Since 1976, more than 2.6 million new citizens have entered America as legal humanitarian refugees according to reports of the US State Department. Humanitarian refugees have literally won the proverbial lottery. Typically, they receive green cards as resident aliens within a year of arrival and are eligible to become full US citizens within five years, unless they violate our immigration laws, commit a felony or are deported. In the process they are provided with cash stipend and social services assistance from federal, state, NGO’s and voluntary agency contractors.
The irony is the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) determines which of the world’s huddled masses comes to the US as humanitarian refugees. UNHCR trends for 2006 indicate that worldwide there were more than 32.9 million `persons of concern’ with approximately one third defined as `refugees’. Major refugee `hot spots’ include the Horn of Africa with Somalia, Darfur in the Sudan and Ethiopia, Iraq, Pakistan and Myanmar. The US is the third highest ranked country in terms of hosting refugees. The annual budget for the UNHCR is over $1.7 billion derived from government contributions, foundation grants and donations.
A veritable cottage industry of federal and state alphabet soup agencies, NGO’s and voluntary agencies or VOLAG contractors has sprung up to facilitate absorption of humanitarian refugees. At the top of this cottage industry is the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM) headed by Assistant Secretary Ellen Sauerbrey, a former Maryland GOP gubernatorial candidate. BPRM, the second largest bureau in the State Department, has a budget approximating $1 billion. The BPRM is required under the Refugee Act of 1980 and its amendments to report to Congress annually on authorizations for refugees in various regions in the world.
Another federal bureaucracy involved in the humanitarian refugee `industry’ is the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) that administers a program of cash stipends and social assistance through a network composed of various state departments of social services and contracts with a large array of voluntary agencies. These groups include Catholic Charities, Church World Services, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and dozens of others. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) at the US Department of Homeland Security uses so-called roving teams at US Embassies to screen humanitarian refugees for security and immigration purposes.
As we shall see, the untoward consequence of UN control over the humanitarian refugee program in the US is discrimination against groups like the imperiled half million Christians who have fled Iraq.
More concerning is that the UN control of humanitarian refugee processing has introduced Jihadis among the Somalis from the Horn of Africa, who now number in the tens of thousands throughout America. The Somalis have brought with them strict Islamic Sharia values that violate our Constitution and Civil Rights laws and mock our Judeo Christian values. Still worse, they, and some other refugee groups, have brought with them undetected contagious diseases like TB, Hepatitis and HIV that evaded health screening prior to their entry to America.
The Somali immigrants are a significant proportion of those included in the humanitarian refugee program for Africa. For the Federal Fiscal year ended, September 30, 2007, according to information from the ORR, 7, 500 Somalis entered this country out of a total of 17,000 such refugees allotted to Africa. The aggregate total of Somali refugees as of 2005 was close to 70,000. Given figures for both 2006 and 2007, the current aggregate may approximate 90,000. The concern is what proportion of these received proper medical and security screening before entering this country.
This has caused disruptions in both large and small communities through America. Communities like Minneapolis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Nashville, Emporia, Kansas, Lewiston, Maine and Shelbyville, Tennessee.
These disruptions occurred in American heartland communities as a by-product of conscious refugee policies adopted during the Clinton administration and in a number of instances, local business community interests that took advantage of the change….
The Desperate Plight of trapped Iraqi Christians
In late November, a delegation that included former South Carolina Governor Beasley, William Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition, Dr. Keith Roderick, Washington Representative of Christian Solidarity International (CSI), journalist, author and human rights activist Kenneth Timmerman met with Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey, head of the BPRM and her staff about the Iraqi refugee crisis. They reported on their recent fact-finding mission in Jordan and other Middle East locations. What they got was a polite reception and no support to correct the current UNHCR refugee certification effort in the region that discriminates against Iraqi Christians.
According to Dr. Keith Roderick of Christian CSI, Iraqi Christian refugees, even those who would be classified under our Humanitarian Refugee guidelines as Extremely Vulnerable Persons (EVP), are being directed to UNHCR Offices in Amman, Jordan. They are entrapped in a long bureaucratic process. Many have reported that they are discriminated against, files are lost and stories that substantiate their profound fear of persecution including death threats are dismissed. The US Embassy in Amman is virtually impenetrable with Jordanian guards at the initial point of contact for refugees. They are all directed to UNHCR offices, even when they could take advantage of the Direct Access Program or Immigration P-2 Visas for family reunification.
The UNCHR receives tens of millions in compensation from our government for this processing function.
As Ken Timmerman writes in a NewsMax.com article, “Iraq Christian Refugees Ignored by U.N.” on the plight of Iraqi Christian translators, very few of the 500 translators and US Embassy workers eligible to receive emergency relocation have been certified under a Congressional mandate for those facing death threats. This, despite the fact that they had brought with them letters of appreciation from US commanders and the US Embassy in Baghdad. They were not allowed to present them. Why? Because local UNHCR workers discovered that they were Christians and would not process them.
Much more here
