President Barack Obama’s foreign policy failures, especially his refusal to take the lead in wiping out the Muslim ISIS terror base in Syria and Iraq, have dangerous consequences. An immediate concern is that Obama’s State Department, in coordination with United Nations “recommendations,” accepted 10,000 Syrians for distribution to various states. It defies common sense.
The administration claims it can vet each “refugee” using written questionnaires, interviews, fingerprints and iris scans. Yet this “vetting” argument is either foolish or dishonest.
FBI Director James Comey states: “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 data base, we can query our database till the cows come home, but we’re not going to, there’ll be nothing to show up because we have no record on that person.”
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Michael Steinbach adds that we have no “footprint on the ground” in Syria and therefore “databases won’t have the information we need. So it’s not that we have a lack of process. There’s a lack of information.”
Islamic terrorists openly say they are going to use the wave of fleeing Mideast refugees as cover to embed and infiltrate their own terrorists to kill Europeans and Americans. Why shouldn’t we believe them, especially in light of the Paris attacks?
It must be noted that multimillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars over the past decade have already been poured into refugee resettlement — and Georgia has one of the highest influx rates. DeKalb County is a particular dumping ground, with Third Worlders swamping everything from health-care services to the school system. More than 150 languages are spoken in the DeKalb County school system, forcing taxpayers to spend extra on everything from translators to additional buildings and personnel.
When does this compassion turn into blindness?
Charitable groups are paid to house refugees and find them services, but after 90 days they can travel anywhere. All too many end up in squalid places like the gang-plagued Brannon Hill condo complex that I toured with a DeKalb County commissioner and a police officer. Squatters live in burned-out homes, crime is rampant, trash and debris litter the area, too many refugee residents are dependent on welfare and health and code enforcement is non-existent.
It’s a stark example of how we have simply imported poverty. Now we add to the mix a serious national security concern.
The bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives only adds extra layers of scrutiny for refugees from Syria and Iraq and calls for “certification” by the administration. But what about refugees from other countries that have been infiltrated by ISIS? The legislation, unless amended, does nothing to block Obama’s request to increase the refugee influx.
Congress would be better served to add Rep. Brian Babin’s H.R. 3314, which would pause the entire refugee resettlement program. Let’s redirect funds from the resettlement program to help refugees closer to their home regions. (Also, why move refugees out of the safety of internationally supervised camps in their own region so they can get lifetime work permits and take scarce jobs in the United States?)
More than 40 percent of illegal immigrants arrive legally but, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, they overstay their visas and melt into society. Since law enforcement authorities cannot locate them, how is this nation going to be able to keep track of a new wave of mainly Muslim refugees? Since the president won’t address this homeland security issue, Congress must.
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