PDA

View Full Version : How the US vets Syrian refugees



Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
10-17-2016, 09:02 AM
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2016/1005/How-the-US-vets-Syrian-refugees


How the US vets Syrian refugees

President Obama exceeded his goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians by 25 percent. Here's how they're screened – and why some intelligence officials and congressmen have expressed concern.
By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer October 5, 2016

USA Foreign Policy
How the US vets Syrian refugees
csmonitor icon
Latest News



Save for later
Subscribe

President Obama exceeded his goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians by 25 percent. Here's how they're screened – and why some intelligence officials and congressmen have expressed concern.
By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer October 5, 2016
Save for later

Pat Eaton-Robb/AP
View Caption
About video ads
View Caption

Last year, President Obama set a goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees. He exceeded that by 25 percent.

When the 2016 fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, some 12,587 Syrians had been admitted to the United States – more than seven times the number who came in FY2015. That’s according to a report from the Refugee Processing Center, an online database used by the State Department to track total arrivals.

Mr. Obama last week said that the US has spent $4.5 billion on humanitarian aid for those affected by the Syrian conflict – more than any other country – and he pledged to increase the number of Syrians the US admits in the coming year. "We have a moral responsibility to do what we can for families forced from their homes," he said.

Hillary Clinton has said if she becomes president, she will raise the quota to 65,000. But Donald Trump has claimed that there is no vetting process for Syrian refugees, or at least not a robust enough one to guarantee against infiltration by potential terrorists.
Test Your KnowledgeCould you pass a US citizenship test? Find out.
Photos of the Day Photos of the weekend

In fact, the Obama administration’s vetting is quite extensive.

The process, confirmed by Monitor reporting, includes in-person interviews conducted by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. They then coordinate with intelligence agencies, who cross-check applicants with a series of databases, including biometric records.

In order to help meet Obama’s goal of accepting 10,000 Syrians, processing time was reportedly reduced from 18 to 24 months to just three months. But the administration says there have been no shortcuts, just “processing enhancements” – including expanded processing capabilities in Amman, Jordan.

But there is a significant caveat to the vetting process: US intelligence agencies have very few records or intel to cross-check applicants against, since Syria is in such disarray.

“The concern in Syria is that we don’t have systems in places on the ground to collect information to vet,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Assistant Director Michael Steinbach told Congress last year. “You’re talking about a country that is a failed state, that does not have any infrastructure, so to speak. So all of the datasets – the police, the intel services – that normally you would go to to seek information doesn’t exist.”

With Iraqi refugees, for example, there was a great deal more information because of America’s involvement there since 2003. Yet two Iraqi refugees admitted to the US in 2009 – Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi – who had ties to terrorist organizations were able to slip through. (They were sentenced to 40 years and life in prison, respectively, in 2013.)

What’s less clear is whether terrorist groups have made an organized effort to get their operatives through settling them as refugees.

“We’ve certainly seen terrorist groups talk about, think about, … trying to use available programs to get people not only into the United States, but also into Western European countries as well. So we know that they aspire to that,” said Nicholas Rasmussen, head of the Counterterrorism Center, in another hearing before Congress late last year. But he added, “I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that they are likely to succeed.”

Many Americans say it’s not in keeping with American humanitarian principles to keep out masses of innocent Syrians out of fear that a few may have ill intentions. The US has taken in relatively few of the 12 million people displaced by that conflict, whereas Germany has absorbed more than a million.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the “low-immigration, pro-immigrant” Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, has a different take.

By CIS’s calculations, the US spends as much on one Syrian refugee as it would cost to pay for 12 refugees living in the Middle East.

“The goal of making us more secure by trying to limit threats through the refugee flow does not conflict with our humanitarian goal of helping people,” he says.

Now class, raise your hands if you think any real vetting of these muslims coming in from Syria is going on....
Now , all you morons that believed the media/fed-government propaganda and stupidly raised your hands---go out into the schoolyard and start digging down just a short distance to reach your sweet vacation spot in the great communist paradise of China.

There is --no meaningful vetting except the---prime directive from the obama administration --- to make damn sure almost zero are Christians.--Tyr

Elessar
10-17-2016, 09:12 AM
That is not vetting.

It is pretty much an open-door edict and policy driven directly by Obama.

fj1200
10-18-2016, 02:02 PM
Sweet, another vetting thread. :rolleyes:


That is not vetting.

It is pretty much an open-door edict and policy driven directly by Obama.

It's pretty much not an open door. :dunno:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/wh_blog_refugee_workflow_1125.jpg

jimnyc
10-18-2016, 02:25 PM
Sweet, another vetting thread. :rolleyes:

I can count on one hand just how many threads you have started this entire year of 2016 - on any subject - altogether - literally. Kinda retarded to complain about the threads others start when you don't start really jack shit yourself.

Kathianne
10-18-2016, 02:38 PM
I think Tyr's article probably hits closer to home. I would not put much credence in anything coming from the White House site.

Elessar
10-18-2016, 06:26 PM
Sweet, another vetting thread. :rolleyes:



It's pretty much not an open door. :dunno:



It is not being done. That is just wallpaper. It's just like vetting
people coming across our Southern border. It's not being done.

Only idiots will trust anything coming out of this White House.

fj1200
10-20-2016, 01:28 PM
I can count on one hand just how many threads you have started this entire year of 2016 - on any subject - altogether - literally. Kinda retarded to complain about the threads others start when you don't start really jack shit yourself.

Why would I start threads when I contend that there are to many threads? :confused: Nevertheless any debate "momentum" is lost when other threads pop up and discussion dies out.


It is not being done. That is just wallpaper. It's just like vetting
people coming across our Southern border. It's not being done.

Only idiots will trust anything coming out of this White House.

I'm sure the hundreds?/thousands? who are involved in the process aren't really there then? :dunno:

jimnyc
10-20-2016, 01:33 PM
Why would I start threads when I contend that there are to many threads? :confused: Nevertheless any debate "momentum" is lost when other threads pop up and discussion dies out.

And yet here you are replying, just as you would if it were an older thread. Point is, you roll your eyes and have an issue with a thread that is started - and it's funny coming from someone who has pretty much no interest at all in start his own threads, own subjects, own discussions.

fj1200
10-20-2016, 01:36 PM
And yet here you are replying, just as you would if it were an older thread. Point is, you roll your eyes and have an issue with a thread that is started - and it's funny coming from someone who has pretty much no interest at all in start his own threads, own subjects, own discussions.

That's not the definition of funny. It's the definition of ideological consistency. :)