NumbersUSA has always supported the United Stated taking "our fair share of the world's internationally recognized special needs refugees, but we are concerned about fraud that occurs in two major ways in our refugee programs.
DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielson announced new risk-based measures to enhance national security in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) through intensified screening of foreign nationals from 11 high-risk countries. The 90-day review came in response to Section 3 of Pres. Trump's executive order last January, which required that the DHS Secretary, the Secretary of State, and the Director of National Intelligence work together to determine whether or not any actions taken to address refugee admissions security risks should be terminated or modified.
President Donald J. Trump spoke at the UN General Assembly for the first time today, and while he spoke on a great number of subjects, including North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the Iran nuclear deal, the president took time to speak in support of strong borders to control mass immigration and in support of housing refugees close to their countries of origin.
Microsoft Corp. founder and FWD.us co-founder Bill Gates said that Europe should increase foreign aid to countries instead of taking in more refugees. Gates, in an interview with the German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag, said that bringing in more migrants would motivate more to leave their home countries and flood Europe.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with 13 other state attorneys general and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, have filed a friend-of-the-court amicus brief to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supporting Pres. Trump’s revised executive order. The executive order was blocked by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit before its March 16 start date.
After having the lowest number of refugees resettled for FY17 last month, a State Department spokesperson has said they will increase the number of refugees resettled to 900 individuals per week. Under this policy they would resettle 65,000 refugees by the end of the fiscal year, an increase from the 50,000 cap that Pres. Trump set in his executive order.
Tennessee is challenging the constitutionality of the federal refugee resettlement program, claiming that the state’s sovereignty is violated by being forced to spend taxpayer dollars on a program in which it does not participate. Thomas More Law Center, a non-profit public interest law firm, will represent Tennessee in the lawsuit.
LifeZette -- Brendan Kirby
Rye said many illegal immigrants are fleeing violence and suggested it is immoral to discourage them from trying to cross the U.S. border illegally.
"They're trying to escape situations for many of them that are not safe," she said. "And they're saying, 'I would rather risk where I am than try to come there.'"
Five-term Mayor Chris Louras lost his re-election bid after he created a plan to resettle 100 Syrian refugees in the small town of Rutland, Vt. He was overwhelmingly defeated by Alderman Dave Allaire 52% to 34%.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled today that EU countries can deny humanitarian visas to individuals who intend to apply for asylum once they are in the country. The court warned that allowing third-country nationals to obtain entry visas to obtain international protection in the EU state of their choice “would undermine the general structure” of the bloc’s asylum system.
Pres. Donald Trump signed a new executive order today that rescinds his Jan. 27 refugee order reworking several of the original provisions while keeping others intact. The new order, which goes into effect on March 16, will pause the issuance of new visas for six countries identified as hot spots for terror for 90 days, pause the refugee resettlement program for 120 days, and cap overall refugee resettlement for FY2017 at 50,000.
Washington Examiner -- Chris Chmielenski
Two federal courts blocked Pres. Trump's immigration executive order that pauses both the refugee resettlement program and the entry of immigrants and nonimmigrants from seven countries identified by Congress and Pres. Obama as hot spots for terror. In response, the Trump administration said it will honor the rulings, but that it will continue to fight for the executive order in court.
Two polls -- both conducted since last weekend's news coverage of protests against Pres. Trump's Jan. 27 executive order -- show that significantly more Americans support the President's order to pause the refugee program for four months than oppose it.
This is a downloadable fact sheet about what Pres. Trump’s Protecting America from Foreign Terrorists executive order actually does versus the inflated myths that have been circulated. This fact sheet was authored by NumbersUSA’s Director of Gov't Relations, Rosemary Jenks.
This Sunday's New York Times Magazine feature on Syrian refugees demonstrates how the best way to help the greatest number of refugees and displaced persons is to help them near their homes.
In a previous post we gave the plain facts of President Trump’s executive order [EO] temporarily pausing the admission of individuals from countries already identified by Congress and President Obama as posing serious security risks to the United States.
In a telephone call with Pres. Trump on Sunday night Saudi Arabia’s King Salman agreed to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen. Pres. Trump’s new executive order set the cap of new refugees for FY17 at 50,000 and prioritized creating safe zones for Syrian refugees.
On Friday President Trump signed an executive order that pauses the refugee resettlement program for the next 120 days giving time for the administration to review the application and vetting procedures for incoming refugees. Following the review, the order reduces the number of refugees to be resettled in the United States from Pres. Obama’s goal of 110,000 to the more traditional level of 50,000 -- a recommendation of the last bipartisan commission on immigration reform chaired by Barbara Jordan.
On Friday, January 27, President Trump signed an executive order regarding the admittance of individuals from certain countries that Congress previously identified as posing security risks to the United States.
Less than 48 hours after issuing an executive order pausing the U.S. refugee resettlement program, both Pres. Trump and the Department of Homeland Security issued statements indicating no openness to backing down in the face of intense news media criticism.
Appearing in a confirmation hearing yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary nominee Gen. John Kelly called for a multifaceted approach to securing the border and criticized the Obama Administration for giving “a pass” to most illegal aliens. He said that the law would "guide” his decisions if confirmed, and that he would “rapidly” process illegal aliens for return to the countries.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analyzed a recent assessment report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that examines the agency’s 2015 performance and shows the agency’s 2017 strategic goals. According to CIS this report shows how badly the resettlement program is broken and needs to be reformed.
Multiple media reports say President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Gen. John F. Kelly to head up the Department of Homeland Security. Before retiring, Gen. Kelly served as Chief of Southern Command, which oversees military operations across Central and South America and the Caribbean.
House Republicans have released text for a short-term spending bill that will likely come to the floor for a vote before federal funding expires at the end of the week. The legislation doesn't expand a provision from last year's spending bill that expands the H-2B low-skilled visa program and doesn't make any significant changes to refugee spending.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, criticized secret negotiations between the Obama Administration and Australia for the resettlement of migrants from terrorist-producing countries refused under the latter’s border blockade policy. The migrants are from Iran and Sudan -- both State Department-designated state sponsors of terrorism -- plus Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq.
The American people have elected someone who has made repeated promises to revolutionize immigration policies so they first serve the interests of American workers and the quality-of-life desires of regular American citizens of all ethnicities.
Breitbart News reports the Obama Administration resettled an average of 411 refugees each day since October 1st, the beginning of Fiscal Year 2017. By comparison, during the first five days of FY16, only 65 refugees were resettled. If this pace continues, the United States would resettle more than 150,000 refugees in FY17.
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest held a hearing yesterday to discuss Pres. Obama’s plan to increase the number of refugees to 110,000 next year, despite security risks that the vetting process presents. In the hearing Obama administration officials admitted that asylum seekers were granted refugee status in the U.S. solely on their own testimony and that refugees have been caught committing terrorism offenses in the U.S.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, released an internal DHS memo they obtained saying the agency relaxed its requirements for refugees to prove who they are, which makes fraud “easy to commit” and hard to detect. In joint-panel testimony, ICE Director Sarah Saldana denied ever seeing the memo but the news could undermine the Administration’s push for more refugees from terror-producing countries.
President Barack Obama attended a United Nations conference on refugees and migrants, and hosted a summit on refugees, where he pushed attending nations to expand resettlement and financial commitments. Obama touted his plans to increase U.S. resettlement, which are faring better on the world stage than at home.
Pres. Obama is demanding that Congress provide funding to resettle 110,000 refugees in FY2017. The request is an increase of 30% from FY2016 when Congress funded the resettlement of 85,000 refugees. In previous years, the United States resettled an average of 70,000 refugees per year.
A group of 41 “non-governmental organizations” that assist refugees worldwide, including four directly involved in U.S. refugee resettlement, urged President Obama to commit to accepting 200,000 refugee and humanitarian admissions in fiscal year (FY) 2017 – a 100 percent increase over the projected FY17 level he established last year. While the president has the authority to establish the yearly refugee target, Congress must decide whether to provide funds to resettle that or an alternative number.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said the Obama Administration is exposing the nation to danger by maximizing the intake of refugees from terrorist-producing countries. As evidence, Sen. Sessions cited examples of 20 refugees who were implicated in, or convicted for, terrorism or terrorism-related offenses in recent years. He said refugees should be supported in or close to their countries rather than resettled in the U.S.
The Obama Administration announced yesterday that it will expand the Central American Minors program that was first established as a response to the 2014 border surge. The program looks to resettle unaccompanied alien children to the United States directly from their home countries in an attempt to discourage them from traveling though Mexico and crossing the border illegally.
The number of Syrian refugees entering the U.S. doubled from May to June 2016, from 1,060 in May to 2,381 in June. This brings the total number of Syrian refugees to 5,186 and means Pres. Obama only needs to bring in 1,604 refugees per month through September to reach his goal of 10,000 Syrian refugees for the fiscal year.
The Daily Caller reports that President Obama and his predecessors on multiple occasions issued executive orders that banned groups of potentially-dangerous people from entering the United States. Obama and others have claimed Donald Trump’s proposed temporarily ban is unconstitutional and un-American but there is clear precedent and authority under current law, the report notes.
Paul Ryan continues to roll out his “Vision for a Confident America.” We discussed earlier the section outlining how the GOP leadership plans to alleviate poverty, though what that plan is or how they would implement it is unclear.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., announced a House Republican national security strategy that highlights border security, overhauling the nation’s immigration system, interior immigration enforcement, and improved screening of admissions. Among other things the plan calls for developing the means to track illegal aliens within the U.S., detaining and removing criminal aliens and restoring overall immigration enforcement. The plan also slams President Obama for “utterly false claims that security is improving.”
Tibetan Spiritual Leader, the Dalai Lama, expressed concern for the ongoing refugee situation in Europe in a recent interview. The Dalai Lama, a refugee himself, said that there are too many refugees in Europe to be supported, and, while they should be allowed to stay temporarily, the goal should be to help them return them home some they can help rebuild their home countries.
Earlier this month, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's editorial board said the surge of Central American children across the southern border and the Obama Administration's efforts to classify the illegal border crossers as "refugees" amounts to nothing more than an amnesty for illegal aliens.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) appeared to shift his position on Cuban migrants during a radio interview last week. Sen. Rubio told Drew Steele, the host of Daybreak on Fox News, that with the United States' changing policy on Cuba and the attitudes of recent Cuban refugees towards Cuba, he believes the Cuban Adjustment Act, which gives special treatment to Cuban citizens under U.S. immigration policy, needs to be re-evaluated.
Reporter for KXJB in Fargo, ND, Chris Berg, exposed the immigration-expansionist group Partnership for a New American Economy last week during his evening program, "Point of View". Berg's report focused on efforts to resettle refugees in the Fargo area and the role of outside Business groups, like the Partnership for a New American Economy's in those efforts.
Bono (aka Paul David Hewson), one of rock music’s most recognized figures, has long been a political activist working towards the eradication of poverty, hunger, and disease throughout the developing world, focusing much of his effort on raising money to combat the AIDS pandemic in Africa. His work has brought him into contact with some of the world’s most powerful political leaders, including the last two U.S. Presidents.
A lawsuit has been filed against South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, The State Department of Social Services, and two other private organizations responsible for resettling refugees in South Carolina. The lawsuit asks for a halt in the refugee resettlement program in South Carolina “until a full accounting of any and all federal money used in this program and specifically where it was allocated and how allocated (and) in which counties.”
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) recently found and analyzed a Honduran survey that showed that the increase of Honduran migrants to the U.S. is being caused by economic issues, not violence as the Obama administration has claimed. The survey was conducted by a Honduran research and social action center in Spanish and had 1,571 participants and a 95% confidence level.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) wrote an op-ed this week in Breitbart calling for a halt to the refugee program due to national security concerns. Rep. Smith pointed to the October testimony from FBI Director James Comey who said he has "concern" about "certain gaps … in the data available to us."
On Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry announced the Refugee Admissions Program will add an undefined number of people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The effort is meant to head off illegal migration from these countries, which has spiked in recent months. President Obama the same day authorized $70 million for resettling refugees in the United States, the largest increase ever.
Two Iraqi refugees in the U.S. were arrested on Thursday for supporting terrorist groups in the Middle East. These arrests take place as concern about the ability of the federal government to thoroughly screen refugee applicants gained national attention after the Paris terrorist attack.
Swedish politicians and officials, of all people, are raising a revolutionary idea on refugees that I've been contemplating for several months. They are questioning the justification for providing permanent residence and eventual citizenship for refugees and migrants who claim to be refugees. Instead, refuge may be for only one-to-three years.
