The Deadly Waiting Game For Syrian Refugees

[Sally]

It seems everyone wants to leave. but where will all go? The refugee camps are bursting at the seams and to be allowed into other countries take a lot of paperwork so you can't just waltz in.


The Deadly Waiting Game For Syrian Refugees
02/13/2016 10:28 am ET | Updated 10 hours ago

• Ahmed Shihab-EldinVICE Correspondent & Emmy-nominated Journalist

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Syrians are waiting. Everywhere. Waiting for the next airstrike. Waiting to cross another border. Waiting for a smuggler to call back to to say if there is room on the rubber dinghy, or worse, if they will have to sail it. Waiting to be rescued in the middle of the sea. Waiting to die ... of starvation.

At train stations across Europe, they're waiting. On bridges, they're waiting. At borders, they are waiting. In forests, in the pouring rain, on the side of highways, they're waiting.

Today, more than 40,000 Syrians are waiting at the Bab al-Salameh border crossing with Turkey after escaping a brutal onslaught by Assad's army shielded by Russian air strikes in Aleppo. The lucky ones sleep in mosques, most sleep outdoors, many without tents even as temperatures drop below zero at night. Already this week, a three-year-old child and an older man froze to death.

And while they are waiting, they're praying for an end to the war that is dividing families; forcing millions to run for their lives; turning people into expendable pawns, all while revealing how deeply divided the world is.

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The Deadly Waiting Game For Syrian Refugees

 

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Refugees trapped in Greece...

Migrants stranded in Greece, face eviction in France
Feb 23,`16 -- At flashpoints near borders on either side of Europe, authorities tried Tuesday to force back migrants desperate to begin new lives in more prosperous nations.

In Greece, police bused about 1,250 Afghans stuck at the Macedonian border back to Athens after countries further up the migrant trail wouldn't let them through. In France, authorities prepared to evict people from a shantytown known as the "jungle" in the port of Calais, where migrants wait for a chance to try to cross into Britain. The seemingly arbitrary decision by some Balkan countries to close their borders to Afghans attempting to make their way across Europe to seek asylum has left thousands stranded in Greece, even as more continue to arrive on Greek islands from the nearby Turkish shore.

A migrant walks in a makeshift camp outside Calais, France, Tuesday Feb. 23, 2016. An expulsion order against people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa, the Mideast and Asia to move out of a camp in the French port of Calais that has become a flashpoint in Europe's migrant crisis has been suspended pending a court decision.​

By nightfall, more than 4,000 people, mostly from Syria and Iraq, were camped out just yards from the border fence waiting to cross into Macedonia. Although those nationalities were not being blocked, the flow across the border had slowed to a trickle, leaving thousands waiting in the cold as night descended. The European Union and United Nations criticized the new restrictions on Afghans, with the EU's executive arm saying it had "concerns about this approach" and would raise the issue with the countries in question.

Among the Afghans turned away from the Macedonian border was 20-year-old Mirwais Amin, who said he was separated from relatives when he was sent back to Athens. "Macedonia isn't letting migrants through. I can't understand why," he said. "I can't get to the (border) camp, and members of my family are there. It's cold here and we have no food."

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UN chief: Number of displaced people has never been higher
Feb 23,`16 -- The number of displaced people around the world has never been higher, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday, urging the international community to improve the way humanitarian assistance and development support is provided.

Ban spoke during a visit to a camp for internally displaced people near Goma in Congo's eastern North Kivu province. He was expected to meet with President Joseph Kabila on Wednesday. "We have 60 million people around the world, that is the largest number of IDP's (internally displaced people) and refugees since the end of the Korean war," Ban said.

He said visits to such camps remind him of his own experience of internal displacement, "when I was 6 years old in Korea, 1950." He said the U.N. at that time stood as a beacon of hope. "They supported our security, they supported our textbooks and they gave us water, sanitation, food," he said. Chaotic eastern Congo is home to multiple rebel groups, many vying for control of the region's vast mineral resources.

Ban said he was humbled by the women he met at the camp and said hope must be restored. "We have to do much more to protect human dignity and human rights of women and girls to save them, to protect them from sexual violence," he said. The U.N. chief said that making sure no one is left behind would be a main objective at the first World Humanitarian Summit in Turkey in May.

News from The Associated Press

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What We Know: Migrants stranded after border restrictions
Feb 23,`16 Thousands of migrants are stranded at flashpoints near borders across Europe after some Balkan countries close their frontiers to Afghan asylum-seekers and movement slows to a trickle. Here is what we know:

- Countries along a route that migrants take through the Balkans to try to reach countries like Germany and Sweden have closed their borders to certain nationalities. The latest move is against Afghans, who were not allowed to cross from Greece into Macedonia this week, leading to protests on the border and the danger of thousands being stranded in the financially troubled country.

- In Greece, authorities faced with the buildup bused 1,250 Afghans back to Athens on Tuesday. By nightfall, more than 4,000 people, mostly Iraqis and Syrians, were camped in the cold just yards from the border fence. Greece sharply criticized Austria for drastically restricting the number of asylum-seekers it will let cross, which prompted the move by Macedonia.

- The European Union and United Nations criticized the new restrictions, with the EU's executive arm saying it would raise the issue with the countries in question.

- The wave of asylum-seekers has grown in pace even compared to last year's massive influx of more than 1 million people. On Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration said more than 102,500 people had crossed into Greece since Jan. 1 and another 7,500 had streamed into Italy - numbers that weren't reached last year until June.

News from The Associated Press

 

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Refugee camp broken up in France...

Clashes as France starts destroying ‘Jungle’ migrant camp
March 1, 2016 - Children tear-gassed in French refugee camp

CLASHES broke out between French riot police and migrants on Monday as authorities began destroying makeshift shelters in the grim shantytown on the edge of Calais known as the “Jungle”. Police lobbed tear gas canisters at migrants who protested as about 20 workers moved in to start pulling down the shacks by hand, initially under blue skies as an icy wind blew. As night fell some 150 migrants threw rocks and struck vehicles heading for England on a port road which runs next to the sprawling camp, staying there for an hour or so, some wielding iron bars, an AFP reporter said. Police responded with teargas.

Migrants and members of the British “No Borders” activist group set fire to about 20 shelters at the camp.​

Several trucks and cars were blocked by migrants on the stretch of road overlooking a piece of ground which had previously been part of the Jungle. Earlier, migrants and members of the British “No Borders” activist group, who launched projectiles at the police, set fire to about 20 shelters at the camp, as running clashes continued through the afternoon. By the early evening police had taken back control of the port road, which remained strewn with debris. Three members of No Borders and one migrant were arrested, according to local government officials.

Demolition of camp ‘infinitely sad’

The demolition of the southern half of the camp began after a court petition by charities to stop it was rejected last week. “It’s infinitely sad to see the waste of so much work that we’ve done in the past months,” said Maya Konforti of the Auberge des Migrants (Migrants’ Hostel) charity. Volunteers and aid workers have spent months trying to improve conditions in the camp, built on a former toxic waste dump on the outskirts of Calais. Local authorities, who have promised that no one will be evacuated by force, say 3700 people live in the camp, and that between 800 and 1000 will be affected by the eviction. But charities say a recent census they conducted counted at least 3450 people in the southern part alone, including 300 unaccompanied children.

Three members of the activist group No Borders and one migrant were arrested in the clashes at the Calais migrant camp.​

The evicted migrants have been offered heated accommodation in refitted containers set up next door to the camp, but many are reluctant to move there because they lack communal spaces and movement is restricted. They have also been offered places in some 100 reception centres dotted around France. But the migrants do not want to give up their hopes of Britain, which they try to reach daily by sneaking aboard lorries and ferries crossing the Channel. “These people want to reach Britain and won’t leave. They will end up in even more hardship, particularly in winter,” Konforti said.

UK puts the pressure on France to act

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Most of the refugees stuck in Greece are now women and children
February 29,`16 — In a cold drizzle, Aziza Hussein, a 30-year-old Syrian widow traveling with her four children, stood amid a surge of migrants trapped at the northern Greek border. Her way forward blocked by armed Macedonian troops, police dogs and a razor-wire fence, she stood in the middle of the chaotic scrum of refugees, clutching her 5-year-old son.

“What are we going to do?” she said, shielding her eyes with a trembling hand as she cried. In recent days, European nations have moved more aggressively than ever to shut down the route used by more than a million migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond. Yet even as they do, the region is confronting a new kind of migrant flow — waves of women and children. Last year, most of the asylum seekers fleeing to Europe were men, many of them young and single. But in the past several weeks, the balance has shifted, with women and their children, as well as unaccompanied minors, now accounting for roughly 57 percent of asylum seekers.

The surge of the vulnerable comes at the worst possible time — just as European nations are barring their doors and 25,000 refugees are suddenly trapped in near-bankrupt Greece, a country that was once merely an entry point. Refugees say the sudden exodus of women and children was sparked by a rising fear that the path to sanctuary will soon close completely. “My cousins, my neighbors, everyone told us, ‘Go now. There isn’t much time, because they will shut the door,’ ” said Hussein, who left the Syrian city of Hasakah three weeks ago in a desperate bid to make it to Germany. “We crossed the sea,” she said, pausing to wipe away tears. “But they won’t let us through. You don’t understand. I don’t have any money left. I have four children. I don’t have any other plan.”

A view inside a crowded communal tent at a border camp in Idomeni, Greece. Thousands of migrants are stranded on Greek soil hoping to cross into Macedonia and move on to Western Europe.​

Now, the European Union’s most troubled member — Greece — is scrambling to cope with a mounting humanitarian crisis the rest of the continent has left on its doorstep. With 2,000 migrants a day still arriving in rickety boats in the Greek islands via Turkey, Greek officials are warning that the number of stranded migrants could surge to 70,000 within 30 days, turning pockets of this troubled country into sprawling refugee camps. In a tacit acknowledgment of the burden being put on Greece, E.U. officials on Monday were preparing a humanitarian aid package largely aimed at helping the government in Athens cope. But even as they did, the situation was already in danger of spiraling.

Here at the primary northern border crossing, at Idomeni, 7,000 migrants — with more arriving — were stranded Monday in a fetid camp and facing a deeply uncertain future. With more children in the camp, flu, lice, stomach bugs and other ailments were spreading more rapidly, aid workers and migrants said. There were only 30 showers for the camp. Some Muslim women, unwilling to walk back to their tents in wet clothes through crowds of men, are choosing not to bathe at all. “I haven’t showered since Feb. 18,” said Hanan Alkhalii, 30.

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Obama bound an' determined to bring dem Mooslamics here...

State Dept: US ‘Reaffirmed Its Commitment to Resettle At Least 10,000 Syrians’
March 30, 2016 | The Obama administration has “reaffirmed its commitment to resettle at least 10,000 Syrians” in the U.S. in FY2016, a top State Department official announced Wednesday.

Deputy Secretary of State Heather Higginbottom also confirmed that the U.S. has “pledged an additional $10 million” for identifying and resettling Syrians and other refugees at a meeting of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. “The magnitude of this particular crisis shows us unmistakably that it cannot be business as usual, leaving the greatest burden to be carried by the countries closest to the conflict,” UN High Commissioner Filippo Grandi told representatives of 92 nations attending the meeting. The U.S. is on board with UNHCR’s goal of resettling a total of 100,000 Syrian refugees out of an estimated 4.8 million by the end of FY2017, “an increase of over 40 percent since FY2015 - while maintaining a robust security screening protocol,” according to the State Department.

The department also announced a new program “to allow U.S. citizens and permanent residents to file refugee applications for their Syrian family members.” However, FBI Director James Comey told the House Homeland Security Committee last October that the U.S. has “no basis” on which to vet Syrian refugees who “never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interests reflected in our database.” CNSNews.com reported Tuesday that a total of 916 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the U.S. since the Nov. 13, 2015 terror attacks in Paris, France. Two of the terrorists were carrying fake Syrian passports, according to French authorities. More than 700,000 Syrian Christians have had to flee for their lives since 2011, according to the European Parliament. But only four (0.4 percent) of the Syrian refugees who have been resettled in the U.S. are Christians who have been targeted for genocide by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In contrast, 890 Sunni Muslims (97.2 percent) three Shiites (0.4 percent) and 18 others identified only as “Moslems” (1.9 percent) were relocated in the U.S. after the Paris attacks. “The United States encourages other countries to consider expanding resettlement and other forms of admissions for all refugee populations, ensuring that more of those in need have the opportunity to start their lives anew in safety and with dignity,” the State Department stated. According to UNHCR, as of March 18, a total of 30 mostly European nations have agreed to resettle 179,147 Syrian refugees. Germany pledged to take in 41,899 refugees, including 21,832 privately sponsored, followed by Canada (38,089) and the United Kingdom (20,000). No Arab states are on that list.

State Dept: US ‘Reaffirmed Its Commitment to Resettle At Least 10,000 Syrians’

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Syrian Refugees Admitted to U.S. Since Paris Attacks: 911 Muslims, 4 Christians
March 29, 2016 | The federal government has admitted 916 Syrian refugees into the United States since the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) attacked Paris last November, and of that number four (0.4 percent) are Christians.

The remainder of the refugees admitted since the Nov. 13 attack deepened concerns about terrorist exploitation of Western nations’ refugee admission programs comprise 890 (97.2 percent) Sunni Muslims, three Shi’a, 18 other Muslims, and one individual described in State Department Refugee Processing Center data as “other religion.” Of the four Christians, one is Orthodox, one Greek Orthodox, and the denominations of the other two are not given. Earlier this month Secretary of State John Kerry announced in response to a legislative requirement that atrocities carried out by ISIS against Christians and other minorities in the areas it controls amount to genocide.

But for months administration officials from President Obama down have criticized Republicans, including some governors and current and former presidential candidates, for suggesting the government should prioritize Syrian Christians – or in Obama’s words, apply a “religious test” – in its refugee admission program. Persecution on the grounds of religion is one of five grounds for determining whether an applicant should be granted refugee status, but the State Department says the U.S. program does not, and should not, prioritize one religion over another. Obama has pledged to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. during fiscal year 2016, which began on October 1. Since then, a total of 1,207 Syrian refugees have been admitted as of Monday. Of that number, 1,176 (97.3 percent) are Sunnis and nine (0.7 percent) are Christians. The rest are three Shi’a, 18 other Muslims, and one identified as “other religion.”

Millions of Syrians of all faiths have fled the fighting in their homeland since the civil war began with a violent government crackdown on peaceful protests in March 2011. Among them are at least 700,000 Christians, according to European Parliament estimates. The Sunni/Christian ratio of all Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the conflict began – a total of 3,080 – is 2,895 Sunnis to 57 Christians, or 94 percent to 1.8 percent. By contrast, around 74 percent of the Syrian population was Sunni Muslims and 10 percent was Christians at the start of the civil war. More than 4.8 million Syrian refugees are now registered with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Turkey (2.7 million), Lebanon (1.06 million), Jordan (636,000) and other countries in the region.

More than 897,000 have sought asylum in Europe between April 2011 and December 2015. The State Department refugee settlement program relies on UNHCR referrals at the initial stage of a refugee application process. But Syrian Christians are widely reported to be reluctant to register with the U.N. After Kerry’s ISIS genocide determination, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced legislation giving priority status to members of religious minorities fleeing persecution at the hands of ISIS and other groups in Syria, and, enabling them to bypass the UNHCR and apply directly to the U.S. resettlement program. The Religious Persecution Relief Act would also require the government to set aside 10,000 refugee places annually for Syrian religious minorities, for five years.

Syrian Refugees Admitted to U.S. Since Paris Attacks: 911 Muslims, 4 Christians

 

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No way 3 months is enough time to vet Syrian refugees...

Under New U.S. Syrian Refugee Surge, Processing Time Reportedly Slashed to 3 Months
April 7, 2016 – As the Obama administration institutes a “surge” aimed at meeting its goal – currently way off-target – of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year, the Associated Press has cited an official at the U.S. Embassy in Amman as saying that the time taken to process each admission is being cut to three months. “While the resettlement process usually takes 18 to 24 months, under the surge operation this will be reduced to three months, [regional refugee coordinator Gina] Kassem said,” the AP reported Wednesday.

With the fiscal year now more than half over, the number of Syrian refugees admitted as of Wednesday stands at 1,353, according to State Department Refugee Processing Center data. In order to meet the 10,000 target by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, the AP report said that around 600 Syrian refugees were being interviewed daily at a “resettlement surge center” which was opened in Amman last February. “The U.N. Refugee Agency prioritizes the most vulnerable cases for resettlement, and then refers them to the U.S. to review, Kassem said. She said that priority is given to high-risk groups such as victims of torture and gender based violence and unaccompanied minors,” the AP reported.

A State Department official disputed that security screening will be compromised. “All applicants will still be subject to the same stringent security and medical requirements that apply to all applicants for U.S. refugee resettlement,” the official said Thursday. “All other necessary procedures will remain unchanged.” “While this surge and other efforts will decrease the overall processing time for individual families, the average processing time worldwide remains 18-24 months,” the State Department official added. “As we said, neither this surge nor any of our efforts to expand processing capacity curtail any aspects of the security, medical, or other screening.”

Syrian refugees at the Zaatari camp in Jordan.​

Throughout the debate over the potential security implications of President Obama’s plan to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. in FY2016, the administration has stressed that the application process – which includes vetting and interviews by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – takes 18-24 months. Security concerns deepened after the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks stoked fears that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) was using refugee admission programs to infiltrate Western countries. A number of Republican governors and several of the GOP presidential candidates called on the administration to reconsider the plan.

Four days after the Paris attack, Obama mocked the critics, saying during a visit to the Philippines that the Republican presidential hopefuls talked tough about solving problems but “apparently they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion.” “Understand, under current law, it takes anywhere from, on average, 18 to 24 months to clear a refugee to come into the United States,” the president said. “They are subjected to the most rigorous process conceivable.” That process, Obama said, included vetting by the U.S. intelligence community and other agencies, as well as biometrics. “There is an entire apparatus of all of our law enforcement agencies and the center that we use for countering terrorism to check and ensure that a refugee is not admitted that might cause us harm,” he said.

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Syrian Refugees Have Not Been Vetted...

Syrian Refugees Have Not Been Vetted for National Security
April 11, 2016 | Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) says that “a gaping hole in our national security apparatus” means that Syrian refugees “have not been vetted” before they are resettled in the United States. “Of course the major problem there is that they have not been vetted in terms of national security,” Brat told CNSNews.com. “We just want to [send a] message to the American people that the issue has not yet been resolved."

“ISIS has made it very clear in their documents that their intent and their goal is to bring radicalized folks from around the world in through the southern border and to use the refugee program to do so,” Brat warned. “And so when your enemy tells you what their plan is in writing, it seems that at a minimum we should be vetting folks. "And so we’re asking the American people to weigh in to their leaders to make sure that we don’t let this go unnoticed,” he told CNSNews. Brat said he is currently working on a bill that aims to cut off potential terrorists before they gain entry to the U.S.

Syrians entering a refugee center in Serbia.​

In September, Obama announced that the U.S. would accept 10,000 refugees from Syria’s now five-year-long civil war. However, two months later, a forged Syrian refugee passport was linked to a suicide bomber in the Nov. 13, 2015 Paris terror attacks which killed at least 130 people, including one American. The attacks were perpetrated by a European cell of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The first of the Syrian refugees have begun to make their way to the U.S. in what the Obama administration has described as a “surge operation” to speed up the refugee resettlement process from the usual 18-to-24 months to just three months. CNSNews has reported that of the 1,075 Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. since the Paris terror attack last November, 1,070 are Muslims and just four are Christians.

Last summer, Brat, a first-term congressman who beat former House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the GOP’s 2014 primary, co-sponsored the ‘‘Resettlement Accountability National Security Act of 2015.’’ That bill, introduced by Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), called for a moratorium on admitting refugees pending a Government Accountability Office report to Congress on how many refugees already in the country are receiving welfare benefits. According to a February 20 report published by the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures, the federal government budgets $582 million annually to resettle refugees in the U.S. However, the Babin bill failed to make it to the House floor for a vote. Brat said he and Babin are now crafting a separate bill to “stop the refugee inflow from terrorist hotspots.”

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Syrian Refugees Admitted to US Since Paris Attack: 1,070 Muslims; 4 Christians
April 10, 2016 – As the administration pushes ahead with a “surge” of Syrian refugee processing aimed at reaching its target of 10,000 this fiscal year, the proportion of Christians among those admitted remains smaller than one percent of the total.

Since the Paris attack last November highlighted the risk of terrorist groups using refugee admission programs as a cover to gain entry into Western countries, the State Department has now admitted 1,075 Syrian refugees. Of these 1,075 Syrian refugees, 1,070 are Muslims, 4 are Christians and 1 is described as "no religion." Of the 1,070 Muslim refugees, 1,044 are Sunni Muslims, 8 are Shi'a Muslims and 18 are otherwised undefined Muslims. The 4 Christian refugees make up 0.37 percent of the total. The 1,044 Sunnis make up 97.1 percent.

(Data: State Department Refugee Processing Center / Graph: CNSNews.com)​

State Department Refugee Processing Center data for the fiscal year to date show that a total of 1,366 Syrian refugees have been admitted since October 1, 2015. Of those 1,366 refugees, 1,330 (97.3 per cent) are Sunnis and nine (0.6 percent) are Christians – three Catholics, two Orthodox, one Greek Orthodox, and three refugees described simply as “Christian.”

(Data: State Department Refugee Processing Center / Graph: CNSNews.com)​

With the fiscal year more than half over, the administration has thus far managed to reach less than 15 percent of the target of 10,000 Syrian refugees announced by President Obama last fall. The State Department recently established a special “resettlement surge center” in Amman, Jordan, aimed at speeding up processing times dramatically. The department maintains that the fast-tracking will not compromise security screening. At the time when the Syrian conflict began in early 2011 – after the Assad regime cracked down on initially peaceful protests – Christians made up an estimated 10 percent of the Syrian population, and Sunnis an estimated 74 percent.

(Data: State Department Refugee Processing Center / Graph: CNSNews.com)​

Yet that proportion is nowhere near reflected in the total number of refugees admitted to the U.S. since the conflict began in March 2011. Since then, a total of 3,239 Syrian refugees have entered the U.S., of whom 3,049 (94.1 percent) are Sunnis and 57 (1.7 percent) are Christians. The rest are other non-Sunni minorities, including Shi’ites, heterodox Muslims, Zoroastrians, Baha’i, Jehovah’s Witnesses and atheists.

Syrian Refugees Admitted to US Since Paris Attack: 1,070 Muslims; 4 Christians

 

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Granny says, "Dat's right - `long as we vett `em first - an' make `em wear a fez so's we know who dey are...

USCIRF Chair to Congress: Give Refugees Vulnerable to Genocide the Highest Priority
April 21, 2016 – Robert P. George, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), told a congressional commission on Tuesday that the United States should give the highest priority to refugees “who are vulnerable to genocide, enslavement, murder, torture.”

The U.S. government has declared that Christians and other religious minorities in Syria are being targeted for genocide by the Islamic State. At a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing addressing the genocide against religious minorities by ISIS, George said that he recognizes that USCIRF’s recommendation to resettle 100,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. is “very controversial” but emphasized that “it’s important that it be done both substantively and so that the United States is doing its part along with other nations in the world.” He also emphasized that “in taking these refugees, prioritization needs to be done on the basis of vulnerability.” “The most vulnerable need to be given the highest priority, particularly those who are vulnerable to genocide, enslavement, murder, torture,” George said.

George added that sufficient resources need to be allocated to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies that do security vetting for refugees considered for resettlement “to allow them to expeditiously process applications and thoroughly conduct the background checks in order to facilitate resettlement without compromising U.S. national security.” “The public’s not going to support this if they believe our national security’s being put in jeopardy,” George emphasized. “It’s not that they’re cruel. It’s not that they lack compassion. They have legitimate concerns about security. We believe those concerns can be met, and we think we can make the process more expeditious if we make sure that the funding is there for the security checks to be done in a comprehensive and effective way.”

Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson also testified before the Commission on Tuesday, echoing some of George’s recommendations. The Knights of Columbus gave a report documenting eyewitness accounts of the targeting of Christians at the hands of ISIS to the State Department just prior to Secretary of State John Kerry’s March finding that ISIS was committing genocide. “Now the United States must act to stop this genocide, to prevent its recurrence, to assure the future of Christians and other genocide victims whether they wish to leave or to remain,” Anderson said. “Genocide survivors who wish to come to the United States must not be put at the back of the line,” he emphasized.

Anderson testified that of the 1,366 Syrian refugees admitted to this country in FY 2016, “fewer than three percent came from the groups targeted for genocide.” As CNSNews.com reported on April 10, the 1,366 Syrian refugees who had been admitted to the U.S. in fiscal 2016 up to that point included 1,330 Sunni Muslims (97.3 percent of the total) and only 9 Christians (or 0.6 percent of the total). “It is wrong when those who faced genocide are excluded – often on the basis of oversight or bureaucratic procedures,” he emphasized.

USCIRF Chair to Congress: Give Refugees Vulnerable to Genocide the Highest Priority