https://www.c-span.org/video/?415977-1/federal-officials-testify-refugee-resettlement
Senators Cruz and Sessions let loose in
yesterday’s Senate hearing on FY17 refugee plan by Ann Corcoran 9/29/16
Yesterday the
Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, grilled three members of the Obama
Administration on the plan to admit 110,000 refugees to the US in the next
fiscal year which begins on Saturday (Oct. 1).
This is a
required hearing under the Refugee Act
of 1980 and we will be looking for the House hearing (where are your
Reps Goodlatte and Gowdy?).
Senators Ted
Cruz and Jeff Sessions were not happy (understatement!) when they heard details
of so-called screening of refugees from the failed state of Syria.
Many issues
were raised, but naturally the one that brought out the most angry exchanges
involved the vetting process.
Leo Hohmann, of World Net Daily,
watched and summarized those key points in his lengthy report, here.
This is how he
begins: President
Obama’s top official responsible for vetting refugees testified before the
Senate Wednesday that it’s possible for people from Syria and other
terrorist-infested countries to have their refugee applications approved based
simply on personal interviews with a “highly trained” immigration officer.
Leon Rodriguez, director of U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services, could not deny that in many cases there is no data
from the refugee’s home country that would corroborate or refute his story. He
tried to reassure the committee by saying the screening process is lengthy and
continuously being improved, noting that the United Nations pre-screens the
refugees before his office even sees them.
Under
questioning from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rodriguez at first avoided giving a
direct answer on whether it was possible to gain admission as a refugee based
solely on an interview. That infuriated Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who chairs
the subcommittee on immigration and the national interest. His subcommittee
conducted the hearing Wednesday on Obama’s refugee plans for fiscal year 2017,
which begins Saturday, Oct. 1.
Obama plans to
bring 110,000 refugees to the United States in 2017, up from 85,000 in 2016 and
70,000 in 2015.
The
administration has exceeded its 2016 target on Syrian refugees by 30 percent,
resettling 12,500 in dozens of U.S. cities and towns, rather than the 10,000 it
had promised the U.N.
At Wednesday’s
hearing, administration officials refused to say how many refugees they intend
to bring in from Syria in fiscal 2017, only that it would likely exceed the
12,500 brought this year. (See my post on that portion of hearing, here.)
Nor did they
say how many would come from Somalia, Iraq, Burma, Afghanistan and other
hotbeds of Sunni radicalism.
When the subject turned to the process of
“vetting” the refugees, sparks began to fly.
Continue
reading and see
embedded clips (sparks flying) from the hearing.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?415977-1/federal-officials-testify-refugee-resettlement
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2016/09/29/senators-cruz-and-sessions-let-loose-in-yesterdays-senate-hearing-on-fy17-refugee-plan/
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