Obama is reducing the screening time of 18-24 months to 3 months!
Regular readers know I have beenreporting how the Obama Administration is way behind (so far) in resettling the 10,000 Syrians it has ‘promised’ you would be coming to your towns this fiscal year (by September 30th). Well, here comes the news! The Syrian Muslim surge is underway! And, it could involve MORE than 10,000! From AP:
Since October last year, 1,000 Syrian refugees have moved from Jordan to the U.S. The resettlement surge hopes to increase that number ten-fold.
US Ambassador to Jordan saw the first “surge” Syrians off at the airport in Jordan this week. Thousand more right behind them! Help! Where is James Comey and the FBI?
A resettlement surge center opened in Amman in February to meet President Barack Obama’s target of resettling 10,000 Syrians to the United States by Sep. 30. Every day, the center interviews some 600 Syrian refugees.
The temporary processing center for the surge operation will run until April 28, U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Alice Wells said. She travelled to the airport to greet the family before their departure.
The regional refugee coordinator at the U.S. embassy in Amman, Gina Kassem, said that while the 10,000 target applies to Syrian refugees living around the world, the majority will be resettled from Jordan.
“The 10,000 is a floor and not a ceiling, and it is possible to increase the number,” she told reporters.
Now get this! How many times have you heard about how our screening process takes 18-24 months? They are getting it done now in THREE MONTHS!
While the resettlement process usually takes 18 to 24 months, under the surge operation this will be reduced to three months, Kassem said.
As wereported here (and we expect the trend to continue) 99% of those being rushed to America are Sunni Muslims.
According to this story in Arab News, Saudi men went to Syria in recent years (for what?), fathered children and then abandoned the new wife and child. Those ‘wives’ and children (who are Saudi nationals) are living in refugee camps.
Kids in Jordanian refugee camp. Which ones are Saudis? http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2013/09/nearly-two-million-syrian-children-have-dropped-out-of-school-unicef/
By the way, we have reported many times recently that Saudi Arabia takes no refugees and is in fact busy with un-diversifying (is that a word?) itself, here. No multiculturalism for S.A.!
Local human rights organizations are demanding that government agencies track down the Saudi biological fathers of children born to Syrian women who have since become refugees in Jordan and Turkey in the wake of the Syrian civil war.
These citizens-turned-refugees have no documents to prove that they are Saudi nationals.
“Many Saudis visited Syria before the Syrian revolution and married Syrian women, with whom they had children. These children were abandoned by their fathers and now face uncertain future after the war in Syria,” said Mohammed Al-Turkawi, a member of the Syrian opposition living in Jeddah.
“These families should contact the Saudi embassies in Jordan and Turkey to find solutions.”
“There are no accurate figures on the number of undocumented Saudis living in Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey,” Al-Turkawi told Arab News. A local newspaper reported that the Saudi Embassy in Amman confirmed that it was taking care of local Saudi refugees.
According to the report, the embassy pays monthly sums to 26 Saudi families in Jordan and ensures that they are sheltered. The report also states that they are looking for their fathers with the cooperation of several Kingdom-based organizations.
Yet many of these men deny ever having been married.
“It is a shame to know that there are Saudis out there who have been abandoned by their fathers and who have no choice but to live with their mothers at these refugee camps,” said Suhaila Zain Al-Abdeen, a female Saudi member of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR).
This little nugget at the end was interesting. After all the belly-aching from surrounding countries to which the Syrians have fled, there is an economic bright side (who knew!).
While some view the Syrian refugee crisis as a burden on the country’s infrastructure and scarce natural resources, such as water, many Jordanian commercial and industrial representatives regard the refugee phenomenon as the driving force behind new local economic opportunities.
I thought I did my duty for today in reporting Syrian refugee “crisis” news,here, but can’t resist posting another story after seeing this report of a ‘ghost’ refugee camp being built by the UN (surely with millions of your tax dollars).
“…bizarre sight of thousands of restrooms that appeared to march across the desolate landscape,” reporter Richard Read. Photo: Jamie Francis
Every day I receive alerts on many refugee topics. Today my ‘Syria’ alert was filled to over-flowing with stories on the Syrian refugee “crisis,” “catastrophe:” not enough foreign aid, not enough schools for the children, too much criminal activity in camps, no money, no money, send money, etc. etc…. and then this: ‘United Nations builds giant refugee camp in the desert, but will it be used?’
AL AZRAQ, Jordan –- There’s a big mystery in the desert near Jordan’s border with Saudi Arabia, and on Tuesday photographer Jamie Francis and I went to investigate it. [I wonder how the Saudis feel about its nearness to their border—ed]
Here on barren volcanic soil, the United Nations is building a gigantic refugee camp designed for a new influx of Syrians fleeing the war next door.
Preparations are impressive – this may be the most carefully planned refugee camp anywhere in the world,designed to house as many as 130,000 eventually. But despite tens of millions of dollars invested, it’s impossible to say when or whether Al Azraq camp will ever be used.
[…..]
I interviewed a top international migration official who confirmed that for now, the Syrian refugee flow into Jordan has slowed to a trickle. At times, as many as 4,000 Syrians a day arrived in Jordan. But the daily number has dropped to between 120 and 150, said Davide Terzi, chief of mission to Jordan for the International Organization for Migration.
So, let’s see, Camp Al Azraq will hold 130,000, it’s nearly finished, that means 130,000 Syrians (if they aren’t coming to Jordan bring them over from Lebanon) could be housed there instead of being resettled in the West until the Syrian civil war is over. And, think of this enormous benefit—-they would still be in their own “culture zone!”
Kleinschmidt is German and he was brought in by the UNHCR to try to get some control over the chaos at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan which houses 116,000, plus or minus, Syrians every day.
This is a must-read eye-opening story from Der Spiegel for anyone interested in the possibility that some of these refugees may, sooner or later, be on their way to the US. (Emphasis below is mine)
Kleinschmidt talks with “refugees.” Photo: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Local mafia controls a Jordanian camp housing over 100,000 war refugees from Syria. A German aid worker competing with these criminals is determined to preserve the camp residents’ dignity.
Kilian Kleinschmidt walks into the camp armed with a 6-inch stainless steel hook. “I hate refugee camps,” he says. He is holding the hook in his hand like a dagger.
It is getting dark, and a military policeman tells Kleinschmidt that under no circumstances should he go into the camp at night. Kleinschmidt walks through the gate in silence.
The Zaatari Camp houses 116,000 refugees who fled to Jordan from the war in Syria. They live in trailers and tents with the letters UNHCR imprinted on them in blue. The UNHCR, or United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is Kleinschmidt’s employer. The refugees arrive in buses from the border in this stretch of desert in northern Jordan, and their numbers are growing by the day. The local Bedouins say that before the refugees came, the only resident of this desert was the devil. Not even scorpions lived there.
Kleinschmidt’s job is to ensure that the refugees survive in the ZaatariCamp. He wants to give them back their dignity, and he is supposed to createorder in the camp. Kleinschmidt is German. A German can restore order — at least that’s the gist of the plan.
The refugees receive water, food, shelter, toilets and warm blankets for thenight. They could be satisfied. Instead, they stormed a trailer wheredetergent was being distributed, and broke an aid worker’s foot with a rock. Kleinschmidt was caught in the middle of a battle between the military
police and refugees, and his throat still hurts from the tear gas. Refugees also pulled a police officer from his obstacle-clearing tank and beat him on the head with a rock.
Every day, four buses stop at the camp to collect people who want to travelback to Syria. The refugees stand in line in the morning, and when the busesarrive, they fight over seats, because they would rather live in a war zonethan in Zaatari.For Kleinschmidt, the camp is a place where the devil still lives today. [We reported on the numbers leaving Zaatari and returning to Syria, here, just a few days ago.—ed]
Der Spiegel lists, with some cynicism, the aid agencies operating at Zaatari, describing how they put on a show for high power visitors. Check out the article for the list that includes our very own International Rescue Committee (one of the nine top federal refugee contractors) soon to be headed by former British Labor Party leader David Milliband.
He doesn’t know how many aid workers are in the camp. According to a list onthe UNHCR website, 139 organizations are helping the people in Zaatari.Doctors Without Borders is there, and so are Electricians Without Bordersand Gynecologists Without Borders. Clowns Without Borders, which performs in crisis zones to cheer people up, has already left.
Private donors from Saudi Arabia brought in several hundred residential trailers without discussing it with Kleinschmidt or his team first. South Korea spent $20,000 (15,300) on a soccer field that no one uses. There is a Dutch guitar group, although Kleinschmidt has no idea what they are doing there. And the Korean ambassador in Jordan plans to offer Taekwondo lessons for the children in Zaatari soon.
Most difficult refugees he has ever seen. Ungrateful too!
It stands to reason that there is little in the realm of the living or the dead that could still shock Kleinschmidt, but
the camp in Zaatari has done it. “These are the most difficult refugees I’ve ever seen,” he says.
Why does he think that, asks the reporter. Kleinschmidt:
First: These people come from a country where the elite are their enemies. Now they have fought for their freedom and don’t want the next set of elites to tell them how many lentils they are allowed to eat. Second: Many refugees believe that the international community owes them something, because it isn’t stopping the killing in Syria. Third: The mafia.
So, who are the “mafia?” Men like Abu Hussein (watch for him to turn up in your city someday as a resettled refugee whose resettlement contractor is the IRC!). Please read the whole description of Hussein and this exchange, I’ve only snipped a bit of it.
Hussein lives in a trailer that cost $3,000. The air-conditioner runs with electricity he is tapping from the Italian hospital. The water for his tea is from canisters provided by UNICEF. He hasn’t worked, paid or thanked anyone for any of it.
The reported asked Hussein: What is his assessment of the work by the aid organizations?
Hussein takes a few drags from his cigarette and then inhales deeply, as if he were about to go diving. Then he slams his fist on the carpet, so hard that the coffee pot shakes. He begins to shout. “I went to the World FoodProgramme and said that I wanted a piece of cheese. They told me that someone in Geneva had to make that decision. I wonder who is sitting in Geneva deciding whether I can eat a piece of cheese?”
He continues to shout for half an hour, talking about corruption and Jews and cheese. He complains about the fact that some of the male aid workers have ponytails.Finally, he shouts that Mister Kilian is the only halfway decent one of the lot.
And, then just when you think Kleinschmidt is maybe tough enough and skilled enough to keep the place from burning down, he is quoted as saying something dumb, or, come to think of it, perhaps it is incredibly revealing about himself and the mindset of “humanitarian” aid workers generally.
When asked why he became an aid worker, Kleinschmidt responds: “If we know thatwe are doing good, we find it easier to love ourselves.”
I have no objection to using refugees for personal psycho-therapy as long as it’s all being done in the deserts of the Middle East and not in our towns and cities!
Readers, I have no category yet for Syrian refugees but it looks like I’ll have to start one. In the meantime, type ‘Syrian refugees’ into our search function and you will get everything we’ve written so far.
Photo: The photo is from this piece at the NYT on Kleinschmidt in May.
AMMAN: Nearly 9,000 Syrian refugees staying in Jordan left the kingdom for home this month, bringing the number of returnees to more than 68,000 in the past two years, a government official said Tuesday.
“Some 8,974 Syrian refugees voluntarily returned to their country in June, mostly from the northern refugee camp of Zaatari,” Anmar Hmud, the government spokesman for Syrian refugee affairs, told AFP.
“This brings the total number of those who returned in the past two years to 68,373 people.”
But Hmud said refugees are still streaming across the border to Jordan.
“More refugees continue to flee to Jordan. Around 12,200 Syrians sought refuge in Jordan this month,” he added.
Jordan says it is hosting more than 540,000 Syrian refugees, 150,000 of whom are housed in Zaatari camp, near the border with Syria.
In April, the UN refugee agency UNHCR reported that more Syrians were opting to return home from Jordan for a number of reasons, including reports of improved security in a number of border villages, and to protect their property.
The net flow is still going out of Syria, but some feel it’s safe enough in some parts of the country to return to take care of their stuff. We see this over and over again, there is a rush to resettle “refugees” in the West when in fact conflicts generally resolve themselves over time and it would be cheaper for America to support them in camps then to bring them to America!
