Refugee Debate Deflects From The Big Problem
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
I understand that Americans are concerned about their security, and rightly so.
Nobody wants ISIS terrorists to slip into this country under the guise of being downtrodden refugees.
So at least 31 governors – including our own Mike Pence – have said that they won’t allow any Syrian refugees into their states.
(Whether governors have the constitutional right to exclude refugees is a question for another column, but I highly doubt they do.)
And some GOP candidates have suggested performing religious tests and only allowing Christian refugees to come here, or putting the refugees on watch lists.
I understand the level of anxiety, but these pronouncements are misguided.
First, these ideas harken back to dark times in our history, like McCarthyism or when we rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in internment camps.
Second, it cedes the argument to President Barack Obama. He can easily take the high ground and pigeonhole these candidates as xenophobic and lacking compassion.
Finally, these arguments just doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you were a terrorist trying to get into the U.S., posing as a refugee would be the dumbest way to do it.
First of all, the United Nations refugee agency does its own vetting process to see if the person should be classified as a refugee under U.N. rules.
Then applicants are referred to the U.S., where the government begins its own vetting process.
It includes things like retina scans and fingerprinting, collection of biographical information, in-person interviews by trained Homeland Security personnel and medical tests and health screenings both abroad and here if they are admitted.
And that’s just your average refugee. Syrians go through an enhanced review process.
After all that, the refugee’s information is run through government databases, including the FBI’s and Homeland Security’s, to see if they’ve ever been in trouble in the U.S. or if they have ever tried to gain entry into the U.S. in the past.
If the applicant makes it thought all that, the government asks a resettlement agency in the U.S. to sponsor them. Those approved go thought a cultural orientation before going to the U.S.
The whole process takes 18 months.
Now, could a terrorist slip though this level of screening?
Absolutely.
That’s why I – and a whole bunch of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives – agreed with House Speaker Paul Ryan. He said perhaps we should pause the process, in light of the events in Paris, where at least one of the attackers was thought to be a Syrian refugee. During the pause, the process of bringing in refugess would be reviewed.
Sure. Do that.
But that’s only part of the problem.
If you are a terrorist, it would be much easier for you to get into the U.S. by getting a tourist visa. It requires an in-person interview and a typical background check and the whole process only takes a couple months at most.
It’s even easier to get into the U.S. if you’re a citizen of a country friendly to the U.S. We have travel agreements with some 38 countries, mostly European.
People from those countries don’t even need a visa. All they need is a plane ticket and a passport. They get checked against security databases, but when they land, they just undergo the usual screening from U.S. customs agents.
Those friendly countries include Belgium, the home of at least one of the Paris terror attack perpetrators. That guy could have hopped on a plane and flown to the U.S. No problem.
So now our government is looking at toughening up that visa waiver program.
Seriously, posing as a refugee would be the most difficult way for a terrorist to get into the U.S. so I don’t think the Syrian refugee thing is a huge problem.
Beyond all that, it’s a huge diversion from the real issue. GOP candidates are picking the low-hanging fruit when they blather on about Syrian refugees.
Talking about Syrian refugees coming into the U.S. ignores a much larger issue: Why are there Syrian refugees in the first place?
It also provides cover for President Obama to avoid taking responsibility for the abject failure of his Middle East foreign policy.
A policy, which, by any thoughtful analysis, has contributed to the rise of ISIS and the escalation of the civil war in Syria. Of course it is that very civil war that has produced the refugee crisis we’re talking about.
Remember when Obama made good on his promise to pull the troops out of Iraq? Lots of people – me included – thought this might cause instability. We never imagined it would give rise to perhaps the most bloodthirsty terrorist state in the history of mankind – but it did, didn’t it?
Remember when Obama said Assad had to go? Remember that red line on the use of chemical weapons? Assad used chemical weapons. What happened?
Nothing.
I am not a war monger, but casting even a modest light of scrutiny on Obama’s policies, shows the dire consequences of his fecklessness.
ISIS is recruiting fighters by the thousands. ISIS is spreading across the Middle East even as Obama announces it is “contained.” Refugees from the Syrian civil war have become a daunting, destabilizing problem throughout Europe.
Obsequious Obama supporters – while blaming George W. Bush for all foreign policy failures past and present – say, “What could he have done?”
Plenty.
He could have led a coalition of all-too-willing NATO allies to arm and train opposition fighters in Syria and to fight ISIS elsewhere.
He could have left a reasonable stabilizing force in Iraq.
He could have established no-fly zones over Syria.
He could have established safe havens for Syrian refugees within Syria.
Of course all these things would have required him to actually lead.
Instead, amid a political climate averse to “boots on the ground,” he did nothing and sold his inaction to Americans as some sort of moral imperative.
Now, after hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and tens of millions have been displaced, he lectures us about American values. He blusters about accepting 10,000 of these poor souls whose lives were disrupted largely because of his incompetence.
Amid all of this, we come to find out that Obama’s Pentagon supervisors were sugarcoating intelligence reports when assessing ISIS, even as their expanding attacks risk the security of the U.S.
According to published reports, the inspector general of the Defense Department is expanding an internal investigation of the U.S. Central Command. The suspicion is that supervisors revised intelligence reports on the Islamic State to present a more optimistic account of U.S. efforts.
It’s not bad enough the administration’s foreign policy is inept. It appears it’s also corrupt.[[In-content Ad]]
I understand that Americans are concerned about their security, and rightly so.
Nobody wants ISIS terrorists to slip into this country under the guise of being downtrodden refugees.
So at least 31 governors – including our own Mike Pence – have said that they won’t allow any Syrian refugees into their states.
(Whether governors have the constitutional right to exclude refugees is a question for another column, but I highly doubt they do.)
And some GOP candidates have suggested performing religious tests and only allowing Christian refugees to come here, or putting the refugees on watch lists.
I understand the level of anxiety, but these pronouncements are misguided.
First, these ideas harken back to dark times in our history, like McCarthyism or when we rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in internment camps.
Second, it cedes the argument to President Barack Obama. He can easily take the high ground and pigeonhole these candidates as xenophobic and lacking compassion.
Finally, these arguments just doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you were a terrorist trying to get into the U.S., posing as a refugee would be the dumbest way to do it.
First of all, the United Nations refugee agency does its own vetting process to see if the person should be classified as a refugee under U.N. rules.
Then applicants are referred to the U.S., where the government begins its own vetting process.
It includes things like retina scans and fingerprinting, collection of biographical information, in-person interviews by trained Homeland Security personnel and medical tests and health screenings both abroad and here if they are admitted.
And that’s just your average refugee. Syrians go through an enhanced review process.
After all that, the refugee’s information is run through government databases, including the FBI’s and Homeland Security’s, to see if they’ve ever been in trouble in the U.S. or if they have ever tried to gain entry into the U.S. in the past.
If the applicant makes it thought all that, the government asks a resettlement agency in the U.S. to sponsor them. Those approved go thought a cultural orientation before going to the U.S.
The whole process takes 18 months.
Now, could a terrorist slip though this level of screening?
Absolutely.
That’s why I – and a whole bunch of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives – agreed with House Speaker Paul Ryan. He said perhaps we should pause the process, in light of the events in Paris, where at least one of the attackers was thought to be a Syrian refugee. During the pause, the process of bringing in refugess would be reviewed.
Sure. Do that.
But that’s only part of the problem.
If you are a terrorist, it would be much easier for you to get into the U.S. by getting a tourist visa. It requires an in-person interview and a typical background check and the whole process only takes a couple months at most.
It’s even easier to get into the U.S. if you’re a citizen of a country friendly to the U.S. We have travel agreements with some 38 countries, mostly European.
People from those countries don’t even need a visa. All they need is a plane ticket and a passport. They get checked against security databases, but when they land, they just undergo the usual screening from U.S. customs agents.
Those friendly countries include Belgium, the home of at least one of the Paris terror attack perpetrators. That guy could have hopped on a plane and flown to the U.S. No problem.
So now our government is looking at toughening up that visa waiver program.
Seriously, posing as a refugee would be the most difficult way for a terrorist to get into the U.S. so I don’t think the Syrian refugee thing is a huge problem.
Beyond all that, it’s a huge diversion from the real issue. GOP candidates are picking the low-hanging fruit when they blather on about Syrian refugees.
Talking about Syrian refugees coming into the U.S. ignores a much larger issue: Why are there Syrian refugees in the first place?
It also provides cover for President Obama to avoid taking responsibility for the abject failure of his Middle East foreign policy.
A policy, which, by any thoughtful analysis, has contributed to the rise of ISIS and the escalation of the civil war in Syria. Of course it is that very civil war that has produced the refugee crisis we’re talking about.
Remember when Obama made good on his promise to pull the troops out of Iraq? Lots of people – me included – thought this might cause instability. We never imagined it would give rise to perhaps the most bloodthirsty terrorist state in the history of mankind – but it did, didn’t it?
Remember when Obama said Assad had to go? Remember that red line on the use of chemical weapons? Assad used chemical weapons. What happened?
Nothing.
I am not a war monger, but casting even a modest light of scrutiny on Obama’s policies, shows the dire consequences of his fecklessness.
ISIS is recruiting fighters by the thousands. ISIS is spreading across the Middle East even as Obama announces it is “contained.” Refugees from the Syrian civil war have become a daunting, destabilizing problem throughout Europe.
Obsequious Obama supporters – while blaming George W. Bush for all foreign policy failures past and present – say, “What could he have done?”
Plenty.
He could have led a coalition of all-too-willing NATO allies to arm and train opposition fighters in Syria and to fight ISIS elsewhere.
He could have left a reasonable stabilizing force in Iraq.
He could have established no-fly zones over Syria.
He could have established safe havens for Syrian refugees within Syria.
Of course all these things would have required him to actually lead.
Instead, amid a political climate averse to “boots on the ground,” he did nothing and sold his inaction to Americans as some sort of moral imperative.
Now, after hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and tens of millions have been displaced, he lectures us about American values. He blusters about accepting 10,000 of these poor souls whose lives were disrupted largely because of his incompetence.
Amid all of this, we come to find out that Obama’s Pentagon supervisors were sugarcoating intelligence reports when assessing ISIS, even as their expanding attacks risk the security of the U.S.
According to published reports, the inspector general of the Defense Department is expanding an internal investigation of the U.S. Central Command. The suspicion is that supervisors revised intelligence reports on the Islamic State to present a more optimistic account of U.S. efforts.
It’s not bad enough the administration’s foreign policy is inept. It appears it’s also corrupt.[[In-content Ad]]
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