CIS: Why
are we participating in UN refugee compact? By Ann Corcoran, 9/26/18.
By all accounts (from people
I politically agree with!) Trump gave a great speech at the UN yesterday. And,
although we stepped back from one of two new compacts related to refugees under
construction in the world body, we participate in this one. (See here that Trump removed us from a second UN
compact deliberation.)
President Trump gave America First
speech at the UN yesterday.
Writing
at the Center for
Immigration Studies, Nayla Rush, tells us what is wrong
with the deliberations that would actually expand the protection the 1951
Refugee Convention presently offers to supposedly only legitimate refugees.
(See Wikipedia for more on the 1951 Convention and don’t miss the definition
of who is a ‘refugee.’)
In my view, these
negotiations are one more way to expand the definition of what constitutes a
‘refugee’ which then would allow more people from the third world to move to
the first without them having to prove that they would be persecuted if
returned home.
By the way, this discussion
of a new refugee compact was launched at Obama’s UN pow-wow in the fall of 2016
when they all were assuming Hillary was moving to the Oval!
Here is the news and analysis
at the Center for Immigration Studies:
U.S. Continues to Back UN Refugee Compact that Contradicts Administration Goals
Despite announcing a
lower refugee-resettlement ceiling for the coming fiscal year, the Trump
administration continues to support the UN’s Global Compact on Refugees, which
is in total contradiction to the administration’s refugee policies.
The final text of the Global
Compact on Refugees was released late July. This refugee compact was expected
to be adopted by UN member states (including the United States) at the 73rd
General Assembly in New York later this week; but the vote is now expected to take place in
December.
The UN refugee compact seeks for more
resettlement places while using expedited processing modalities; facilitating
access to family reunification for resettled refugees and encouraging
complementary pathways for refugees through private sponsorship programs (such
as student scholarships, employment opportunities etc.) that would be
additional to regular resettlement and are harder to monitor.
The Trump administration, on
the other hand, announced the FY 2019 refugee ceiling of 30,000, down from
45,000 for 2018 (both ceilings count as the lowest ceiling determinations since
the creation of the refugee resettlement program following the Refugee Act of
1980). The reasoning behind such low ceilings is two-fold: Improving the
screening and vetting of resettlement candidates (which means slower admissions)
and reducing the untenable asylum backlog by reassigning refugee officers to
asylum cases.
The Trump
administration’s continued commitment to the UN agreement is puzzling.
Beware COMPLEMENTARY PATHWAYS! The UN wants to tell member states HOW
THEY MUST SHARE THE BURDEN!
According to him, the 1951
convention, while focusing on rights of refugees and obligations of states,
does not deal with international cooperation; it “does not specify how you share the burden
and responsibility, and that’s what the global compact does. It
responds to one of the major gaps we have faced for decades.” Türk added: “Also, we would aim [through the Global Compact
on Refugees] to get more resettlement places and find more ways refugees can
move to third countries – such as through family reunification, student
scholarships, or humanitarian visas, so that refugees can travel safely (what
we call ‘complementary pathways’).”
You can readily see how the
UN wants an expansion of the definition of the 1951 definition of refugee
protection to family members (who may not be legitimate refugees in their own
right), students, and whatever that broad new category called humanitarian visas might
allow.
Rush has many more details, click here to read it all.
I’m assuming the Trump Administration
stayed involved in this series of meetings so they would continue to be
informed. I guess we will find out in a few months how serious the
President is about not letting the rest of the world dictate who the ‘new
Americans’ will be.
I’ve been arguing for a
refugee cap of zero for the coming year. It would be the only way to force Congress to
review the program with an eye to serious reform. I would argue that the United Nations should
be completely removed from our decisions on who comes to America and who
doesn’t.
At the present time the UN is
dictating that we take the DR Congolese and the Burmese Rohingya. Before that it
was the Bhutanese camps they wanted cleared and we said ‘yes master’ and did
it! They pushed heavily for us to take the Syrian Muslims from their camps too,
but Trump managed to stop that.
If we are going to take any
refugees, we should demand that we pick only those we want!
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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