Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Refugee Program Realities

A very nice summary and clarification of the US refugee program is available here.

Key excerpts:

..The United States has accepted roughly 70,000 refugees over the last few years. But beginning Oct. 1, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S. would accept 85,000 refugees in 2016, with at least 10,000 coming from Syria. By 2017, the Department of State announced that the number of refugees entering the country would increase to 100,000....

Well, that's likely to be a problem.  Assuming that the mechanics of the program are the ones currently written in law, it can't happen that fast.

...For refugees living abroad who seek to come to the United States, the resettlement process—the “selection and transfer” of refugees—can take between 18 and 24 months, according to the Department of State....

... the government, in conjunction with intelligence agencies, conducts background checks that include an analysis of biographical and biometric data checked against federal and international databases.
 
Once a refugee’s information has been vetted against data from the intelligence community, an officer with Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts an in-person interview with the refugee.

If the government approves his application, the refugee then undergoes a medical screening from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Once that process is completed, the federal government works with a number of private-sector voluntary agencies to resettle the refugee in the United States....

The utter lack of database material on Syrian applicants would--in a normal world--stop the process at 'conducts background checks' above.

But living in Pissypants' US is not a 'normal world.'  Erickson makes that clear:

...Nobody trusts Barack Obama to get it right, he has squandered all the good will available to him, and has so heavily engaged in partisan politics himself that partisans on the side opposite are no longer inclined to give their President the benefit of the doubt....

To that point:  Obama has done all he can to ensure the success of ISIS.  He saw to the overthrow of the Libyan government, did his best to throw Egypt under the bus, withdrew US troops stabilizing Iraq, and has callously ignored massacres perpetrated by Boko Haram, among other ISIS-affiliated groups.

In brief, Pissypants is a jackass; nobody in their right mind trusts him to do the right thing.

That's a pity for those who ARE genuine refugees from Syria, or anyplace else where "contained" ISIS operates.

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