There doesn’t seem to be a thread on this; my apologies if I missed it.
With all the talk about increasing the, er, safety of the current vetting process, I’m curious about what current measures are not deemed safe enough, and what policies should be in place to fix those measures.
This is a starting point about what kinds of things we currently do (just a news report, and not a government document, admittedly).
Nothing.
All that’s changed is people’s perception of their vulnerability. They are as safe today as they were a week ago. But now they feel different.
Think about how many foreigners are vetted and allowed entrance at airports in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago in a single day! And everyone is freaking out over 10,000 refugees?
Innuring your populace to the politics of fear comes with heavy consequences, when you need them to be brave enough to do the right thing.
A shocking turn in what the right insists on calling a Christian nation. One wonders how all those Christians sleep at night. I don’t remember the bible qualifying it’s directives with, ‘unless it feels scary, of course!’.
Cite.
[ul][li]How many of the Syrian refugees have family in the US already?[/li][li]What are their employment possibilities? There isn’t a huge demand for unskilled labor in the US, particularly if the person doesn’t speak English. [/li][li]What “criminal databases” are being examined? If they just mean in the US and Europe, that is one thing. Does the DHS or the Immigration Service have access to criminal records in Syria? I suspect not. [/li][li]I also suspect not a lot of the Syrian refugees have applied to immigrate before, so there won’t be much to compare. [/ul]This is not to say automatically that the Syrians, or some subset of them, should never be allowed into the US. But simply saying “they are intensively screened and vetted” is not all that reassuring. [/li]
No doubt most of them are perfectly innocent refugees and would make good citizens. No doubt some of them aren’t, and won’t. Asking how we can tell which is which is not as easy to answer as it might be. Simply saying “they’re fine, bring in 65,000 of them (or 100,000)” seems nearly as simple-minded as saying “NIMBY”.
Regards,
Shodan
When did we get this expectation that every single human who comes to the US should be vetted by the government? This is literally the first I’ve heard of it, and I don’t like it. Nobody ever vetted me, or the vast majority of the 340 million people who live here. I don’t see any reason except spite to waste money and time “vetting” suffering refugees from war torn nations, or immigrants from any nation for that matter. If they commit crimes after they come here, that’s what we have police for.
It depends on what you consider ‘vetting’ - The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 concerned itself quite a bit with security, although not on immigrants from the Middle East.
Regards,
Shodan
It lets in brown people who don’t follow the same religion as Real Americans™.
That in and of itself is the real deal-breaker for a lot of the people complaining about it right now.
Part of what I do is refugee resettlement–in the U.S. (And yes, I’ve worked with Syrians.) This bullshit about Syrian refugees being some kind of threat is one of the stupidest turns in public discourse this country has seen in a long time, and I’m including the whole “freedom fries” thing. It’s embarrassing. It’s fucking idiotic. Forget about the moral questions (which are self-evident). Let’s just start with the basic proposition. IT’S PURE IGNORANCE—or, if not that, scummy and disingenuous.
In addition to the craven, pandering, shameless political figures (Trump, Cruz, Christie, various governors, etc.), who are so transparently and desperately just attention whoring themselves, we have even here on this board some posters flaunting their ignorance (or their scummy disingenuousness) as they buy into the whole idiocy. You know who you are. Let me just ask you one question: What ISIS member is going to get through this process, even if one should be stupid enough to voluntarily submit to it?
Here it is:
===========================================
STEP 1
Gaining refugee Status: In most cases the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) determines that an individual qualifies as a refugee under international law. A refugee is someone who has fled from his or her home country and cannot return because he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution based on religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.
STEP 2
Referral to the United States: A refugee that meets one of the criteria for resettlement in the United States is referred to the U.S. government by UNHCR, a U.S. Embassy, or a trained Non-Governmental Organization.
STEP 3
Resettlement Support Center: A Resettlement Support Center (RSC), contracted by the U.S. Department of State, compiles the refugee’s personal data and background information for the security clearance process and to present to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for an in-person interview.
STEP 4
Security Clearance Process: With information collected by the RSC, a number of security checks are conducted. The State Department runs the names of all refugees referred to the United States for resettlement through a standard CLASS (Consular Lookout and Support System) name check. In addition, enhanced interagency security checks were phased in beginning in 2008 and applied to all refugee applicants by 2010.
STEP 5
Security Clearance Process: Certain refugees (SUCH AS SYRIANS and IRAQIS) undergo an additional security review called a Security Advisory Opinion (SAO). These cases require a positive SAO clearance from a number of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies (FBI, NSA, CIA, and I think military intelligence, too) in order to continue the resettlement process. When required, this step runs concurrently with Step 4.
STEP 6
Security Clearance Process: Refugees who meet the minimum age requirement have their fingerprints and photograph taken by a trained U.S. government employee, usually on the same day as their DHS interview. The fingerprints are then checked against various U.S. government databases and information on any matches is reviewed by DHS.
STEP 7
In-person Interview: All refugee applicants are interviewed by an officer from DHS’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). A trained officer will travel to the country of asylum to conduct a detailed, face-to- face interview with each refugee applicant being considered for resettlement. (Under limited circumstances, refugee applicants may be interviewed in their home country rather than in a country of asylum.) Based on the information in the refugee’s case file and on the interview, the DHS officer will determine if the individual qualifies as a refugee and is admissible under U.S. law.
STEP 8
DHS Approval: If the USCIS officer finds that the individual qualifies as a refugee and meets other U.S. admission criteria, the officer will conditionally approve the refugee’s application for resettlement and submit it to the U.S. Department of State for final processing. Conditional approvals become final once the results of all security checks (Steps 4, 5, and 6) have been received and cleared.
STEP 9
Medical Screening: All refugee applicants approved for resettlement in the U.S. are required to undergo medical screening conducted by the International Organization for Migration or a physician designated by the U.S. Embassy.
STEP 10
Matching Refugees with a Sponsor Agency: Every refugee is assigned to a Voluntary Agency in the U.S., such as the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). USCRI will place refugees with a local partner agency (“volags,” which are the agencies I contract with), or other office that will assist refugees upon their arrival in the U.S.
STEP 11 (my area of work)
Cultural Orientation: In addition, refugees approved for resettlement are offered the services of acculturation programs while waiting for final processing and after arrival, to prepare them for their journey to and initial resettlement in the United States.
STEP 12
Security Clearance Process: Prior to departure to the U.S., a second interagency check is conducted for most refugees to check for any new information. Refugees must clear this check in order to depart to the U.S.
So, after going through all this – what the fuck more do these idiots want to do? What the fuck do they think is lacking?
[quote=“Shodan, post:3, topic:738073”]
How many of the Syrian refugees have family in the US already?
[li]What are their employment possibilities? There isn’t a huge demand for unskilled labor in the US, particularly if the person doesn’t speak English.[/li][/QUOTE]
In California, there are Syrian communities in Orange and Riverside counties, as well as a huge Iraqi population east of San Diego (El Cajon). As for employment, that’s part of what we do (training them in how to find work with limited English, etc.) I believe the overall employment rate for those who participate in the employment preparation programs (such as Wilson-Fish, funded under an amendment to the Refugee Act) is around 75% within the first eight months after arrival. (Many are spouses who don’t seek work, and take care of their families.) They generally are much more eager to work at any job for minimum wage than your typical native born job seeker, and they can afford to do this because they are like 4-8 working age people living in a one-bedroom apartment. Many of them are highly educated: dentists, engineers, pharmacists, lawyers, etc., and once they learn English, they have few problems getting better employment.
Has it occurred to you why Syria is war torn? I’ll give you a hint: it’s because there are at least four different groups of Syrians trying to kill each other, and at least two of those are varying degrees of awful. Even assuming that ISIL has no intention of infiltrating the United States to commit terror attacks, wouldn’t you want to make sure that your refugee isn’t some war criminal who joined ISIL for the slavery and murder but wants out now that the bombs are getting too close for comfort, or just some asshole who thinks apostates should be put to death whose beliefs are incompatible with civilised society?
When were you vetted by the government?
If refugees commit crimes after they come here, that’s what we have police for. “Pre-crime” is no excuse for sending millions of innocent people back to a war-torn hellhole.
Do you really think Syrian refugees are more likely to be brutal murderers than the average American citizen? And even so, isn’t that a police problem, and not a foreign policy problem? These are victims here, asking for nothing other than a place to go.
You don’t go around asking homeless people to prove they aren’t monsters before feeding them or handing over change. We don’t ask cancer patients to prove they’re worthy of our charitable donations.
If it turns out after the fact that a particular recipient of our good will didn’t deserve it, that’s one thing. But to blanketly deny them refuge until they can prove they aren’t terrorists is asinine. It’s a standard that nobody applies to anything in their own lives or anywhere else, until the “scary” foreigners show up.