placed in our communities. There is no communication to the general public. I read about these placements after the fact in articles on the Internet. The citizens of this country must be better informed and given a voice in these decisions.
My concerns are the cost to the citizens of this country who are already overburdened by taxes, the loss of jobs, many are underemployed or unemployed, & do not understand how our government can overlook their needs for those coming here from other countries. Also, as I see what is happening in Germany, Sweden, and the U.K. to name a few, the danger of terrorists entering our country is very real. They have the means to produce fabricated passports, papers, etc to infiltrate the refugee population and enter our country with intent of causing mayhem and death.
In closing, I am asking that consideration be given to placing a stop on this program and from here on in giving the citizens of this country the proper consideration to decide what’s best for our communities and our country.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
This is the twelfth testimony in our series leading up to the deadline for testimony at 5 p.m. yesterday, May 19th. Go here for where they are archived to see what your fellow citizens have said.
Brenda Walker sent testimony to the US State Departmentby the deadline yesterday and then posted it here at her excellent blog, Limits to Growth.
She says, “Washington’s refugee rescue project has gone from an expensive do-gooder welfare program to a dangerous national security threat,”and goes on to urge readers to look at Europe to understand what is coming our way.
“Europe shows the horror Washington is rushing willy-nilly to imitate. For those of us who value women’s rights and safety, the mass sexual attacks that occurred on New Years in Cologne and other cities were a reminder of how bad Muslim diversity can be. On February 15, the AP reported that of the 73 suspects arrested thus far out of more than a thousand criminal complaints, the “overwhelming majority” were refugees, according to Cologne prosecutor Ulrich Bremer.”
Go to Limits to Growthfor her detailed testimony to the State Department which includes extensive linked information to back up what she says.
Editor: This is another copy of testimony submitted in response to my offer to post testimony that readers have sent, or are sending, to the US State Department before close of business today. Your testimony can be long or short, more detailed or less so. Just send something! And, then be sure to copy it to your elected officials. You have a few more hours to send in your testimony!
Persons wishing to submit written comments on the appropriate size and scope of the FY 2017 U.S. Refugee Admissions Program should submit them by 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 19, 2016 via email to PRM-Comments@state.gov or fax (202) 453-9393.
The refugee resettlement program should be put on hold until we can put our house back in order.
From James Simpson: Simpson’s book is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Green-Axis-Refugees-Immigration-Civilization/dp/151508518X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463669338&sr=8-1&keywords=James+Simpson
The refugee resettlement program is expensive, secretive and dangerous. We have been resettling millions of people from all over the world who largely do not assimilate to our society and culture. The refugee contractors place increasing numbers throughout our community without our knowledge or consent. And when the federal grant monies run out (which we pay for through taxes), local communities are left to deal with these needy populations. The Office of Refugee Resettlement maintains statistics of welfare use among refugee communities. Refugees use welfare at rates wildly out of proportion to their number. Even after 5 years, refugee welfare use is magnitudes greater than U.S. citizens. For example, 60.2% of refugees still use food stamps after 5 years, while the rate for citizens is 15.1% – and that is the highest rate for U.S. citizens in recorded history. In their first year, refugees use food stamps at the rate of 75.9% and cash assistance at the rate of 46.9% (Americans use cash assistance at the rate of 5.3%). We are $20 trillion in debt, and cannot afford to expand our burgeoning welfare state further with populations of people supported by welfare.
Islamic terror plots and attacks have increased at exponential rates in the U.S. and abroad in the past few years, culminating this year in the horrendous mass murders in Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels. Two of the Paris terrorists were carrying Syrian passports, and ISIS has its own passport printing facility according to the FBI. The San Bernardino Islamic terrorists were recruited by Mohamed Hassan, a Somali refugee who returned to Somalia from Minnesota to become a terrorist recruiter. ISIS intends to use the refugee program to infiltrate terrorists into the U.S. The head of every single federal security agency says that Syrian refugees cannot be vetted, yet president Obama wants to reduce processing time from 18 months to 3 months, an 83% reduction. While most Syrians we resettle here will likely not be a threat, some certainly will be; and increasing the size of the Syrian population will provide a safe haven for Islamic terrorists to hide and plot. Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, says that an attack in the U.S. by ISIS is likely in 2016.
The goal of refugee resettlement is to send refugees back to their homeland. That is what they prefer and should be our purpose. We can provide many more benefits to Syrians in refugee camps at the same cost than we can if we bring them here. This is the more compassionate and cost effective way to help. Finally, Syrians currently residing in refugee camps do not meet the definition of “refugee” as provided in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which is our operating framework. For these reasons, the refugee resettlement program should be put on hold until we can put our house back in order. To do otherwise is the height of irresponsibility, and flagrantly denies our current waking reality every single day.
This is the eleventh testimony in our series leading up to the deadline for testimony at 5 p.m. today, May 19th. Go here for where they are archived. We are posting as many as we can because we know the US State Department has refused in the past to make them public (so much for Obama transparency!). I will continue to post testimonies even after the deadline. I was not expecting so many!
Editor: This is another copy of testimony submitted in response to my offer to post testimony that readers have sent, or are sending, to the US State Department before close of business today. Your testimony can be long or short, more detailed or less so. Just send something! And, then be sure to copy it to your elected officials. You have a few more hours to send in your testimony! This is insanity of a very special kind!
From Shoemaker:
To Whom it May Concern:
When the history of our era is written, it will do a great deal of damage to the reputations of either the people living today or to the historians who write the history because it is frankly unbelievable.
ISIS has said it will infiltrate the refugee stream to the West.
We know the people of the United States and our government officials have been warned repeatedly by ISIS that terrorists are being insinuated into the refugee and pseudo-refugee (per international law, a refugee is someone fleeing for life and limb, who has reached a place of refuge – upon leaving it, they are no longer refugees) groups migrating from Muslim countries.
So what does our President and State Department do? They double down and ask for more money to bring more “refugees” here.
This is insanity of a very special kind. None dare call it treason, but making America vulnerable to the kind of “hope and change” Angela Merkel is bringing to Europe, is nothing less than treasonous. Our elected officials have duties to the security and domestic tranquility of our people. They are not upholding their oaths of office and you are not helping them to do so.
You do not even follow the law requiring you to consult with communities. Our communities have elected officials to represent the entire community. Education officials, Welfare bureaucrats, etc., are not elected by the community. You should be consulting with state legislators, and county and city council members – but these are among the last to know. Could it be because they represent the people who you do not want to have informed about your plans to insert very needy, dependent families and individuals into their towns and villages? The obvious conclusion anyone paying attention has to come up with is this one. Your program is deliberately secretive.
Most people paying attention to what is happening to this country, and especially those who have read the “Welcoming New Americans” report that was posted on the White House website on April 15, 2015 (attached), know that the flood of “refugees” coming to America are not coming to improve our culture but to change it; not to improve our economy, but to exploit it; not to increase job opportunities for Americans, but to replace them. As the report indicates, the immigrant new Americans helped by the leveraging of resources from 18 Federal agencies, are to be taught to navigate our system, become credentialed and successful in business and government and learn to function as communities within communities. When the time is right, they will join together and become a nation within a nation.
In short, we are on to what you are doing and we are making plans to put a stop to it. We realize that too many people (but fewer all the time) still believe this is an humanitarian project, but Mr. Trump does not believe this and since there will soon be a new administration, you might want to convert what you are doing to something genuinely humanitarian.
Here are some common sense suggestions:
Federal money now being spent to move poor, uneducated and unskilled people to America should be allocated to States trying to recruit able Americans to fill jobs. If American family relocation was subsidized the way you are subsidizing whole family relocation of refugees, unemployed Americans would find it easier to relocate.
Terrorist organizations like ISIS should be eliminated by our military and those who are displaced by military action, should be helped as close to their homes as possible. We know this kind of help is preferred by most refugees. It is also much cheaper than relocation and resettlement in America. Your own records show massive mental health problems in the “new American” population. Could movement from a 7th century culture to a 21st century culture have something to do with this? (Reports from our local child welfare experts indicate that might be the case. What are we doing? Your refugee resettlement program appears to be an abusive program. Abusive to all concerned.)
How can this program be good for our country?
I would like an answer to this question.
This is the tenth testimony in our series leading up to the deadline for testimony at 5 p.m. today, May 19th. Go here for where they are archived. We are posting as many as we can because we know the US State Department has refused in the past to make them public (so much for Obama transparency!). I will continue to post testimonies even after the deadline. I was not expecting so many!
Readers, this (below) is what I am sending to the US State Department today. If you have followed RRW for years you will recognize this as a modification of the first testimony I sent in 2012. Frankly, nothing much has changed!
Some things have gotten worse. Only one issue I raised then has been improved—they get the ORR Annual Reports to Congressdone more quickly. They still aren’t getting them to Congress when the law says they should, but almost. One issue that is much worse is the prospect that an Islamic terrorist could slip into the refugee flow to America with the huge increase in the number of refugees coming from Syria, Iraq and Somalia.
However, for the first time in the almost 9 years I’ve written this blog, there is a little window of hope that the Refugee Admissions Program could be dramatically altered if President Donald Trump does half of what he says he will do (and Congress does its job of reviewing the entire program).
If Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders are elected President, this program will continue on steroids. There will be no reform.
Here are ten points slightly modified, but essentially the same as I sent to the State Department 4 years ago.
Ten Reasons there should be no refugees resettled in the US in FY2017—instead a moratorium should be put in place until the program is reformed (or abolished), the economy completely recovers, and we are assured that security screening will protect us.
Why?
1) Refugees take jobs that low-skilled Americans and teens need. The program was never meant to be simply a way to import impoverished people to the US and place them on an already overtaxed welfare system. Those that do find work are taking jobs that American citizens need.
2) The program has become a cash cow for various ‘religious’ organizations and other contractors who very often appear to care more about the next group of refugees coming in (and the cash that comes with each one) than the group they resettled only a few months earlier. Stories of refugees suffering throughout the US are rampant.
Indeed, there is no accountability for the billions of tax payer dollars going to the program. Short of a complete halt to resettlement-by-contractor, taxpayers should be protected by legally requiring financial audits of contractors and subcontractors on an annual basis.
3) Terrorist organizations have threatened to use the program that still clearly has many failings in the security screening system. Indeed consideration should be given to halting the resettlement of Muslims altogether. Also, the UN should have no role in choosing refugees for the US. There is no reason we can’t make the decision about who we want to ‘welcome’ to America without UN meddling.
4) Thepublic is not confidentthat screenings for potential terrorists (#3) or the incidences of other types of fraudulent entry are being properly and thoroughly investigated and stopped. When fraud is uncovered—either fraud to enter the country or illegal activity once the refugee has been resettled—punishment should be immediate deportation.
5)Congress has not specifically disallowed the use of the refugee program for other purposes of the US Government, especially using certain refugee populations to address other foreign policy objectives—Uzbeks, Kosovars, Meshketians, Syrians, Iraqis, Somalis, and Bhutanese (Nepalese) people come to mind.
6) The State Department and the ORR have so far failed to adequately determine and report (and track once the refugee has been admitted) the myriad communicable and costly-to-treat diseases entering the country with the refugee population. Refugees suffering from serious (and expensive) mental health issues should be screened-out.
7) There is no process for alerting communities to the impending arrival of refugees that includes reports from the federal government (with local input) about the social and economic impact a certain new group of refugees will have on a city or town. Such a report should be presented to the public through public hearings and the local government must have an opportunity to say ‘no.’
8) The federal government should not be acting as head-hunter for corporations (like the meatpackers!). Congress needs to investigate and specifically disallow any connection between this program and big businesseslooking for cheap and captive labor.
9) If Congress and the President determine we must have some refugee program, a mechanism should be established that would help a refugee go home if he or she is unhappy or simply can’t make it in America.
10) If during a moratorium, the Congress and the President decide that a refugee program of some sort is needed, the VOLAG system should be completely abolished and the program should be run by state agencies with accountability to the public through their state legislatures. The system as presently constituted is surely unconstitutional. (One of many benefits of turning the program over to a state agency is to break up the government/contractor employee revolving door that is being demonstrated now at both the State Department and ORR.) For these reasons and more, the Refugee admissions program should be placed on hold and a serious effort made by Congress to either scrap the whole thing or reform it during the moratorium. Myrecommendation for 2017 is to stop the program now.
The Office of the President/US State Department could indeed ask for Congressional hearings to review the Refugee Act of 1980-–more than three decades is time enough to see its failings and determine if reauthorization is feasible or if a whole new law needs to be written.
