Psaki Clears Up Refugee Admissions Confusion (NOT!)

In the wake of a “wave of scorn and fury” as described by CNN no less, Biden press secretary Jen Psaki attempted so set the record straight yesterday.

But, first see what CNN is saying.

The important takeaway is that the administration has screwed-up royally on immigration across the board as they blame the public for conflating the border crisis with the refugee admissions program.

Is it any wonder the average American, the average news reporter as I saw yesterday, doesn’t understand the difference?

For over a decade that I’ve been following the refugee program, the Open Borders Left has tried to make you think that the illegal border jumpers are REFUGEES. 

They, the socialists/progressives, have conflated the two things because they want you to have sympathy for illegal aliens.  Now, their propaganda has come back to bite them.

Americans don’t want legal refugees anymore than they want the illegals invading the border.  

CNN at Erie News:

Progressive backlash on refugee cap puts Biden on notice

Joe Biden’s swift reversals on raising the nation’s refugee cap over the past 48 hours marked a rare moment of uncertainty for the new President within a carefully choreographed first 100 days — one that underscored the power of progressives to force Biden to change course, even as they face legislative setbacks in a deeply divided Washington.

[….]

By way of explanation Saturday, Biden hinted at the difficult politics he is facing as his administration attempts to halt the surge of migrants, particularly unaccompanied minors, across the southern border.

He inferred that his plans to raise the cap, which he affirmed in a speech in February, had been complicated by what he referred to as the “crisis” on the border “with young people,” uttering a word that his administration has tried to avoid in relation to the influx on unaccompanied migrant children.

“We’re going to increase the number,” Biden told reporters of the refugee cap as he left the Wilmington Country Club. “We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number.” [So what now makes it possible to do the two things at once?—ed]

[….]

It was a victory for progressives who, along with humanitarian groups, directed a wave of scorn and fury at the President on Friday the likes of which he has not seen during his nearly three months in office.

[….]

The Biden administration’s equivocation [aka deliberate evasiveness —ed] on the refugee cap reflects the heat they are facing about the crisis on the southern border in the middle of a pandemic — and the fear that Americans will conflate the two issues, even though they are distinctly different policy areas.

Here is the boogeyman in the closet! 

A majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s border policy, or lack of policy, and the 2022 midterm elections are around the corner.

A Quinnipiac poll released last week showed that just 29% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the situation at the southern border, while 55% disapprove. With no immediate solutions in sight, that immigration issue once again looms large for Democrats as they seek to hold onto and grow their congressional majorities in next year’s midterm elections.

More here.

Psaki to the rescue! 

I’m posting the entire exchange in the White House briefing room between press secretary Psaki and an unidentified reporter as Psaki tries to explain the flip-flopping Biden refugee policy; and, throws the blame to who else—President Trump.

Q    Thanks, Jen.  Can you explain where things stand right now when it comes to the refugee ban?  First off, the White House said on Friday that, actually, the 15,000 cap that was set by the Trump administration was — remained justified.  But then later, you said, “Actually, no, the number is going to go up by May 15th.”

MS. PSAKI:  I wouldn’t — I would dispute that being our characterization on Friday, but let me walk you through what we did announce.

Last week’s announcement — or Friday’s announcement, I should say, was an effort — an important step forward, in our view — to reverse the Trump policy that banned refugees from many key regions of the world.  So there were many parts of the Middle East, parts of Africa where refugees could not apply and could not come into the United States.  And part — as a result of that, there were very limited number of refugees — in the low thousands — that had come over in a extensive period of time during the Trump administration.  That was an important step, on — in our view.

In addition, there had been refugee flights that had not traveled, that had not been taking off to come to the United States, and we resumed those flights.  This was always meant to be just the beginning.

In the announcement we made on Friday, we were clear in the emergency presidential determination that if 15,000 is reached, a subsequent presidential determination would be issued to increase admissions as appropriate.  And that is certainly our expectation.

In addition, we also announced on Friday that the President — while we are assessing right now what is possible in terms of — given the fact that the processing — the asylum processing has been hollowed out from the State Department, and also the ORR — the Office of Refugee Resettlement — has also been hollowed out in terms of personnel, staffing, and financial and funding needs, we are — have every intention to increase the cap and to make an announcement of that by May 15th at the latest.  And I expect it will be sooner than that.

The President also remains committed to pursuing the aspirational goal of reaching 125,000 refugees by the end of the next fiscal year.

Q    And what role has the situation at the border, which the President called a “crisis” this weekend — what role has that played in decision making around the refugee cap?

MS. PSAKI:  Sure.  Well, if I walk you back just a little bit — and hopefully this will be helpful to you — during the transition, our team was — made an assessment of what our refugee cap should look like.

And we looked back at the last few years and assessed that, because of the very low numbers — the restrictions I just mentioned that were in place, restricting refugees from coming from the Middle — parts of the Middle East — most of the Middle East, I should say, and Africa — we needed to go big and have a bold goal.

And so that’s why we set the 125,000 cap objective by the end of fiscal year ’22.  62,500 was a down payment — meant to be a down payment in this year.  That was why we set that goal.  Now, that’s an a- — that was an aspirational increase of 10 times what was being led in by the Trump administration.

In that period of time — we came into office; the President made that announcement, made those — put those aspirational goals out there — there were a couple things that happened: One, as you alluded to, there was an increase of unaccompanied children at the border. Our policy was always going to be to welcome those children in, find a place where they can be sheltered and treated humanely and safely.  That increase and that influx, as you all know, was higher than most people, including us, anticipated.

The second factor was that we did not — it took us some time to recognize how hollowed out these systems were.  The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees — while there have been different pots of money and different personnel — has both the resettling of refugees as well as unaccompanied children.  And there is — there are questions and have been assessments about reprogramming of funds and how we can address both at the same time.  And certainly, that ability and ensuring we can do that effectively has been on the President’s mind.

As I have pointed out previously, nearly two decades ago Congress gave the job of dealing with Unaccompanied Alien Children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement because it was part of the goal of making you, and the media believe that the illegal alien children are legitimate refugees.

LOL! You might be noticing that the word “alien” has been removed throughout government websites—more progressive propaganda techniques at work. Saying “illegal alien” is forbidden in Joe Biden’s America, so use it every chance you get!

The unidentified reporter continues….

Q    And then, finally, on a somewhat related matter: The President has said that climate change is one of the factors that has created this surge at the border, but there are no Central American countries that have been invited to the Climate Summit that the White House is putting on.  Is there — how did you decide which countries to invite?  And has it been considered whether or not to invite some Central American countries?

Continue reading here.  

I included that last question because it is related.

The socialists are working hard now to convince the media and the public that the next big wave of refugees will be the so-called climate refugees as they conflate weather-related migration to the issue of legitimate persecuted refugees.

Lesson for you:  Immigration is Chairman Joe’s Achilles heel.

Conflate! Conflate! Conflate!

They, the Leftwing language propagandists, conflated legal refugees with illegal aliens for decades, so you must continue to conflate the refugee program with the border invasion because it is all part of one major socialist/progressive goal and that is to change America by changing the people.

Some call it the great replacement!

Say it Out Loud! The Great Replacement is Underway