I’vealready reported that our US military wants to give tickets to America to more Iraqi and Afghan ‘refugees’ as rewards for helping us in those long wars—one more reason not to go to war in Islamic terrorist-producing countries.
And, I would like to know for how many years after we’ve ended a war are we responsible for moving their nationals to our towns and cities?
See the staggering numbers of Special Immigrant Visa holders we have admitted from Afghanistan and Iraq already! Over 56,000 from Afghanistan and over 18,000 from Iraq!
Why doesn’t NBC report that information?
Here NBCcharacterizes this year’s battle over the annual presidential determination as one of Stephen Miller vs. America’s mighty military!
Pentagon is last holdout as Stephen Miller tries to slash number of refugees allowed in U.S.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is fighting against proposals by White House officials to drastically cut the number of refugees allowed into the U.S., and has called for reserving visas for Iraqis who risked their lives working for U.S. troops, according to five people familiar with the plan.
Miller vs. the military
In internal discussions, the Defense Department has expressed opposition to any further reductions to the current annual ceiling of 30,000 for refugee admissions, which already is at a historic low for the 40-year-old U.S. refugee program, the sources told NBC News.
Defense officials also proposed setting aside about 6,000 slots specifically for Iraqi applicants who worked for U.S. troops as interpreters or in other jobs, according to one current U.S. official, one former U.S. official and three refugee advocates briefed on the deliberations.
The Pentagon has emerged as the lone voice in internal debates defending the traditional role of a refugee program overseen by the State Department, an unusual twist that reflects the administration’s aggressive stance on immigration and refugees.
The Pentagon’s stance is at odds with White House senior adviser Stephen Miller — the architect of the president’s sweeping crackdown on immigration— and his allies at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, who are all proposing deep cuts or even a halt to refugee admissions for the next fiscal year starting in October.
It is not likely to be zero as the White House floated here in July sending the refugee industrial complex into panic.
The White House, however, is weighing one option that would reduce overall refugee admissions — possibly lowering the cap to 15,000 or lower — while setting aside a certain number of openings for Iraqi applicants, similar to what the Pentagon has proposed, the sources said. [Someone must be blabbing to the media!—ed]
Keep reading and then see this:
Evangelical activist Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council and a strong supporter of President Trump, said earlier this month he was “alarmed” that the administration was considering more dramatic reductions in refugee admissions.
In a letter in July, nine evangelical leaders appealed to the administration to back up its frequent public statements on religious freedom and helping persecuted Christians abroad by raising the cap on refugee admissions.
Of course, Perkins wants more Christians, but those the military wants are mostly Muslims!
Then here, without mentioning that World Relief is one of nine federally-funded(and UN approved) refugee contractors that can’t survive without a steady flow of your tax dollars to their coffers, NBC quotes them as a representative of concerned evangelicals in America.
“The drastic decline in the number of refugees we are resettling in the U.S. is really troubling and it goes against everything that we believe about what our faith teaches us,” said Jenny Yang, vice president for advocacy and policy at World Relief, an evangelical organization that helps resettle refugees in the United States.
“It’s extremely concerning that the administration is not heeding the views of a lot of evangelicals.”
You already know the news from earlier this month. I told you about ithere at ‘Frauds and Crooks’and for once the mainstream media got it out fairly widely, but now get this!
Possible terror ties in American Airlines sabotage case? Prosecutor says yes
The saga of the American Airlines mechanic charged with sabotaging a plane took another disturbing turn Wednesday when a federal judge in Florida denied bail over concerns about the worker’s potential terrorism ties.
Abdul-Majeed Maroud Ahmed Alani
Prosecutors cited two factors in pushing for the continued jailing of Abdul-Majeed Maroud Ahmed Alani, a 60-year-old mechanic who was with American since 1988 and previously worked for Alaska Airlines: he has a brother in Iraq who may be involved with the Islamic State extremist group and has made statements about wishing harm on non-Muslims, according to the Miami Herald and the Associated Press.
“I have evidence before me that suggests you could be sympathetic to terrorists,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Chris McAliley said during the bond hearing, the Herald reported.
McAliley called Alani’s alleged tampering with the aircraft “highly reckless and unconscionable,” the newspaper said.
Since Alani’s arrest, the Herald said, investigators with the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force found out Alani lied about taking a trip to Iraq in March to visit his brother and that he told a co-worker at American this summer that his brother was a member of the extremist group and was kidnapped.
But a big problem, says the Government Accountability Office , is that neither the US State Department or the Office of Refugee Resettlement in HHS are doing much to track the outcomes of those admitted to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan who supposedly worked for us as interpreters.
I told youhere recentlythat the number admitted to the US from those two violent countries is pushing 70,000 in the last ten years.
As Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders they are treated as full-fledged refugees with all the welfare benefits other refugees receive.
We have been told that the resettlement contractors*** are relying on these paying clients to keep federal dollars flowing to their budgets as the refugee flow they hoped for is not materializing.
Some members of Congress must have requested this GAO study because problems are obviously brewing with this portion of our ‘welcome’ to Middle Eastern Muslims. I did not read the whole report, here, but it seems that there are some pretty disillusioned SIVs who thought they would have good jobs and decent housing when they got here.
Here are a few snips from the summary:
Not exactly a bombshell title:
AFGHAN AND IRAQI SPECIAL IMMIGRANTS:More Information on Their Resettlement Outcomes Would Be Beneficial
What GAO Found
Since fiscal year 2011, about [about?—ed] 13,000 Afghan and Iraqi nationals (excluding family members) have resettled in the United States under special immigrant visas (SIV), but limited data on their outcomes are available from the Department of State (State) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). State collects data on SIV holders’ resettlement outcomes once—90 days after they arrive. GAO’s analysis of State’s data from October 2010 through December 2016 showed that the majority of principal SIV holders—those who worked for the U.S. government—were unemployed at 90 days, including those reporting high levels of education and spoken English.
Very high unemployment rate at 90 days. Why is 90 days important? That is when their resettlement contractor is done with them and has moved on to the next batch of paying clients (aka refugees). By 90 days the SIV is expected to be self-sufficient. BTW, don’t you wonder who the 1,760 “interpreters” without “good spoken English” are?
GAO continues…
Stakeholders [must be referring to the resettlement contractors—ed] GAO interviewed reported several resettlement challenges, including capacity issues in handling large numbers of SIV holders, difficulties finding skilled employment, and SIV holders’ high expectations.
Officials from local resettlement agencies in Northern Virginia reported capacity challenges for their agencies and the community due to the large increase of SIV holders. In almost all of GAO’s focus groups with principal SIV holders, participants expressed frustration at the need to take low-skilled jobs because they expected that their education and prior work experience would lead to skilled work. [You can bet they aren’t going to the slaughterhouse jobs where contractors like to place those in their care.—-ed]
State and HHS have taken steps to address some resettlement challenges. For example, in 2017 State placed restrictions on where SIV holders could resettle and HHS announced a new grant to support career development programs for SIV holders, refugees, and others.
In addition, State provides information to prospective SIV holders about resettlement. However, the information is general, and lacks detail on key issues such as housing affordability, employment, and available government assistance. Providing such specifics could lead to more informed decisions by SIV holders on where to resettle and help them more quickly adapt to potential challenges once in the United States. [I don’t think that GAO knows that the SIVs original resettlement location is not chosen by the refugees, but by the State Department in conjunction with contractors*** as they bid for bodies (aka paying clients).—ed]
In light of so many disillusioned and unemployed SIVs, I sure hope that someone is reporting that news to others in the pipeline on their way to America!
Why the discrepancy in the numbers?
I wondered if GAO is downplaying the numbers on purpose…. were they as shocked as we are to find these enormous numbers?
In the summary, GAO talks about 13,000 SIVs since 2011, excluding family members, but in the full report they describe the real numbers we have placed in your towns and cities.
And, rather than saying “over 60,000”, they could have said closer to 70,000! As Ireported early this month, using data readily available at the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet), we admitted from FY2008-right up to my post on March 8th, the numbers as follows:
Iraq: 18,084
Afghanistan: 49,358
Total to March 8th: 67,442
When I went to the full report they say this (below) on Page 1, but once again use the word “about.” They do clarify one point: “about 20,000” are the people who worked for us or on behalf of us, the remaining, over 40,000! are their family members.
Afghan and Iraqi nationals who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government in Afghanistan or Iraq and have experienced ongoing serious threats as a consequence of such employment, or who worked directly with the U.S. Armed Forces or under chief of mission authority as a translator or interpreter, may apply for a special immigrant visa (SIV) to the United States.
Upon securing a visa, the principal SIV holder and his or her eligible dependents may resettle in the United States and are granted lawful permanent resident status upon admission into the United States. Since fiscal year 2008, over 60,000 individuals—about 20,000 principal SIV holders and their families—have been admitted under SIVs and received federal resettlement assistance upon arrival.
SIV holders are authorized to receive resettlement assistance from the Departments of State (State) and Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as federal public benefits, to the same extent and for the same periods of time as refugees.
***These are the nine federal contractors working with the US State Department to place the SIVs and their families. Although GAO seems to have been fixated on how poorly the State Department and ORR are keeping track of the SIVs and their progress toward assimilation, it seems to me that the contractors should come in for more blame if their charges are doing so poorly.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with jobs, and get them signed up for their services! From most recent accounting, here.
That is what a representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government told a gathering of the Human Rights Commission in Spain yesterday.
DOMIZ, IRAQ: The UNHCR Domiz refugee camp in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Housing ISIS families? Photo: http://metrography.photoshelter.com/image/I0000jQQVDZ2Uxko
BARCELONA, Spain – Refugees from the war in Syria and Iraq include family members of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, leading to security concerns among authorities, the Kurdistan Region’s representative in Spain said.
“Some of the refugees are families of members of the Islamic State,” said Daban Shadala, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative.
“They are sending their families (to the refugee camps) while they continue to fight us,” he said this week in a briefing to the Human Rights Commission of the Basque parliament in the city of Vitoria.
Shadala, whose comments in English were translated through an interpreter, was quoted as saying that weapons had been found in some of the houses where refugees were placed. He did not elaborate.
He said that, according to the last count, there were some 1.8 million refugees from Iraq and Syria in the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq, and warned that another 500,000 refugees were still expected.
Shadala made an appeal for more humanitarian help, saying UN and international aid had not been enough to cope with the huge numbers of refugees.
“We have 26 refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region. It is very difficult to manage them… We are in a deep crisis but we want to continue being tolerant,” he told the MPs.
According to Sibel Kulaksiz, a senior economist at the World Bank who recently led a mission to the region, the influx of refugees and internally displaced people has seen Kurdistan’s population jump by around 17 per cent, putting severe strain on the local economy and public services.
Remember that the UN is picking our refugees and that most Syrian refugees who will be admitted to the US by thethousands beginning this fiscal year will be from UN refugee camps.
That is what a writer at the Albuquerque Journal reports that Bolton has said.
Bring Iranian dissidents from Iraq to US as refugees.
Camp Ashrafis a refugee camp inside Iraq where dissidents from Iran have lived for years. There is not one word in this op-ed suggesting that Obama put pressure on the Iraqi government and on the UN to protect them where they are. Instead author Saeed Shams invokes Bolton who must have said at some point—bring ’em on over to the US.
On Sept. 1st of this year, 52 residents of Camp Ashraf were murdered by Iraqi forces. Many of those who were murdered were in the midst of seeking medical attention and were handcuffed and shot in the head.
Seven residents, refugees from Iran, were taken hostage by the Iraqis. Among these hostages were six women. The hostages remain in Iraq, according to reports from Amnesty International, being housed in the center of Baghdad at an unofficial detention center.
While the Iraqi government continues to deny responsibility for this attack and claims no knowledge of the whereabouts of the hostages, evidence clearly proves otherwise.
[….]
If the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is to prove that he is not a pawn of the Tehran regime, he must heed the call of the UN agencies to release the seven hostages and assure the safety of the Camp Liberty residents until they can be relocated to another country.
Amnesty International has also called upon Iraq to immediately release the seven hostages “unless they are charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offense.” They also brought up the fact that international law prohibits Iraq from forcibly returning “anyone to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations, including torture.”
The great fear is that these seven hostages will be handed over to Iran where they assuredly await countless hours of torture followed by an inhumane death.
Recently John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, called the situation “an embarrassment” for the United States and “a stain on the reputation of the U.S.” He publicly called upon Congress to grant political asylum to the refugees so they can get “out of the death trap they are in.”
The U.S. must honor their commitment to these refugees and provide an example for the rest of the world with the offer of asylum to residents of Camp Liberty.
The stain is on Obama. I’m sure if Obama wanted to put pressure on the Iraqi government, the US could make sure these people are protected right there rather than resettled in some US troubled neighborhood and placed on our welfare rolls.
