Obama's Relaxed "Terrorist Support" Refugee Screening Rules Are Troubling

There is troubling news coming from the UN directed at America, with President Obama's agreement, and it's a topic hard to address without sounding anti-Moslem. But I'm going to try. ~~~~~ Since the early 1990s, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has selected 200,000 to 250,000 refugees from Islamic countries to be resettled in the United States. Most of them have come from Somalia and Iraq. But, displaced Syrians are slated to make up the next big wave of Moslem refugees coming to America, added to the mix of refugees marked for settlement in the US in the midst of that country’s violent 3-year-old civil war. What is surprising is that the Obama administration, without attempting to begin a dialogue with Americans, has been paving the way for the Syrian refugees for months, according to WND, a conservative website. The refugees will soon arrive in American cities scattered throughout the US. And, even more surprising is the revelation in February by Fox News and the LA Times that in February, the State Department moved to ease the rules that protect the US from accepting refugees with potential ties to terrorist organizations. The rules were seen as “too strict” so the Obama administration has eased the rules for would-be asylum-seekers, refugees and others who hope to come to the United States or stay here -- and who gave "limited" support to terrorists or terrorist groups. The change was one of President Obama's first actions on immigration since he pledged during his January State of the Union address to use more executive orders. The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department now say that people considered to have provided "limited material support" to terrorists or terrorist groups are no longer automatically barred from the United States. A post-9/11 provision in immigrant law, known as "terrorism related inadmissibility grounds," had affected anyone considered to have given support to terrorists. With little exception, the provision has been applied rigidly to those trying to enter the US and those already here but wanting to change their immigration status. Fox gave the example of Morteza Assadi, a 49-year-old real estate agent in northern Virginia, whose green card application has been on hold for more than a decade because as a teenager in Tehran, Iran, in the early 1980s, Assad distributed fliers for a mujahedeen group - once considered a terrorist organization by the State Department - that opposed the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Assadi said he told the US government about his activities when he and his wife applied for asylum in the late 1990s. Those requests were later granted and his wife has since become a US citizen. But Assadi's case has remained stalled. Assadi says : "When we are teenagers, we have different mindsets. I thought, I'm doing my country a favor." Assadi said he only briefly associated with the group, which was removed from Washington's list of terrorist organizations in 2012, and that he was never an active member or contributor to its activities. Now he's hopeful that the US government will look at his teenage activities as "limited" - either because of a lawsuit filed in federal court to force the US Citizenship and Immigration Services to process Assadi's green card application or because the government will act on its own." ~~~~~ Of course, it is always possible to find the exception to every law, and Assadi may be that exception. But the Homeland Security Department defended the action broadly in a statement saying that the rule change, made without consulting Congress, gives the government more discretion but won't open the US to terrorists or their sympathizers. People seeking refugee status, asylum and visas, including those already in the United States, still will be checked to make sure they don't pose a threat to national security or public safety, according to the department. In the past, the provision allowed few exemptions beyond those granted for providing medical care or acting under duress. The change now allows officials to consider whether the terrorist support was not only limited but potentially part of "routine commercial transactions or routine social transactions." Homeland Security spokesman Peter Boogaard said : "Refugee applicants are subject to more security checks than any other category of traveler to the United States. Nothing in these exemptions changes the rigorous, multilayered security screening we do." The change does not specifically address "freedom fighters" who may have fought against an established government, including members of rebel groups who have led revolts in Arab Spring uprisings. In late 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Services said about 4,400 affected cases were on hold as the government reviewed possible exemptions to the rule. It's unclear how many of those cases are still pending. Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the rule change will help people he described as deserving refugees and asylum-seekers. "The existing interpretation was so broad as to be unworkable," Leahy said in a statement. He said the previous rule barred applicants for reasons "that no rational person would consider." Republican lawmakers argue that the administration is relaxing rules designed by Congress to protect the country from terrorists. Representative Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called the change naive given today's global terrorist threats, saying that President Obama should be protecting Americans from terrorists instead of easing the way for potential terrorists to enter the US. ~~~~~ Dear readers, from 2012 through 2014, the United States will have accrepted more than 90,000 refugees from the Middle East alone. Overall, each year the US sets as its goal taking 50% of UNHCR's refugees for resettlemrnt. In 2012, America, Canada and Australia accounted for 90% of all UNHCR refugee resettlements, with America taking 76% of them. In addition, the US contributes more than 70% of the budget of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which was $575 million in 2012, and in addition works to create third-country resettlement programs in countries near to the refugees' home countries. No one can reasonably argue that America is not almost singlehandedly supporting the UNHCR refugee resettlement effort -- taking half the refugees each year, paying 70% of the UNHCR' s budget and working to create resettlemrnt areas near refugees' homes. Given the more than generous commitmrnt of Americans to the worldwide, and especially the Middle East, refugee problem, it seems to me that the least US citizens deserve is a President who explains his program goals, discusses openly where in America refugees will be resettled, and talks at length about how the post-9/11 provision in immigrant law, known as "terrorism related inadmissibility grounds," that had protected America from anyone considered to have given support to terrorists will continue to do so under his new relaxed approach adopted by executive directive without consultation with or agreement by Congress. America's commitment to bear the major burden of the current refugee crisis should not, and must not, make America more vulnerable to terrorist attack. Perhaps Mr. Obama can make a valid case for his action, but America deserves to hear it and decide for itself.