State Department Briefing on Iraqi refugee numbers is revealing
Posted by acorcoran on September 13, 2008
Update September 14th: Human Rights First says lets resettle 85,000.
Thanks to a faithful reader for sending me the link to the US State Department’s briefing yesterday that spawned this eye-popping story about how tens of thousands of Iraqis would be coming to the US in the next fiscal year which begins in just a few week (Oct.1).
You can read the transcript here and note there is a film of the press briefing.
I only had a few minutes to skim it, but the huge number of refugees they are discussing is because in addition to the 17,000 normal Iraqi refugees they plan to admit to the US, the Kennedy bill (which we have discussed on several occasions) allows up to 5000 special visas for Iraqis (living inside Iraq, normally refugees are those who have left the country) each year. Since we only took a few hundred of those this past year, apparently we can go back and fill last year’s quota and add it to the FY’09 allotment—thus bringing the number to the tens of thousands Foley says in this briefing.
Here is what I reported yesterday. May have more later. I did notice in my skimming through the briefing that no one asked how many refugees were rejected because of links to terrorism.
Oh, and not once in this politically correct briefing was the word Christian used. No one asked and no one volunteered any information about the truly persecuted Christians or for that matter any of the persecuted minorities.
4 Responses to “State Department Briefing on Iraqi refugee numbers is revealing”
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Iraqi student in the US: wise beyond his years… « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] that we need to spend more of your tax dollars on refugees. We have already said we are taking “tens of thousands” in the coming fiscal [...]
acorcoran said
Whuptdue, I have been saying that for the last year. We have fought and our soldiers have died to give them their own democratically elected government and tens of thousands are still trying to get to America with the help of all these leftwing do-gooder NGO’s.
I believe part of the motivation of the NGO’s involved is that as the surge is succeeding the only way they can still beat up the Bush Administration and possibly effect the election so that Obama wins, is to tell the public that there are millions of refugees and therefore Bush (and McCain) screwed up.
The Iraqi government has begun to try to get its people back because they say they need them to rebuild the country, but the NGO’s completely discount that. I believe they really do want Iraq to fail.
There is one group of refugees that may never be able to go back and those are the persecuted Christians and a few other religious minorities. But, as far as we can tell there is no special effort by the State Department to help this group—-it must be too politically incorrect to single out Christians for help.
whuptdue said
What the hell are our soldiers fighting and dying in Iraq for? There is absolutely no justification for this policy and it’s a slap in the face of each and every dead or wounded soldier who gave up their own daily routine to bring democracy to that hell hole.
US to up Iraqi refugee numbers to 17,000, Refugees International says it’s not enough « Refugee Resettlement Watch said
[...] State Department Briefing on Iraqi refugee numbers is revealing [...]