Get ready for 85,000 refugees in 2016
100,000 in 2017
John Kerry said in a statement Sunday that President Obama plans to increase the number of refugees allowed into the United States.
Currently, the United States grants 70,000 refugee visas per year. Under the new plan, 85,000 refugees will be granted access to the US in 2016, up to a grand total of 100,000 in 2017. Officials say that the bulk of those additional refugees will come from Syria, as well as troubled areas in Africa.
More from the New York Times:
“This step is in keeping with America’s best tradition as a land of second chances and a beacon of hope,” Mr. Kerry said, adding that it “will be accompanied by additional financial contributions” for the relief effort.
…
Four million Syrians have fled to other countries, and hundreds of thousands of others from the Middle East and Africa have been pouring into Europe. Mr. Kerry said the United States would explore ways to increase the overall limit of refugees beyond 100,000, while carrying out background checks to ensure that they are not infiltrated by terrorists.“We still need to do more, and we understand that,” Mr. Kerry said in a joint news conference with Mr. Steinmeier.
The refugees accepted won’t be randomly selected. The United Nations is currently working to place a list of 18,000 refugees who have formally applied for asylum outside of their native countries. Some human rights advocates say that the 15,000 visa increase doesn’t do enough to address the growing crisis, but Secretary Kerry said in his statement that the US is limiting the increase due to the continued need for screenings and security checks. The Administration doesn’t need congressional approval to increase the number of visas granted, but Congress will have to appropriate funds to help cover the expanded program.
Look for lawmakers to press the Administration for answers on the specifics:
U.S. lawmakers immediately expressed concerns about the potential influx.
The Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations “have made it abundantly clear that they will use the refugee crisis to try to enter the United States. Now the Obama administration wants to bring in an additional 10,000 Syrians without a concrete and foolproof plan to ensure that terrorists won’t be able to enter the country,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.
“The administration has essentially given the American people a ‘trust me.’ That isn’t good enough,” according to a statement from the lawmakers, who head the congressional judiciary committees.
Meanwhile, Hungarian officials are reporting “extraordinary situations” in Hungary and Serbia, two countries currently playing host to the massive influx of Middle Eastern migrants and asylum-seekers.
Yesterday, officials reopened the main border crossing station between Serbia and Hungary; last week’s closure prompted migrants to flow through Croatia and into Slovenia, but did not stem the overall influx of people attempting to gain access to Austria and then Germany. Things are still chaotic in Greece, as migrants brave deadly water crossing to reach the Eurozone:
The bodies of at least 14 refugees were recovered and another 24 refugees are missing in separate incidents in the Aegean Sea on Sunday.
At least 13 people — including 5 children and an infant — died when their boat heading to Greece collided with a cargo vessel in the Aegean Sea off the coast of western Turkey, according to a statement released on Sunday from the Turkish coast guard and Turkish state media.
Many of these passengers were believed to be Syrian, the Turkish coast guard said. Eight of the passengers were rescued and taken to hospital in Turkey. The coast guard dispatched a helicopter, five intervention boats and a search-and-rescue ship to try to save people involved in the incident.
In a separate but nearby incident, the Greek coast guard continues to search for up to 24 refugees who went missing when their boat sank off the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos, a Greek coast guard press officer told CNN.
The refugees were spotted by a coast guard helicopter earlier on Sunday and a vessel was dispatched to the area. The Greek coast guard said 48 refugees were aboard the boat when it left Turkey, 24 of whom were rescued. The body of a little girl was recovered but the Greek coast guard was not able to confirm if she was on the same boat or if she drowned in a separate incident.
The European Union is still debating a long term solution to the migrant crisis.
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Comments
I think we can expect another bump in Trump’s polling numbers after this announcement. Especially if he’s the only one with the guts to speak out against it.
I am absolutely not a Trump fan, and don’t want to see someone like him become President. But people aren’t stupid — they’ve seen the chaos that “Syrian” “refugees” and “migrants” have been bringing to Europe, and closer to home they’ve seen how poorly we do at screening Muslim immigrants (Tsarnaev family, anyone?).
Unless some of the other candidates come out strongly against this, Trump is going to eat their lunch. And they’ll have no-one to blame for that but themselves.
As with most things T-rump, he was FOR Syrian refugees before he was AGAINST Syrian refugees.
So you can always find a position you like!
I’m not saying I like it. I’m just calling it as I see it.
Tsarnaevs example shows that there is absolutely no way to screen for terrorism. They were radicalized after they came here.
Now, I was asking the officials to take simple steps, to do something, anything, that would protect the millions of civilians I had left behind from further starvation and slaughter. But as I pressed these officials for answers, their replies grew increasingly divorced from the Syrian conflict:
Why couldn’t there be military action to protect civilians? The reply: The U.S. is helping Syrians through humanitarian and nonlethal means. Me: Thanks for your generosity, but can Band-Aids take down a fighter jet as it bombs civilians? Them: President Bashar Assad’s air-defense systems are too strong for a no-fly zone. Me: Then how does Israel keep bombing the regime? Them: The U.S. wants to avoid a military solution. We also need to stabilize the whole region. Me: Assad’s barrel bombs and starvation sieges are driving extremism, I’ve seen it with my own eyes—you call that stabilizing the region?
In this meeting and in numerous other meetings with people familiar with Mr. Obama’s personal thinking—at the State Department, with Democrats in Congress, at the White House—we would eventually reach a moment of honesty when someone would say, in effect: President Obama does not wish to upset the Iranians.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rubble-of-obamas-syria-policy-1442531157
It’s just SO weird that these whole cause >>> effect thingies keep cropping up.
One area in which Cruz did not mind excluding Muslims, however, was from the ranks of refugees from Syria seeking asylum in the United States. He said they should settle in other Middle Eastern countries, citing concerns that some of the purported refugees may actually be terrorists.
“I think the Christians are a very different circumstance because Christians are being persecuted, they are being persecuted directly for their faith and the Obama administration has abandoned Middle East Christians,” Cruz said.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/candidates/2015/09/20/ted-cruz-excluding-muslims-presidency-unconstituional-caucuses-iowa-politics-ben-carson/72522684/
Seems pretty clear-headed to me. Especially in light of the fact that Barracula has overseen the greatest destruction of Christians in the modern history of the world, and they don’t have much of any redoubt anywhere in the region with the exception of Israel.
Gee, sometimes I wish the Founders had not entrusted the executive with the power to unilaterally impose immigration policies that will forever change the fabric of America society. Seems like it would have been more prudent to have placed that responsibility with the peoples’ representatives in the legislature.
Oh, wait . . . .
It is worse that that. We are currently taking in 250,000 Muslims annually. What they are proposing is greatly increasing Syrian refugees.
As long as Europe and America continue to reward Muslim and Mexican criminal border-crossers with financial support and free stuff, this “crisis” will not end. Say goodbye to Western culture because we are literally giving it away.
This is not simply “We normally give out 70k refugee visas, and are upping it to 85k.” This is “Come on in and register with the Democratic party, and bring all of your relatives.”
I expect the number by the end of the present administration will be nearly if not all the way to one million.
The F.U.N.D.A.M.E.N.T.A.L. T.R.A.N.S.F.O.R.M.A.T.I.O.N. of America =
the only promise BarackHUSSEIN0bama has kept.
Here is what will happen. Obama will announce a new regime of agencies and regulations to pretend assure us it will work. He will spend several billion dollars. It will not work, cronies will get rich, then he will simply eliminate all restrictions and take people at random. No one will track the numbers and the real level of intake will be 200,000 or more. And then the fires will start in dozens of American cities and towns.
Here’s a good long term goal for this situation… go back into the Middle East, obliterate the governments and social constructs that are forcing these people to “migrate”, and then help the refugees rebuild their own homes.
Any soft talks or peace treaties aren’t going to work. Terrorists don’t care about your PC nonsense. They are getting what they want, and the world isn’t stopping them. We’ve got a chance, right now, to end this.
The problem is, in the Middle East, that it’s sometimes hard to discern who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys.” Outsiders like us picking winners can be fraught with danger.
You’re both right. Now what?
This has creation of a “Palestinian people” written all over it, with one exception: mass emigration.
Get ready for Sharia law and the cowardly democrats who will support it for Muslim votes.
Vegas should set up some over and under numbers for how many Americans will be killed by the “Syrian” “immigrants” in the next 5 years.