In one short week, everything has changed in the political landscape around the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program, so much so that I’ve lost track! Here is a good US map and description (as of Thursday, the 19th). I know 48 hours is a long time ago considering how fast things are moving, so send a comment to this post if your state has since changed its position, or if you have anything new to add.
From Citylab (hat tip: Jim):
Go herefor more. If you live in one of the green states, you need to let your governors know how you feel!
Roanoke!
Check our archiveson that Virginia city, they have had their share of problems with refugees over the years. See especially the stories about the refugees (sent to prison in 2009) for planning to kidnap for ransom some prominent women in the town.
Come on mayors! We need some of you who have complained in the past to step forward now!
You just knew it had to be so, and I’m actually amazed that the Associated Press even wrote this story. Incredible!
We previously told youabout the discord in Allentown, PA as the local Lutheran contractor was surprised to see angry Tea Partiers show up a recent meeting. But, at that time we were being told that Allentown was ideal because of its large “welcoming” Syrian community. Pennsylvania Governor, Dem. Tom Wolf said in a statement that PA will continue to welcome the mostly Sunni Muslim Syrians to the state (even if the Syrian Christians are worried?): http://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/11/18/why-pa-continue-accepting-syrian-refugees/75979840/
In fact Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told that gathering at Georgetownwe attended that the Syrian American community was opening its arms to the new refugees—well maybe not so much!
[After the first six weeks of FY2016 admissions, PA is number six of the 50 states receiving 98% Muslim Syrian refugees, see here.]
Syrian Christian: We need to know who we are welcoming!
Here is the AP story at CBS News(What gives? MSM news outlets posting a story that doesn’t fit the Administration’s narrative!):
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A few days ago, a pastor asked Syrian-born restaurant owner Marie Jarrah to donate food to a welcoming event for recently arrived Syrian refugees. Jarrah, who said she regularly helps people in need, declined.
Like many of Allentown’s establishment Syrians, she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to bring refugees to the city. She clung to that view even before last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris. “Problems are going to happen,” said Jarrah, co-owner of Damascus Restaurant in a heavily Syrian enclave.
As debate intensifies nationally over the federal government’s plan to accept an additional 10,000 refugees from war-ravaged Syria, a similar argument is taking place in Allentown – one with a sectarian twist.
Pennsylvania’s third-largest city is home to one of the nation’s largest populations of Syrians. They are mostly Christian and, in no small number, support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – a dynamic that’s prompting some of them to oppose the resettlement of refugees, who are Muslim and say they fled violence perpetrated by the Assad regime.
Aziz Wehbey, an Allentown auto dealer and president of the American Amarian Syrian Charity Society, worries some Syrian refugees might have taken part in the fighting in Syria’s civil war and have “blood on their hands.”
“We need to know who we are welcoming in our society,” said Wehbey, who immigrated to the United States a quarter-century ago and became a citizen.
The article does go on to say some Christians are coming around.
One of the myths we have tried to explode over the years here at RRW is this idea that America is one big happy melting pot and that we can shoehorn many disparate cultures and races together (who have been fighting for hundreds of years where they came from) and expect them to live happily ever after in America.
We have reported case after case of clashes for example between African Americans and the new African refugees as they are shoved together in inner city neighborhoods. Now we are going to see if Middle Eastern Muslims will live side by side with Middle Eastern Christians.
Why would tensions be less here than they were in Syria? They won’t, and it’s this liberal clap-trap we must expose!
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: 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.”
Expect a showdown in the next few weeks as hundreds of mostly Sunni Muslim Syrians(selected by the UN) are already en route to Democratic Party-run cities. Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is featured in the CNN article. Rawlings-Blake is working with Muslim Brotherhood affiliated charity Islamic Relief USA to bring in more refugees from Africa and the Middle East to beleaguered Baltimore. http://irusa.org/press-releases/rebuilding-a-city-rebuilding-lives-baltimore-welcomes-refugees/
I’m betting these mayors, who are bucking their mostly Republican governors, are also presiding over sanctuary cities for illegal aliens.
This news is from CNN:
WASHINGTON (CNN) —Democratic mayors across the country are clashing with mostly Republican governors who say their states shouldn’t accept Syrian refugees.
More than half — 31 — of the nation’s governors, most of the Republicans, say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states. The final say on allowing refugees into the country falls with the federal government, though governors can slow down the process and make placing and aiding refugees more difficult.
[….]
Because the United States Conference of Mayors has not changed its refugee policy since the Paris attacks, the group’s communications director Elena Temple-Webb told CNN Wednesday she believes the mayors will continue to welcome refugees.
More here.
At some point this will all make its way to the Supreme Court.
Update: According to The Hill, top administration officials couldn’t get support from large number of Dems following briefing.
If you are looking for me to have the definitive word this morning on what has happened in the last week and where we go from here, I don’t have it. A week ago Thursday, at the request of ACT for America, Don Barnett and I participated in a briefing of Hill staffers on the UN/US State Department Refugee Admissions Program and then Friday night hell broke loose in Paris. In 7 days the refugee resettlement program has been completely turned on its head in a way I could never have imagined this time last week. Speaker Paul Ryan and President Obama agree: there will be no preference given to Christian refugees from the Middle East (98% of those arriving in the last six weeks are Sunni Muslims). Selecting only Christians would be “offensive” said Obama. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-syrian-refugees_564cb1f9e4b00b7997f878f3 Over 30 governors have said ‘NO’ to Syrian resettlement, so federal resettlement contractors who are ‘welcoming’ Syrians now on a daily basis are in turmoil trying to figure out where to send them. The House Judiciary Committee has held its first serious hearing on the program since before 9/11 and the full House has passed the only bill maybe since 1979(when the law creating this program passed both houses) that seeks in any way to control the monstrosity that the program has become. And, to top it off, talk-radio and cable news are talking about refugees 24/7! Can I retire now?
All of that is to say, I need to sort through the news, so much of which you are getting faster than me because Drudge is on top of it (Drudge even posted one of my posts on Somali refugees—don’t forget there are hundreds of Somalis coming into the US every month!).
That said, this is a good summary of the House action from Leo Hohmann at World Net Dailywho has made this issue a top priority in his reporting since at least July 2014 (when we first posted on his work). Emphasis below is mine:
The House voted Thursday to approve a bill that would require a new “certified” screening process for refugees coming from Iraq and Syria, but the bill is unlikely to pass in the Senate, says Minority Leader Harry Reid, and some conservatives are saying the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough in keeping America safe.
The House vote was 289-137 and included 47 Democrats, just two votes shy of enough to override a presidential veto.
“[The American SAFE Act] is simply putting a pause on the Syrian refugee program until we can be assured … they can be properly vetted and background checks can be done before they are brought in,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. “Also, we require certification by the secretary of Homeland Security, FBI director and director of national intelligence. I think this is a very measured, well-balanced bill.”
[….]
Two Republicans voted against the bill: Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Steve King, R-Iowa, likely because the bill doesn’t go far enough in their eyes.
Critics have said the proposed law wouldn’t stop a single Islamic refugee from entering the U.S. And there are much tougher bills sitting in committees, including Rep. Brian Babin’s HR 3314, which would stop all refugee resettlement until the Obama administration can give a full accounting of the costs and national security risks.
“Speaker Paul Ryan is trying to protect Obama’s Syrian refugee resettlement programs today by passing a bill that only ‘pauses’ the program instead of stopping it,” said William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. “Also, Ryan’s bill is based on the false premise that refugees from Muslim countries can be adequately vetted when they can’t, as Sen. Jeff Sessions is pointing out.”
[….]
The legislation will now go to the Senate, where it may face a tougher path to passage.
Reid, D-Nev., vowed to block the House bill if it is considered by the upper chamber after the Thanksgiving recess.
[….]
When asked about the prospect of Obama vetoing the legislation, Reid said, “Don’t worry, it won’t get passed. Next question?”
[….]
WND reported earlier this week that Ryan was lining up a “meaningless show vote,” quoting a senior staffer on Capitol Hill. That’s exactly what happened, with a vote allowing Ryan and the GOP to sound tough on ISIS without providing any real teeth because the legislation still depends on the Obama administration to “certify” that every refugee is not a terrorist.
This is impossible, critics such as Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., say, because many of the refugees have clean backgrounds and become radicalized after they arrive in the U.S.
The day before the vote, Speaker Paul Ryan made it clear that Christian Syrians would not be given preference over the mostly Sunni Muslim Syrians being admitted right now, here at the Huffington Post. (By the way, I could argue that with an arrival rate of 98% Muslim, that we are giving preference to Sunni Muslims for admission to the US!).
Find our hereif your “faith group” is backing Obama in his Syrian Muslim resettlement efforts. Appropriations?
Rep. Bridenstine and others propose a bill to cut the funding, here. I don’t know the future of efforts to bring the issue to a head on the FY2016 government funding measure that Congress must pass by December 11. But, here is news from before the vote that such an efforts was being prepared in the House.
In addition to the Oklahoma representative Bridenstine, the other three warriors on this effort were/are:
Joining Bridenstine were Reps. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Lamar Smith of Texas and Brian Babin of Texas.
Will try to get more news from Washington in the coming days…..
