It begins: 1st
Syrian 'refugees' arrive in S.C. despite governor's concerns, State Department: 'Our program is continuing
and it's all legal', by Leo Hohmann, 12/23/15, WND
South Carolina was one
of the first states to protest President Obama’s plans to bring 10,000 Syrian
refugees to the United States for permanent resettlement, but those refugees
have now started to arrive despite the absence of an official welcome mat.
The uprising grew so
intense this past summer that Secretary of State John Kerry dispatched his top
refugee official, Assistant Secretary of State Anne Richard, to Spartanburg to
quell the backlash against Muslim migrants.
Republican Gov. Nikki
Haley, who initially supported the resettlements in her state, changed her mind
after the attack on Paris that killed 130 people in November. Those attacks
were carried out by eight Islamic terrorists, including one who entered
Europe as a “refugee.” Haley joined more than two dozen other governors who
told the Obama administration they didn’t want any Syrian refugees.
But none of that protest
has stopped Obama’s plans from going forward. The Syrians continue to arrive
not only in South Carolina but nationwide, Richard said. A pair of Syrians were
secretly planted last week in Midlands, near the state capital of Columbia,
without even the governor’s office being notified. And more Syrians are on
their way to the Palmetto State, the South Carolina Department of Social
Services confirmed to WND.
The Syrians are being
resettled in South Carolina by Lutheran Services Carolinas, a private agency
affiliated with Lutheran Migration and Refugee Service, one of nine contractors
who receive hundreds of millions in federal taxpayer money to resettle foreign
refugees in the U.S.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney,
R-S.C., did not take kindly to the furtive action by the federal government,
which works with the United Nations to distribute up to 85,000 foreign refugees
annually into more than 180 U.S. cities and towns.
Mulvaney got into a
heated exchange last week on the House floor with Richard over the unapproved
distribution of Syrian refugees into South Carolina. Mulvaney said his office
found out about the placement of the first two Syrians by reading it in the
local media. This despite the fact that Mulvaney said he and Rep. Trey Gowdy,
R-S.C., had met previously with State Department officials to discuss security
concerns about the refugees.
“I found out yesterday
in the media that your group has placed some refugees this month in South
Carolina, and I’d like to ask you about that,” he told Richard. “But our
governor had reached out to you and asked you not to do this. And when we had
met previously, you said one of the things your organization considers when
looking at placing folks is whether or not they’re going to areas where you
feel like they would be welcomed to the point where they would be easier to
assimilate. And I suggest to you that maybe the governor’s letter to you might
send a message that now is not the right time to send Syrian refugees to South
Carolina, so why did you do it anyway? And why didn’t you tell the governor you
were gonna do it?”
Richard said she wasn’t
aware that any Syrians had been sent to South Carolina. “How is that possible?”
Mulvaney asked. “I don’t track all of the thousands of refugees coming to the
United States. … Our program is continuing, and it’s continuing across the
United States. And it’s all legal,” Richard told Mulvaney
http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/it-begins-1st-syrian-refugees-arrive-in-s-c-despite-governors-concerns/
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