No Good Answers About the Allegedly ‘Exhaustive’ Syrian
Refugee Vetting Process
by John Hayward 18 Nov 2015
The Administration constantly assures us there will be an
exhaustive security screening process for Syrian refugees.
President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other Democrats have
taken to openly mocking anyone with the slightest doubt that every last one of
these refugees will be carefully examined by the same genius government that
brought you HealthCareDotGov,
the OPM hack, the V.A. disaster, and a seemingly
endless string of Secret Service scandals, overseen by the President who
thought al-Qaeda was dead and ISIS was its “junior varsity team.”
Rest assured, these refugees will be examined as thoroughly
as the psychopath
who was allowed to get on stage with Obama in South Africa and pretend to be
interpreting the President’s remarks for the hearing-impaired. They’ll be
managed as carefully as the thousands of illegal alien criminals
Obama turned loose on the streets during Shutdown Theater.
The Obama Administration, to put it mildly, does
not have a record of competence on any issue that would
inspire blind faith in their ability to handle tens of thousands of refugees
from a war-torn region with few reliable records. More specifically, Obama has
a demonstrated track record of putting political considerations, and his own
ego, above all other considerations. He will never admit to any mistakes made
during his Syrian migration plan, he’ll use every resource at his disposal to
conceal anything that goes wrong, and he’ll make sure no one responsible for
errors or abuses is punished.
What else do we have to go on, except the assurances of
Obama and his political appointees? The security professionals in this Administration
aren’t exactly brimming with confidence about Syrian refugee security. The
director of the National Counterterrorism Center admitted that terrorist groups
are very interested in using refugee programs to slip operatives into Europe
and the United States.
The director of Homeland Security had
no answer when asked if the “vetting” process amounted to anything more than
asking refugees to fill out an application, asking them a few questions in a
verbal interview, and assuming they answer honestly. The best Director Jeh Johnson could
offer were vague assurances that the “tight-knit, supportive
communities” they settle into would “embrace” these refugees.
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,” Comey explained, quite sensibly.
He contrasted this lack of solid information with the
screening of Iraqi refugees after the war: “With respect with Iraqi databases,
we had far more because of our country’s work there for a decade. This is a
different situation.”
It should be noted, however, that even the vastly superior
security situation for Iraqi refugees was not sufficient to prevent some
hair-raising mistakes. In 2013, for example, ABC News
reported on several dozen suspected terrorist bomb-makers
admitted to the United States as refugees, including a pair of Iraqi al-Qaeda
insurgents living in Kentucky who admitted attacking American soldiers in Iraq.
What was the Obama Administration’s response to the
discovery of those bombers living in Kentucky? The State Department stopped
processing Iraqi refugees for six months… the very same measure Obama now
insults skeptics for recommending with respect to the Syrians. One Iraqi who
assisted American troops during the war was assassinated while awaiting delayed
approval of his refugee application.
Imagine how much pressure from Team Obama the FBI Director
was bucking to make these frank admissions, so completely 180-degrees different
from the Party line. The Washington
Times reported on Tuesday that tensions are increasing
between honest FBI officials and Obama Administration political operatives.
“The administration has a calming public storyline that we
have this all under control and life can go on as normal. But we’re one crack
in the sidewalk away from a tragedy, and that crack could be an encrypted
message we can’t follow, a lead we couldn’t resource or a refugee who slips in
like we saw in Paris,” said one anonymous FBI official.
Another official thought reduced activity among ISIS
recruits in the United States after a series of high-profile FBI busts was a
bad omen, because while it took a little pressure off the Bureau in the short
run, “there are some in the intelligence community who fear it may be a sign
that the sleeper cells are already here or that the arrests and publicity this
summer tipped off ISIL to change its tactics and communication patterns.”
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,” supposedly much better than anything Europe has been able to
set up… but she could offer not a single concrete detail of what that superb
screening process entails.
This was Lynch’s response to FBI Director Comey’s point
about the poor quality of personal data in Syria: “Certainly with respect to
the databases that the director was referring to, as he noted I believe before
this committee, there is a screening process that has data from several different
agencies FBI, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, National
Counterterrorism Center. Much information is vetted and quarried. Certainly, a
lot of the information that is vetted does have to be inputted into the
system.”
Saying the word “certainly” over and over again is not a
magic spell that conjures certainty out of confusion. Does Lynch seriously
believe the big problem with information from Syria is that nobody has typed it
into an American computer system yet?
While President Obama was busy insulting reluctant
state governors as cowards who tremble in the shadow of three-year-old orphans,
his White House team was holding a conference call to reassure them about the
refugee program… and it was nothing but more vague
assurances about the high quality of screening, without a single bit
of solid information about how that screening would be accomplished.
“Arizona is entitled to a formal consultation under federal
law, and this conference call did not meet that requirement,” said a spokesman
for Governor Doug Ducey after the call.
“There was a real sense of frustration from all the
governors that there is just a complete lack of transparency and communication
coming from the federal government,” said a Republican state official who was
on the call, according to a Bloomberg
View report.
In fact, a good deal of the call consisted of White House
officials telling the governors what they won’t be told. Gov. Rick Scott of
Florida asked if states could opt out of the refugee process; the White House
said no. Gov.
Jerry Brown of California asked
if the federal government would give state law enforcement officials
information to help keep track of the refugees; the White House said no.
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough “reiterated his confidence in the current
process,” and “emphasized that the administration had no plans to increase
information sharing on refugees with states as of now,” according to Bloomberg
View. At this point, state officials can count themselves lucky if the
Administration deigns to tell them Syrian refugees are being resettled in their
jurisdictions.
The screening question should not be difficult to address.
It’s quite simple: precisely what measures will
be taken to verify that the information provided by refugees is accurate? What
will happen to a refugee whose application information cannot be verified with
a very high level of confidence? Will the U.S. process piggyback off the very
same European system Attorney General Lynch described as leaving them
“vulnerable,” or is the American vetting process being constructed from the
ground up? How will the refugees be monitored after their arrival in the United
States? What happens if they go to ground in “sanctuary cities” that refuse to
comply with federal immigration procedures?
Based on what little we know, it’s difficult to escape the
conclusion that the Administration is playing a numbers game. They don’t
have a vetting process – they have a gambling system. They’re
betting a high number of women and children in the mix will reduce the odds of
ISIS militants or easily-recruited Angry Young Men slipping through. They’re
hoping our domestic counter-terrorist measures will spot refugees who get
involved with terrorist plots… even though experts are saying the terrorists
have found encrypted forums that will defeat the methods employed in the last
round of big-ticket terrorism busts.
Also, remember that Democrats subscribe to an ideology that
says terrorism is a result of Western and Israeli oppression, a malignant
consequence of poverty and unemployment. Obama Administration officials have
proposed jobs programs as
the way to fight ISIS. They probably think Syrian refugees who might be
inclined to cooperate with terrorists groups will change their minds once they
get a taste of American life… a naive faith that persists despite generations of
evidence to the contrary from Islamists who have lived in Western societies,
sometimes for their entire lives.
“Maybe they become Americanized, maybe the anger goes away.
Maybe what they snuck in to do they’re not going to do, because we do have an
acceptance of these people,” liberal columnist Margaret Carlson said
of potential terrorist infiltrators on MSNBC Wednesday morning. That sounds like a
more accurate description of the Obama Administration’s “vetting”
procedure than anything its officials have offered on the record.
Loretta Lynch
Loretta
Lynch is the attorney general at the U.S.
Department of Justice, and was Sharon
Malone’s Harvard classmate.
Note: Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is
a division of the U.S. Department of
Justice.
James
B. Comey is a director for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was the deputy attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice, and a
director at the HSBC Holdings plc.
HSBC Holdings
plc was a funder for the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
John J. Studzinski
was a co-head of investment banking for HSBC
Holdings plc, is a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States (think tank), and a director at the Human Rights Watch.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton was a director at the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Togo
D. West Jr. is a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States (think tank), and was the secretary for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Eric
K. Shinseki was a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States (think tank), and the secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
for the Barack Obama administration.
James
V. Kimsey was a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States (think tank), and is a director emeritus at Refugees International.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the Atlantic Council of the United States (think
tank), the Human Rights Watch,
the American Constitution Society, and
the Center for American Progress.
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, Jonathan
Soros’s son, a director emeritus at Refugees
International, was a benefactor for the Human Rights Watch, the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and a supporter for the Center for American Progress.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Human Rights Watch, the NAACP
Legal Defense & Educational Fund, the Center for American Progress, the Roosevelt Institute, the International Rescue Committee, the
Committee for Economic Development,
and Refugees International.
Eric H. Holder Jr.
was a board member for the American
Constitution Society, an intern at the NAACP
Legal Defense & Educational Fund, the attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, and is
married to Sharon Malone.
Sharon
Malone is married to Eric H. Holder
Jr., and was Loretta Lynch’s
Harvard classmate.
Denis McDonough
was a senior fellow at the Center for
American Progress, and is the chief of staff; former deputy national
security adviser for the Barack Obama
administration.
Jonathan
Soros is George Soros’s son, and
a senior fellow at the Roosevelt
Institute.
Jeh Charles
Johnson was a governor at the Roosevelt
Institute, and is the secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Alejandro N.
Mayorkas is the deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and was an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers LLP.
Kathleen L. Brown
was an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers
LLP, the California state government
treasurer, is California state
government Governor Jerry Brown’s
sister, and a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago.
Penny S. Pritzker
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, the secretary at the U.S.
Department of Commerce for the Barack Obama administration, was the national finance chair, fundraiser
for the 2008 Barack Obama presidential
campaign, a co-chair for the 2009
Barack Obama inaugural committee, a fundraiser, national co-chair for the 2012 Barack Obama presidential campaign,
a contributor for the 2013 Barack Obama
inaugural committee, the host for the Barack
Obama fund-raising dinner, 7/2/2008, Craig
M. Robinson’s basketball coach for the children's team, and a member of the
President's Council on Jobs and
Competitiveness.
Commercial Club of
Chicago, Members Directory A-Z (Past Research)
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
R.
Eden Martin is the president of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and counsel at Sidley
Austin LLP.
Newton
N. Minow is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and a senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP.
Michelle
Obama was a lawyer at Sidley Austin
LLP, an advocate for the ONE
Campaign, and is Craig M. Robinson’s
sister.
ONE
Campaign is a partner with the International
Rescue Committee.
M. Farooq
Kathwari is a director at the International Rescue Committee, and
was a chair for Refugees International.
Steven
E. Carr is a director at Refugees
International, and was a governor at the American Red Cross.
Carol Ann Haake
is a director at Refugees International,
and was a governor at the American Red
Cross.
Michael W.
Hawkins is a director at Refugees
International, and was a governor at the American Red Cross.
Queen
Noor is a director at Refugees
International, and the Jordan
queen dowager.
Red Cross Specialist Assists
Syrian Refugees
Since the Syrian conflict began almost 3 years ago, millions have fled to
neighboring countries in search of refuge. Jordan has opened its borders to the Syrian people with an
estimated 1.2million refugees.
William
Lucy was a governor at the American
Red Cross, and a director at the International Rescue Committee.
Robert P.
Devecchi was the CEO for the International Rescue Committee, and a director
emeritus at Refugees International.
Harold E. Ford Jr. was an overseer at the International
Rescue Committee, is a political commentator at MSNBC, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think
tank).
Barack
Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin
LLP, and Obamacare is his
signature policy initiative.
CGI Group Inc.
was the Obamacare contractor that
developed Healthcare.gov web site.
Donna
S. Morea was the EVP for the CGI
Group Inc., and a trustee at the Committee
for Economic Development.
Barbara G. Fast
was a VP for the CGI Group Inc, and a VP at the Boeing Company.
W. James
McNerney Jr. is the chairman & president & CEO for the Boeing Company,
and a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago.
Madelyn Payne
Dunham was an aircraft inspector for the Boeing Company, and Barack
Obama’s maternal grandmother.
Boeing Company
was a funder for the Bill, Hillary &
Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton was a director at the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
HSBC Holdings
plc was a funder for the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
James
B. Comey was a director at the HSBC
Holdings plc, the deputy attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is a director for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is
a division of the U.S. Department of
Justice.
Loretta
Lynch is the attorney general at the U.S.
Department of Justice, and was Sharon
Malone’s Harvard classmate.
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