Fact sheet provided to House of
Representatives briefing November 12, 2015, Posted by Ann Corcoran on November 25,
2015
You’ve heard me
mention several times that on the day before the Paris Islamic terror attack, Don Barnett and I briefed staff of Congressmen and
Senators on Capitol Hill on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program. The
briefing was organized by ACT for America. Again, this was before Paris and the
whole refugee world was turned on its head.
House of Representatives Briefing, November 12, 2015
~Refugee
definition: The 1951
Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is someone who “owing to a
well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is
outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such
fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” However, there
has been an intentional expansion of the definition. (Unaccompanied Alien
Children is an example).
~The Refugee Act of 1980 created the
Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) presently being administered to resettle
approximately 70,000 refugees each year (in recent years) to the US.
~The Obama
Administration increased the projected ceiling to 85,000 for FY2016.
10,000 of those slots are earmarked for Syrian refugees presently being
referred to the US by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which says
it has selected 20,000 for consideration so far.
~When the
President sends his “Determination” to Congress in advance of the fiscal year
(two weeks in advance is required!) it is accompanied by a report (Proposed Refugee Admissions
for Fiscal Year 2016). There is supposed to be a legally required
consultation with Congress.
~There will be
large increases this year from Africa including (but not limited to) DR Congo,
Eritrea and Sudan. The largest number of refugees arriving in recent
years are from: Burma (Myanmar), Bhutan/Nepal, Iraq, and Somalia.
We admitted 120,000 Iraqis since 2007.
~In FY2015, we
admitted 1,682 Syrian refugees, less than 40 were Christians/other minorities.
~In 2014, the
United States took in 67% of the refugees resettled around the world. The
next closest country was Canada with 9.9%.
~The UNHCR
refers most of our refugees. The Department of Homeland Security is
charged with doing the security screening. The Dept. of State (Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration) works with nine major refugee contractors
who along with the State Dept. determine their placement in America. The
Dept. of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) provides
grants and additional federal funding mostly through those nine non-profit
agencies.
~The
anticipated cost to the US Treasury of the resettlement process (not including
welfare/Medicaid/education costs) is projected to be just short of $1.2 billion
for FY2016.
~The nine
non-profit agencies contracted to resettle refugees include: US
Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service,
Episcopal Migration Ministries, World Relief (Evangelicals), Church World
Service, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee,
Ethiopian Community Development Council, and the US Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants.
~There are 312
subcontractors working under the nine major contractors in 185 locations around
the country. There are 24 offices located around the country for
the processing of Unaccompanied Alien Children. A placement site map is
available on line (attached).
~The states
receiving the highest number of refugees in FY2015 were in descending order:
TX, CA, NY, PA, FL, GA, MI, AZ, WA, and NC.
~States
receiving no refugees in 2014 or 2015 were: WY, MT. Delaware
received none in 2014.
~State and
local elected officials have virtually no say in the resettlement process. This
is especially so in the so-called Wilson-Fish states where the state doesn’t
even have a refugee office under state government and the program is completely
run through the US State Department and a non-profit organization. Those
states are: AL, AL, CO, ID, KY, LA, MA, NV, ND, SD, TN, VT and San Diego
County.
~Refugees are a
special class of legal immigrant which permits them to receive virtually all
forms of welfare upon arrival.
~Grassroots
opposition is growing throughout the US to the resettlement process mostly due
to the lack of transparency and the fear of Islamic radicals who might get in
through the program. Some points regarding the proposed Syrian
resettlement and the European migration crisis:
~Only about 50%
of the migrants flooding Europe today are Syrians. The next highest
number are from Afghanistan.
~These are a
mix of asylum seekers and economic migrants. Asylum seekers must prove
that just as refugees, they fear returning to their homelands for fear of
persecution (escaping war per se has never been a part of the refugee
definition).
~We are not
expected to get refugees from the European flow (Malta exception). Ours
will come through UN referrals from mostly UNHCR camps and regional offices.
~The refugee
resettlement contractors (NGOs mentioned above) working with the US State
Department began advocating several years ago for the resettlement of 15,000
Syrians per year for each of the next 5 years. They then modified their
request to 65,000 Syrians before Pres. Obama leaves office. Subsequently
they have demanded 100,000 Syrians before 2017.
~Earlier 14 US
Senators wrote to the President asking for 65,000 Syrians. A total of 84
Senators and Members of Congress have subsequently urged the President to speed
up security screening.
~FBI Director
James Comey has told Congress that Syrians cannot be thoroughly screened
because the Administration has no access to data (biographic or biometric) on
most of them. This post is
filed in our category entitled ‘where to find information’ which now contains 401 previous posts.
Comments
The refugee program in the US was generally accepted
because these refugees were fleeing a Communist take-over and Americans felt
comfortable with families who didn’t want to live under Communism. Also, other forms of immigration were modest
before 1989 and were generally in the 200,000 per year range. After 1989, there were no more “refugees”
fleeing Communism, but the program began to include a lot of 3rd
world country unskilled immigrants going into the US welfare system. They were
also less willing to assimilate into American culture and it felt like an
invasion. Americans saw their jobs go
overseas and go to immigrants and became much less inclined to accept this
invasion. None of this was reported in the media, but was withheld on purpose.
For a while, Numbers USA was the only website covering excessive immigration.
Then Senator Jeff Sessions broke the news and Donald Trump brought it to
“center stage”. Excessive immigration is the number one cause for the high real
unemployment in the US we’ve experienced since 2008. Bad Trade deals like NAFTA
and unnecessary, excessive government spending, regulations and debt are the
serious secondary causes for this unemployment.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment