14 US Senators tell Obama: Bring MORE Syrians to America (65,000 is a good number!)

05/22/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 24th: Be sure to see Leo Hohmann’s good article at World Net Daily on this newest push for a mass infusion of Syrians into the US. Also, on this Sunday morning is your church indirectly supporting the resettlement of 65,000 mostly Muslim Syrians to America? Click here.

Urgent update! If your Senator is listed here, you really need to get the word out so that they get an earful from constituents!

Breaking News: According to Durban’s press release, all nine federal resettlement contractors are urging Obama to bring in 65,000 Syrians before his term ends!
Led by Senators Dick Durban (D-IL) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) (we don’t have enough Muslims in Minnesota yet!), fourteen US Senators are urging Obama to open the flood gates to the Syrian (mostly Muslim refugees) the UN has picked for us and that the refugee contractors are now lobbying for us to take.
[See yesterday, Syrian resettlement as jihadi pipeline!]
Here is Senator Durban’s press release and a portion of the letter:

NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen: Let’s bring in 65,000 Syrian refugees! It is our moral duty! Shaheen is one of 14 Senators who have asked Obama to open the flood gates!

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) today led a group of fourteen senators in calling on President Barack Obama to significantly increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed to resettle in the United States. The Syrian conflict has led to the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis and the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

“Our nation’s founders came to our shores to escape religious persecution and the United States has a long tradition of providing safe haven to refugees,” the senators wrote. “The United States traditionally accepts at least 50 percent of resettlement cases from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). However, we have accepted only approximately 700 refugees since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, an unacceptably low number. While the United States is the largest donor of humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees, we must also dramatically increase the number of Syrian refugees that we accept for resettlement.” [The number is actually 843/92% Muslim.—ed]

Not a single word about the fact that these members of the Refugee Council USA have a financial interest in bringing in this huge number of Syrians that the FBI has already said cannot be properly screened! “Nonpartisan” my foot! These members of the Refugee Council USA are all members in good standing of the hard LEFT.

Indeed, we cannot expect countries hosting Syrian refugees to continue shouldering such a disproportionate burden if the United States and other industrialized countries do not begin resettling many more Syrian refugees. UNHCR is seeking to resettle 130,000 Syrian refugees over the next two years and has thus far submitted more than 12,000 resettlement cases to the United States for consideration. Refugee Council USA, a nonpartisan coalition of the leading U.S. refugee organizations (including Church World Service, HIAS, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, USCCB, National Association of Evangelicals’ World Relief), recently called for the United States to resettle at least 65,000 of these Syrian refugees by the end of 2016. [This is news! Initially only the International Rescue Committee called for 65,000, now we see it is all of the so-called ‘religious federal government contractors.—ed]

[….]

In short, it is a moral, legal, and national security imperative for the United States to lead by example in addressing the world’s worst refugee crisis of our time by greatly increasing the number of Syrian refugees who are resettled in our country.

Funny that Durban doesn’t list the other signatures on the letter in his press release. In order to see them, go here, to the RCUSA website.
Here they are:

Al Franken (D-MN)

Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Patty Murray (D-WA)

Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)

Christopher Coons (D-DE) LOL! Delaware hasn’t taken a refugee in a couple of years!

Tim Kaine (D-VA)

Edward Markey (D-MA)

Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

Mazie Hirono (D-HI) LOL! Last I looked Hawaii took a whole 7 refugees last year!

One must assume that by mentioning the 65,000 desired by the refugee resettlement contractors (via RCUSA), all 14 are on board with the number!
How about if we divide 65,000 by the 14 above and put 4,642 Syrians in each of their home towns!
Endnote: I have more to say and may edit this post or add a new one, just wanted to get this news posted before I lose internet connection again today.

To date, 843 Syrian refugees admitted to the US; 92% are Muslims

05/22/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editor’s note: I have so much news to post, but internet connection is dropping today. If I disappear, know that I am frustrated about not getting it to you or posting your comments! Or, answering your many e-mails.
Since everyone is talking about the number of Syrians admitted to the US as refugees (see yesterday’s comments by House Homeland Security Committee chairman), I thought it was time to update the numbers.

Most of our Syrians are coming from UN camps like this one which house primarily Muslim refugees. Photo: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/30/syria-aleppo-fight-continues-live

When I search the data base for Syrians I go back to calendar year 2012 (1/1/2012) so as to include those who might have gotten here right after the recent conflict began in 2011 (thus numbers you see published may vary some depending on when the source began counting).
I reported on May 1 that we had admitted 815 Syrians (92% Muslim) from 1/1/2012 to 5/1/2015.
This time I searched up until May 20th and here are the results:
* 843 Syrian refugees have been sent to your towns and cities.
* 508 of those came since January 1, 2015
* The top ten states receiving Syrians are:

Texas (107)

California (107)

Illinois (91)

Arizona (64)

Pennsylvania (54)

Michigan (34)

North Carolina (34)

New Jersey (31)

Florida (30)

Indiana (29)

* Yesterday Rep. Michael McCaul speculated that not too many US communities would want them right now, however Texas, his home state tops the list. Here are the cities in Texas which ‘welcomed’ Syrians:

Austin (4)

Dallas (31)

Ft. Worth (38)

Houston (34)

*One might assume that we were saving the Christian Syrians, but that isn’t happening. Just as we reported earlier in the month, 92% of those we are bringing in are Muslims. Here is the breakdown:

777 of them identify as one form of Muslim or another (729 are Sunni Muslims)

42 Christians are listed and 1 Catholic, several other religions or no religion are listed (for example, there is 1 Yazidi)

That works out to 92% Muslim!
By the way, if you are saying to yourself, heck, there are more Syrians in my town than this small number, remember that there are other legal avenues for entry. Syrians already in the US were granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in 2012 by the Obama Administration and a reader recently shared with me that his US Senator says there are over 11,000 Syrians (who were already in the country when the conflict began) and are thus eligible for TPS.
By the way, it was our usual suspects, the US State Department resettlement contractors who lobbied, along with Arab groups, for the TPS designation.
Those same contractors want us to take 65,000 Syrians by the end of 2016 and the UNHCR has 11,000 picked out for us this year.

House Homeland Security Chairman: Syrian refugees could be "jihadi pipeline" to America

05/21/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well, we didn’t get the House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing we were hoping for today, but the Chairman of the full committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, made news answering questions at a press breakfast this morning.

McCaul: Resettling Syrians now is a serious mistake.

From The Hill (hat tip: The Flying Camel):

The head of the House Homeland Security Committee says an Obama administration plan to resettle Syrian refugees in the U.S. is a “serious mistake” and should be stopped until safeguards are in place.

“We have no way… to know who these people are and so I think bringing them in is a serious mistake,” Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday.

McCaul said the U.S. has “no intelligence footprint or capability” inside Syria to ensure refugees mean no harm.

“We don’t have databases on these individuals so we can’t properly vet them,” he added, “to know where they came from, to know what threat they pose, because we don’t have the data to cross-reference them with.”

McCaul, who has visited Syrian refugee camps overseas, said that while there are “a lot of mothers and kids, there are [also] a lot of males of the age that could conduct terrorist operations.”

“That concerns me,” he added.

The U.S. could resettle around 2,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year and potentially thousands more in fiscal 2016 under the State Department-led effort. The Department of Homeland Security has authority to approve the admissions.

McCaul first raised concerns about the effort in January during a panel hearing, saying the administration is creating a “federally funded jihadi pipeline” into the U.S.

U.S. intelligence officials have expressed reservations about the program and lawmakers, including Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), whose district could absorb some of the refugees, are pressing to have the effort halted.

McCaul said the program has created a “split” in the administration between the State Department and others agencies like the FBI, which is “saying this is a really bad idea from a security standpoint.”

Apparently McCaul went on to say that he couldn’t imagine any community would want to welcome this right now.

However….

…..does the Congressman know that, as the number one resettlement state in the country, Texas has received 100 of them as of May first, trailing only California by three (CA received 103).

And, just remember readers! one of the leading US refugee resettlement contractor CEO’s (Brit David Miliband, brother to ‘Red Ed’) is demanding that Obama admit 65,000 Syrians by the end of his term in office.
Be sure to let your member of Congress know how you feel about Syrian refugees coming to your town!

Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on Syrian refugee security concerns postponed

05/20/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Richard and Guterres — Asst. Sec. of State for PRM Anne Richard (left) and UNHCR Antonio Guterres want to send 11,000 Syrians to your towns and cities this year.

I am not surprised.

This is one of the hottest national security issues we have going right now—the question of whether we should be admitting the 11,000 Syrian refugees the UN has picked out for us without jeopardizing our safety!

A reader just sent us the postponement notice for a hearing we were anxious to see tomorrow. I’ve gotten pretty cynical, so wonder if someone got to the chairman?

Here is the announcement.

If you were planning on contacting your member of Congress on this, please still do so!

Breaking news: Man arrested in Italy is believed to be responsible for the deadly Tunisian museum attack. He got into Europe pretending to be a REFUGEE.
P.S. to the Michigan group I spoke with last night! I have not forgotten! I do plan to post the Michigan data, but have run out of time this morning!

Rep. Peter King to hold hearing this week on Syrian refugee security screening

05/19/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update May 20th: Hearing postponed (here). What is up with that?

Rep. King (R-NY) has announced a hearing this Thursday (hat tip: Rosemary), May 21, 9 a.m. entitled:

Admitting Syrian Refugees: The Intelligence Void and the Emerging Homeland Security Threat

The witness list includes:

Dr. Seth Jones
Director
International Security and Defense Policy Center
RAND Corporation

Mr. Thomas Fuentes
Assistant Director (Ret.)
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Dr. Steven Bucci
Director
Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy
The Heritage Foundation

Regular readers will remember that the full committee held a hearing in February where the FBI gave damaging testimony that they could not adequately screen Syrian refugees entering the US. I wonder why the chairman couldn’t get the FBI back? I’ll bet Jeh Johnson put the kibosh on that! (Note that Mr. Fuentes is a former FBI assistant director.)

By the way, as of the first of May, the US Refugee Admissions Program had admitted 815 Syrians and 92% of them were Muslims, here. They are being distributed around the country.

Apparently there will be live-streaming of the hearing, go here, for more information.

Check out the members of this subcommittee (in right hand sidebar) and see if any are your representatives in Congress, if so, call them and tell them how you feel about Syrians coming to your home towns.