Syrian Refugees
Concerning Republicans concerns over accepting Syrian refugees, Obama says, “apparently, they’re scared of widows and orphans”. The president never ceases to amaze me. He is an expert at poking the opposition in the eye. How dare Americans question bringing thousands of Syrians to America? Sure we have watched Syrians burning American flags for the last 40 years. Sure Syria has been a terrorist sponsor for 40 years but how dare we question bringing in trainloads of their people. Mr. President, we are not just talking about widows and orphans.
The administration says the immigrants face many months of screening before being allowed settlement. According to Obama, “only after subjecting them to rigorous screening and security checks.”
I have zero faith in your “rigorous screening.”
“That process includes biographic and biometric security checks – i.e. checking records and doing fingerprinting.” Biographic security checks are interviews.
“Are you a terrorist?”
“Nope.”
“Ok, let’s move on.”
Fingerprinting is only useful if you have previously fingerprinted them. How many people in Syria do we have prints on? Not many.
“Law enforcement, the Pentagon and the intelligence community all vet information provided by and obtained about refugees to help make a determination about whether they will ultimately be allowed to come to the U.S.” A neighbor of mine needed security clearance to work at a local army base. An FBI agent came to my house and interviewed my wife about him. How in the world is the Pentagon going to “vet information provided” by the refugees? Are they going to travel to Syria and interview their neighbors?
What is law enforcement or the Pentagon going to do? Call Bashar al-Assad and ask for birth certificates? I think the administration wants you to believe that the NSA has a voice print of every American flag burner in Syria and that they will match their voice to recorded cell phone conversations with ISIS. Sorry Obama, I don’t buy it.
“The process usually takes between 18 to 24 months.” I believe that. You have a 30 minute interview. The paperwork sits someone’s desk for 18 months and then is accepted. Sitting on a desk for a year doesn’t make the process any more rigorous.
“Syrian refugees go through an enhanced review process on top of that with extra national security checks.” Enhanced! That means the form has a new font.
“All Syrian refugees considered for resettlement in the U.S. are interviewed in person by specially trained staff, mostly in Amman and Istanbul, but also in Cairo and elsewhere.” “Refugees must also undergo health screenings and a cultural orientation before they arrive in the U.S.”
What is there to say about this? If you believe this you are nuts.
“FBI Director James Comey famously admitted last month that the U.S. government has no real way to conduct background checks on refugees. “We can only query against that which we have collected. And so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them,”
“Even Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitted there were “challenges” to vetting the refugees… without saying what those challenges were. Like almost everyone else in the Administration, she offered vague assurances that the American government has a “significant and robust screening process in place,””
“The registration process includes in-depth refugee interviews, home country reference checks and biological screening such as iris scans. Military combatants are weeded out.” How are you checking anything from the home country? Iris scans? Iris scans? How useful is that? They are just trying to throw out fancy terms to fool dumb people. “Enhanced”, “Biometric”, “Iris scanning”, “Pentagon going to vet”. Ok, I feel much better about the whole thing.
“Among those who pass background checks, a small percentage (actually its 50%) are referred for overseas resettlement based on criteria designed to determine the most vulnerable cases. This group may include survivors of torture, victims of sexual violence, targets of political persecution, the medically needy, families with multiple children and a female head of household.” Despite their poor math skills, I am absolutely concerned about people in this situation. But 5,000,000 Syrian refugees are not in this category.
Here is a result from a poll of Syrian Refugees:
“In general, do you support or oppose the military airstrikes by the US-led international coalition against Islamic militant groups including ISIL and other groups in Iraq and Syria?” Result: 15% strongly opposed the airstrikes. Another 22% oppose. Source
Let’s get this straight. You are fleeing your country because of ISIS yet you strongly oppose airstrikes against them? Why would that be? It’s because 1/3 of the refugees hate Americans more than the people who tortured them, kicked them out of their house and raped their wives and daughters. Yeah, that’s the kind of people we want coming to America. How are we supposed to trust them?
Why can’t any of these people go to Brazil? They have a booming economy? Malaysia is a huge Muslim country. They’ve taken 5,000.
Russia has been a Syrian ally for decades. Russia made this mess. They are 100% responsible for the mess. They supported the al-Assad family. Russia also fought against US airstrikes on ISIS. To date Russia has taken about 1,000 refugees. Gee thanks!
Mexico is a huge country. They’ve taken about 30. That’s three zero. Way to go Mexico. The world salutes you.
My great grandparents were immigrants. I’m not opposed to immigration. But I’m pretty cynical about accepting people from Syria. I guess it’s a result of decade’s news stories showing Syrians hating America.
UPDATE – September 19, 2016
