Sessions: Congress must use 'power of the purse' in refugee controversy

Senator Jeff Sessions, the long-time champion of the American worker and taxpayer took to the Senate floor on Thursday evening in an attempt to get the message to all of you that simply asking the fox (the Obama Administration) to guarantee that no terrorists would slip into the refugee stream, as the Ryan bill (here) did that same day, is not sufficient.

Sessions on the floor
Sessions: Administration will not give us full accounting of immigration histories of arrested/convicted Islamic terrorists in US.

I sure hope this means that an effort to cut funding is still on the table following the Thanksgiving recess.
Here is World Net Daily (Hohmann again) with details:

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is throwing cold water on President Obama’s plans to expand the number of Islamic refugees entering the U.S. from Syria, saying it’s a recipe for disaster similar to what’s happening in Europe.

He urged Congress to use its only real power – the power of the purse – to stop a president who has often “run over Congress” to get his way.

In a speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Sessions said Obama has ignored 72 documented cases of terrorist activity by suspected Muslim immigrants inside the United States since July of last year. Many of these terrorists came to the U.S. as refugees, a stark contrast to the “widows and orphans” meme put forth by the Obama administration and the myriad political and religious groups that support the resettlement business.

Sessions said his office sent the list of terrorist plots, many of them foiled by the FBI before they could be carried out, to the administration more than four months ago and asked for the immigration histories of each suspect.

Sen. Ted Cruz also co-signed the request sent to the Obama administration with an attached list of 72 individuals charged or convicted of terrorism.

“We asked for the immigration histories of each one of these individuals,” Sessions said. “Isn’t that a good thing to know?

Shouldn’t we as policy makers know how these terrorists got into the country? Well, stunningly, the administration just refused to respond. They think if maybe they ignore these requests then people won’t know and begin to question how things are being conducted. Congress should not acquiesce to the president’s refugee funding request when he refuses to even publicly disclose the immigration histories of these 72 terrorists, many of whom are connected to ISIS – al-Qaida and ISIS.”

[….]

The Syrians now flooding into the United States are more than 97 percent Muslims, and evidence is building that Muslim officials within the United Nations refugee camps discriminate heavily against Christians.

A new poll out this week by Bloomberg showed that a majority of Americans across all party lines, 53 percent, are against the resettlement of Syrian Muslim refugees in their cities and towns.

Sessions has called for Congress to defund the refugee program, rather than merely ask for greater assurances that refugees can be vetted, as does Speaker Paul Ryan’s bill, passed by the House Thursday.

“It would be unthinkable for Congress to acquiesce to the president’s refugee funding request when he refuses to even publicly disclose the immigration history of these 72 terrorists, many of whom are involved with ISIS,” Sessions said.

[….]

What should Congress do to stop a program that the people oppose and Congress has not approved?

“The answer lies in the power of the purse,” Sessions said. “Each and every year the president submits a request to congress to fund. Congress, who has been run over numerous times by this administration, must not write the blank check that the president is asking.”

Much more here.

WND: Ryan plotting 'meaningless show-vote' on refugees

***Update*** Call your Members of Congress today and get them to co-sponsor Babin bill and oppose meaningless “show vote.”  Go here for instructions from FAIR.
We told you last night here that, although we are pleased with the strong show of solidarity by the vast majority of America’s governors regarding the importation of not-thoroughly-screened refugees, the real fight will be in Congress, and it is all about money!

Ryan and Obama
Politico says the two are going to try to get along. Will that result in tens of thousands of Muslim refugees being greenlighted to your towns? The “dynamic” will get its first test over the next days and weeks. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/barack-obama-paul-ryan-relationship-215398

Obama cannot advance his resettlement agenda without appropriations approved by Congress.

(Intellectual debates about the Constitutionality of the whole refugee program will have to wait right now!)
In fact, the federal resettlement contractors*** (some supposedly religious non-profit groups) are scrambling at this minute to put in motion a massive display of grassroots power to pound members of Congress and US Senators to turn back any effort to cut funding that they depend on for their survival (the refugees are their gravy train).
Also, remember that if the funds are cut, and Syrians aren’t resettled in significant numbers, it will be a huge image setback for Obama because the United Nations is counting on America to lead the way in moving Muslim Syrians into western countries for permanent resettlement.  If the US balks, it will have a chilling effect on countries like Australia that are presently being strong-armed into taking more.
Here is Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily with a detailed report on what to expect.  I have snipped some significant sections, but please read the whole thing especially some very good comments by Senator Jeff Sessions, like this key line near the end:

Sessions said the American people should not be asked to fund a population shift of Muslims from the Middle East and Africa into the U.S.

Hohmann opens with this (emphasis is mine):

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday he will convene a special task force to examine how to respond to President Obama’s plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States, but some conservatives on Capitol Hill are warning Ryan’s plan is nothing but a smokescreen designed to give lip-service while refusing to defund the program.

Ryan likely has no intention of cutting off the flow of Muslim refugees into the U.S., nor does he plan to ensure Syria’s persecuted Christian minority gets rescued from the clutches of ISIS, sources told WND.

The issue of ISIS terrorists infiltrating the West by sneaking in among the ranks of Syrian refugees has come to the fore in the wake of last Friday’s ISIS attack on Paris in which 132 innocent civilians were murdered by eight ISIS terrorists, at least two of which entered Europe as “refugees.”

[….]

Ryan’s strategy is also ignoring the fact that Syria is only a small part of the overall United Nations refugee program that sends approximately 40,000 Muslims to America every year from some of the most notorious jihadist hotbeds such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Bangladesh, Sudan, Somalia and Burma.

But WND has learned from insiders on Capitol Hill that Ryan’s end objective is not to close down a program that has delivered more than 1.5 million Muslim refugees to American cities and towns since 1990 under a law authored in 1980 by then-Sen. Joe Biden and the late Teddy Kennedy.

A conservative Capitol Hill aide told WND, “Paul Ryan is setting us up for a meaningless show vote on Syrian refugees so the White House can continue the influx of Muslim refugees this year and all the years to follow as it always has.

Ryan loves mass immigration!

“Putting Ryan in charge of a fight to block refugees would be like putting (Nancy) Pelosi in charge of fight to repeal Obamacare,” the staffer said. “No one loves mass immigration more than Ryan, so how exactly is he going to make a public argument against it? He can’t and won’t, leaving Democrats unharmed, unscathed and unafraid.”

Members of the House Intelligence, Armed Services and Homeland Security panels will meet this week to come up with legislation the House will vote on by Thursday.

The “show vote” will likely occur on the American SAFE Act of 2105, the source said, a toothless bill that will allow Obama to put forth certain assurances that Syrians are being “certified” as having no connections to terrorism.

Senators say, cut the whole program!

Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala., issued a joint statement Tuesday afternoon saying that any strategy to eliminate the infiltration of terrorists posing as refugees must terminate funding for the entire $1.2 billion refugee program.

“As chairmen of subcommittees on both the appropriations and judiciary committees, we believe it is essential that any government funding bill cancel the President’s blank check for refugee resettlement,” the senators said.

Babin increases co-sponsors AP (After Paris).  The House Judiciary Committee should now begin to move the Babin bill by first holding a hearing in Trey Gowdy’s subcommittee on that bill, but right at this point in time, the quickest way to slow the flow of Syrians Muslims (and those from many other countries) into the US is to cut the funding.

Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, also has a bill in the House that picked up 14 new co-sponsors Monday and Tuesday in the wake of Friday’s attacks in Paris. His bill would halt all the resettlements until a full accounting of the program is given, both from a cost standpoint and in terms of national security.

The No Borders Left and the refugee industry*** is scrambling!  (More shortly on that)

Sensing that a movement is afoot to stop the flow of Islamic refugees into the U.S. from just one of a dozen or so pipeline countries, Syria, the refugee resettlement agencies called an emergency conference call Tuesday.

[….]

Sessions said the American people should not be asked to fund a population shift of Muslims from the Middle East and Africa into the U.S.

There is much more here.

So, as I have been saying for days, the first battle of what is likely going to continue to be a long war is going to be in Congress in the coming weeks.

Call your members of Congress and your US Senators, today and every day going forward.  The vote is expected on or before Dec. 11th.
*** Remember readers that these agencies are paid largely with your tax dollars and they lobby and agitate for amnesty for illegal aliens with the same vigor as they advocate for refugees.  It is about changing America by changing the people.
The nine major federal resettlement contractors which like to call themselves VOLAGs (short for Voluntary agencies)—a joke considering how much federal money they receive:

Senate Oversight hearing on Refugee Program very revealing! Senator Sessions did a masterful job

For all of you who had to do something productive yesterday afternoon, like go to work! here is a link to the C-span video of the hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest that ran a little over two hours.

FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2013 file photo, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senators weighing a landmark immigration bill defeated an effort by Republicans Tuesday to require biometric identification _ such as fingerprinting _ to track who is entering and leaving the country. The amendment by Sessions would have required a biometric system to be in place before any immigrant here illegally could obtain permanent residency or citizenship. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Senator Jeff Sessions, Chairman Judiciary Subcommittee Immigration and the National Interest

As far as we can tell this is the first Congressional oversight hearing held on the refugee program since 911!
Everyone in Pockets of Resistance’ must watch it!  You will learn so much!
See our post here on the hearing so you know the background and who the players are.
I’ve got way too much to do before I leave for travel today, but there are a few things that interested me (among many!) that I want to draw your attention to when you watch the video.
If any readers would like to write a short commentary on what you found most informative/shocking or whatever, please send it my way and I’ll post when I return from Tennessee.
Below, not necessarily in order either time-wise or in importance.  (If anyone has time to send me the time stamps for these exchanges, I would be very grateful.)

Somali fraud!

Witness Barbara Strack (USCIS) actually mentioned the widespread fraud discovered in the family reunification portion of the program back in 2008.  She deserves credit for mentioning it, but of course most listeners probably did not know what she was talking about.  This was in response to Senator Blumenthal (D-CT) suggesting family reunification be expanded.
Here is the background!  First revealed by the Wall Street Journal in 2008, the US State Department learned that thousands of Somali refugees had entered the US by lying on their applications about family relationships.  The so-called P-3 program was suspended for years as a result!  None of the fraudulent entrants were ever deported.  Go here to see links for the news.
So all the discussion about “interviews” as part of the process of gaining entry into the US is suspect because, guess what!  They lie!

Consultation is a joke!

Near the end of the hearing, Senator Sessions asked about whether there was consultation with the communities that would be receiving the refugees, and Lawrence Bartlett (US State Department) said with a straight face that there are quarterly consultations with stakeholders and elected officials.
He did not mention that the taxpaying public is prohibited from attending!  He did not mention that if elected officials are hostile, they aren’t invited.  He did not mention that in many communities there is no quarterly meeting.  He did not mention that the meeting usually only involves ‘stakeholders’ that are friendlies.  Go here to a post we wrote in May about the efforts by citizens in St. Cloud, MN to get into a ‘quarterly consultation’ (while ‘leaders of the Somali ‘community’ had been invited), but were told initially that they were not permitted to attend.  (After a public outcry, a few representatives of the concerned public did eventually gain entry to a sanitized meeting.)

They really don’t know who the Syrians are!

Perhaps the most embarrassing moments of the hearing for witnesses were when Mr. Matthew Emrich (Associate Director, Fraud Detection And National Security Directorate of the USCIS) could not tell Senator Sessions how they could possibly collect data on the Syrians who have left their failed state.  When we get a bit of the video pulled for that exchange, we’ll link it. ***Update*** here (thanks to reader Robin) is the exchange between Senator Sessions and Mr. Emrich.

Boston Bombers exchange

If you were confused by the exchange on the Tsarnaev (Boston Bomber family) and Ms. Strack’s assertion that they were not “refugees,” she was technically correct.  We bring refugees into the country after we/UNHCR select them.
It was widely reported after the bombing that the family had been granted asylum (under the provisions of the Refugee Act of 1980). That means that one of them (the Dad we suspect) got into the US through some other means (perhaps overstayed a tourist visa) and applied for asylum and was successful and thus was allowed to bring in the family.  As asylees (successful asylum seekers) they are then generally referred to as ‘political refugees’ and can (and did!) avail themselves of all the same welfare goodies that refugees receive.
The fact that they were travelling back and forth to their place of supposed persecution should have been a red-flag to immigration officials.
Senator Sessions needs to press Ms. Strack further in follow-up questions to identify the exact LEGAL program the Tsarnaev’s used to enter the country, unless, and this would be headline news, they were here illegally (and being supported on the taxpayer’s dime).
See also, Brenda Walker’s take on the hearing, here at Limits to Growth (she posted Senator Sessions wrap-up statement).
I’ll add additional media reports here as they come in today (before I leave if possible).
Be sure to see Leo Hohmann at WND here on the hearing.

Watch Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on refugee program today on C-SPAN-3

Update:  I hope you were able to catch it.  Senator Jeff Sessions did a great job.  Will try to say more in the morning.
Thanks to Brenda for the links!

http://www.c-span.org/video/?328475-1/hearing-fiscal-year-2016-refugee-resettlement-program

Watch online

If you are a new reader and are wondering what hearing, go here and here for more.
For those of you in ‘Pockets of Resistance’ , you need to get a look at the Washington bureaucrats responsible for changing your communities!
And, as I have said previously, this is a rare opportunity because as far as I can tell there has been no oversight hearing of this program since before 911!

Action Alert! If you live in the DC area and are concerned about the refugee problem, please attend the Senate hearing

jeff Sessions
The Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest is chaired by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

You know the community activists who are already upset that Obama wants to admit (only!) 85,000 refugees to the US starting tomorrow while they want 200,000, will be crowding in to the Refugee Resettlement oversight hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
They have lots of community (open borders) agitators, paid employees and interns in the DC area to make it look like a big crowd in support of MORE refugees.
So, if you live nearby please try to make it to the hearing.  Go to our previous post for all the details about who will be answering the committee’s questions.
If your US Senator is on the Subcommittee (list here) be sure to let him/her know how you feel about more refugees for America and for your state.
This is all you will need for tomorrow:

DATE: Thursday October 1, 2015

TIME: 2:00 p.m.

WHERE: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226

Doors to the room usually don’t open until 15 minutes prior to the hearing start time. You can get into the Dirksen Office Building as early as you want and wait in the hallway out side the hearing room. But please be aware that Capitol Police will not let you sit in the hallway.

The two closest metro stops to the Dirksen Senate Office building are Union Station (Red line) and Capitol South Metro (Blue, Orange and Silver lines).