Who said politicians can’t learn? Here we apparently have Senator Lindsey ‘Amnesty’ Graham attempting to fix S.744 (the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill) which as we reported addresses our refugee and asylum program right along with the kitchen sink, in response to the Tsarnaev family’s asylum fraud.
Everyone is asking, how persecuted were the Chechens if they were traveling back and forth to Russia? Indeed!
Remember there is absolutely no need to make changes to the Refugee Resettlement Program within this “comprehensive” bill. Don’t misunderstand what I am saying, the program needs a complete Congressional review, but it should be a review SEPARATE FROM the Gang’s bill.
Since the Gang (which includes Graham) does make it easier for more refugees to enter the US for flimsier reasons (if they belong to a particular ‘special’ group or are a certain nationality), Graham’s proposed amendments are of interest. Thanks so much to reader John for wading into this and alerting us.
Go here for a list of amendments to S.744.
Graham’s Amendment #1
The purpose is: To provide for termination of asylum or refugee status in cases of country return.
Then below are the guts of it. Refugee industry advocates will go nuts! It basically says, if you go ‘home’ (with certain exceptions), you will have your refugee status TERMINATED! Which means that right now a very large group of “refugees” and “asylees” would presumably get the heave-ho! (Of course, assuming we had an administration with any guts to do it!).
… any alien who is granted asylum or refugee status under this Act or the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.), who, without good cause as determined by the Secretary, subsequently returns to the country of such alien’s nationality or, in the case of an alien having no nationality, returns to any country in which such alien last habitually resided, and who applied for such status because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution in that country on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, shall have his or her status terminated.
Of course there are exceptions. They can seek a waiver from the Secretary of State (big potential loophole there). And, now I am rolling on the floor laughing—it does not apply to Cubans! We don’t want to p*** off Rubio—NO! NO! NO!
I’ll tell you about another of Graham’s amendments tomorrow.