Thursday, November 24, 2016

Australia’s Refugee Problem

Grassley and Goodlatte blast Obama Admin on secret Australian ‘refugee’ deal, by Ann Corcoran 11/23/16

Got guts! This is a good sign from Congress (a sign perhaps that Trump’s victory is providing some backbone!).

Senator Chuck Grassley and Rep. Bob Goodlatte chairmen of their respective Judiciary Committees have sent a strongly worded letter to the Obama Administration telling them to release to the public information on a secret deal to admit to the US rejected asylum seekers held in Australian offshore detention centers. We reported the news here and here last week.

Remember readers, these are mostly Muslims (who attempted to break into Australia by boat) who have had their asylum claims rejected—Australia does not want them!

Setting precedents! There are many important concerns in this letter, but one issue in particular caught my eye, the idea of setting a precedent which is something I’ve been hammering for years. Deals like this are going on elsewhere in the refugee program and it is wrong.

I’ll direct you to the issue of Malta and the FACT that we have been admitting aliens who arrived on the EUROPEAN island of Malta from Libya and other African hellholes (surely undocumented with only their personal stories to rely on!) by transforming them into refugees and placing them in your American towns ever since the Bush Administration. These are Europe’s illegal aliens and not our concern! (just as this new batch is Australia’s problem). 

Congress and the new President can quickly plug this hole (See our 8-year-old Malta archive here), and we must stop these foolish “deals” wherever they are occurring. Of course, deal implies we get something in exchange, but what we get is never clear!

For new readers, this was point #7 in my ‘Ten Reasons there must be a MORATORIUM’ on refugee resettlement (first published in 2012!). Our Australia category is here.


Australian press thinks its unlikely US will take rejected ‘refugees’ off their hands, by Ann Corcoran 11/23/16

 

Mr Trump! Forget Syrians for a minute! Are we going to suspend resettlement of all ‘high-risk aliens?’


Here is a story from Sky News Australia which links Trump advisor Kris Kobach’s proposals to Trump last weekend in NJ as evidence that the deal might well be dead on arrival.  See my earlier post this morning about a letter from two powerful members of Congress who want the fishy Australia deal stopped now!

Sky News titters about photo that reveals some of Kobach’s suggestions to the Trump team on immigration: An apparent bungle by US president-elect Donald Trump’s hardline immigration adviser shows just how difficult Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s US refugee re-settlement plan will likely be to pull off.

Kris Kobach, tipped to head the US Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, was clutching documents as he stood with a smiling and waving Mr Trump on Sunday in view of the media.

A photo taken by Associated Press, when zoomed in, shows the top page of the document is headlined ‘Department of Homeland Security. Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days’. It lists aggressive proposals aimed at ‘high-risk aliens.’ ‘Reduce intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under the 1980 Refugee Act,’ Mr Kobach’s plan states.The plan also calls for ‘extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia Law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution’.

Mr Kobach was one of many potential Trump administration hires who met with the president-elect at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on the weekend.

Readers, I am starting to get nervous about whether Trump’s closest advisors on immigration fully understand the US Refugee Admissions Program.

In my previous post I said that if Trump picks Romney in combination with Nikki Haley at the UN (where the UN has plans for who comes to your towns!), we shouldn’t expect any major shakeup of the RAP.

Let’s talk about HIGH-RISK ALIENS!

There has been enormous national attention on the fact that FBI Director Comey testified to Congress that Syrians cannot be vetted because they come from a failed state where records are not obtainable. And, it is understandable that the focus has been on the Syrians, but if you are a longtime reader of RRW you know this is also true for the vast majority of Somalis (tens of thousands) we have admitted over the last two-three decades. 

In fact, in 2008 the State Department (DOS) cut off family reunification for Somalis because they discovered wide spread fraud. Somalis lied about their family connections! Family reunification was closed for years (all documented here at RRW). See the most recent news on Somalis who thumbed their noses at your generosity.

The DOS and DHS say they can vet the Iraqis.  But, they screwed up big time a few years ago and Iraqi refugee Al-Qaeda supporters were arrested and convicted on terror charges in Kentucky.  One of them actually had fingerprints on an IED shard in US government hands and no one ever made the connection. That IED killed American service men. These two had lied on their refugee application.

And, how are we possibly screening the Rohingya Muslims who have fled Burma, many on boats that ended up in Malaysia and Indonesia. We are taking thousands of them!  They don’t have ‘papers’ from the government of Burma (a Buddhist government that is all too happy to get rid of them)!

Other countries that produce unvettable (new word!) Muslims are Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. Just those few countries mentioned above account for probably half of the flow to the US right now! So, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kobach! Stop focusing on only Syrians! The problem is much much bigger!



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