Anne Turner (emphasis added is mine):

I come here today not as a member of an organization or a political activist but as a concerned citizen and fearful mother.  I am very much afraid for my country, for my family and for myself.  We have maintained an immigration policy in this country that has put all that I consider a treasure at risk.  There was a time when immigrants coming to this country respected our laws, understood our culture (wanted to be a part of it) and were equally proud to become Americans.  This is no longer the case.  All the chaos and violence that exists in the world today is being imported into our borders with no consideration for the destruction it is causing.  We are building our very own “Tower of Babel”.

I remember a time when I was able to visit a shopping mall with no sense of fear.  A time when I could get on an airplane and not feel my life was potentially at risk. A time when I could travel to a major city and not have to worry that there might be a terrorist attack.  A time when I would tell my children “let’s go to the 4th of July celebration” and now I tell them “stay home”.  The days are gone when I felt my life was my own, my home my sanctuary, and my country free.

Immigration policies, through this Resettlement Program, have been totally corrupted.  There has been collusion between this administration and the NGO’s with dangerous consequences.  The money being funneled through these organizations and their never-ending appetite for money and power have removed all reason and common sense.  Under the guise of “good works and humanitarianism”, the fabric of this nation has been dramatically altered, if not destroyed.  This “Resettlement Program” has stolen our very identity.  Our freedoms are disappearing.  To be safe we now live in a world where the government has to keep a constant surveillance on its own countrymen.  We have soldiers in the streets threatening law-abiding citizens (have you seen those pictures of Boston?), data from our phone conversations is being monitored, and our ability to protect ourselves is being challenged.  Even with the imposition of government into every facet of our lives, the task of keeping us safe is becoming increasingly impossible,

You don’t even know who you are bringing into this country!  They cannot be properly vetted because they have no reliable form of identification, not even birth certificates.  How can you even know who they are or what their intentions are?  And what is this nonsense that women from Pakistan and Afghanistan should automatically be able to come to this country to escape persecution? Do you really think that by the very nature of a woman’s existence she is an innocent?  Do you think having an open border policy for women excludes us from terrorist threats?  Have you already forgotten that the one responsible for radicalizing the Boston Marathon Bombers was their mother?  Women are as easily radicalized as any man.  These are just two of many examples of the twisted logic of your immigration policies.

(In response to another speaker)

I hear you speak of the plight of women in other countries being the victim of the Sex Slave Trade.   Well, we have a brought this problem into our own country with present immigration policies and I strongly recommend we clean up our own back yard before we start trying to cure the ails of the rest of the world.

You sit in this bubble called “Washington” totally out of touch with the results of the decisions you make and the impact they have on our lives.  Then you have the audacity to say that “it is for our own good, the good of the country”.  Well, I would like to see one of you living in the middle of the consequences of your actions.  I would love to have you live across from a development that reeks of sewage because these immigrants don’t’ even have the most primitive of sanitary habits.  I would love for you to have to live amongst a crumbling infrastructure because all the communities are spending taxpayer’s hard-earned money on supporting these people instead of repairing our roads, our drainage system, and our schools.  They have no desire to educate themselves, no desire to learn our language, and don’t even understand the basics of a civilized society.  Yet, you dump them on us and then call us “racist” if we dare to complain.  I think it is time for you to experience the realities of your lofty decisions.

If it is so very important for you to help these people, and I do understand the necessity to help people, then go live amongst them and change them.  Go live amidst their squalor and teach them to be clean, go live amidst their poverty and teach them to be entrepreneurs, go experience the violence of their daily lives and teach them reason.  Go do your good works…………. JUST DO NOT BRING THEM HERE!!

Ms. Turner went on to conclude by asking where are the legally mandated annual reports to Congress, something we too have been harping on here for years.  The Office of Refugee Resettlement is required by law to produce a detailed report of the refugee program within three months of the close of the fiscal year.  They are three years behind.  Turner continued:

And I, also,  would like to know where the annual reports are.  You are mandated, by law, to make them available to every citizen in this country and you have not done this since 2009.  As a citizen, I want to see those reports now!

Readers, do any of you have testimony you wish to share publicly?   We received a very large packet of statements at the hearing and many of you sent testimony—there were many more statements against bringing more refugees in 2014 then there were promoting more refugee resettlement.

If you have been following RRW for the last few weeks, you know that S. 744 (The Gang of Eight plus Grover bill) isn’t just about amnesty for 11 million plus illegal aliens in the US,  it’s also about expanding our refugee and asylum system as well.  (Gang of Eight archive is here)

Yesterday we told you about Senator Grassley’s efforts to strip the refugee/asylum provisions from the bill until there had been a full accounting of how our asylum system is failing us as tragically demonstrated in Boston and the aftermath of the horrific April 15th terror attack by Muslims we “welcomed” with a grant of asylum.

Somalis waiting in refugee camps in Africa for their turn to come to America thanks to Refugee Council USA members.

You need to know more about the Refugee Council USA, the Washington lobbying consortium for the Refugee industry.

We have no one representing our views in Washington.

The big immigration restriction groups concerned with amnesty for illegals—FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA—have little time left over for countering the push to expand the refugee program which is really the root of  multi-culti conflicts, problems with Muslim extremists, and is a drain on social services as the US State Department and its contractors bring diversity from the third world to your towns and cities.

Refugee resettlement and asylum accounts for the largest percentage of our annual importation of 100,000 Muslims, here.

Here is what the RCUSA says they are about:

Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), established in 2000, is a coalition of U.S. non-governmental organizations focused on refugee protection.  RCUSA provides advocacy on issues affecting the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons, victims of trafficking, and victims of torture in the United States and across the world.  The coalition also serves as the principal consultative forum for the national refugee resettlement and processing agencies as they formulate common positions, conduct their relations with the U.S. government and other partners, and support and enhance refugee service standards.

Yesterday the Refugee Council USA was lobbying against Grassley’s amendments.  This is from their action alert:

OPPOSE GRASSLEY AMENDMENTS #25, #26, #27, and #52

These amendments would strike most of the positive refugee and asylum provisions from the base bill, including provisions that would improve access to life-saving protection to religious minorities in Iran and other vulnerable populations,stateless persons, and asylum seekers. Grassley #52 in particular would delay positive changes to the asylum and student visa provisions in the bill by falsely conflating them with the Boston Marathon bombings.

The mark-up continues today, but Grassley has already lost a couple of his amendments (no surprise, he and Senator Sessions are basically shut out on every amendment they propose).  Go here and see the results so far.  Two of the Grassley amendments have already been defeated.

Grassley is right!  The refugee program should not be expanded in this monster bill, but a separate review of the program should be undertaken immediately!

Here are the member organizations of the Refugee Council USA (all nine of the major federal refugee contractors are here).  To add insult to injury many of these groups are funded with your tax dollars. They could not exist without federal and state grants:

• American Refugee Committee International
• Amnesty International USA
• Asylum Access
• Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)
• Center for Victims of Torture
• Church World Service/Immigration and Refugee Program
• Episcopal Migration Ministries
• Ethiopian Community Development Council
• Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
• Human Rights First
• International Catholic Migration Commission
• International Rescue Committee
• Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project
• Jesuit Refugee Service/USA
• Jubilee Campaign USA
• Kurdish Human Rights Watch
• Liberty in North Korea
• Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
• ORAM- Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration
• RefugePoint
• Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
• U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migration & Refugee Services
• U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
• Women’s Refugee Commission
• World Relief

It features Somalis in Minnesota, Lewiston, ME, and Shelbyville, TN.  It includes one segment on the Lost Boys of Sudan. I didn’t know Glenn Beck talked about the State Department populating Rep. Michele Bachmann’s district with Somalis (something we have written about here on several occasions).

Click here to watch.  Then be sure to check out the comments!

Dick Durbin leans on Graham at a previous meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee

Graham sought to amend S.744 with a provision that would revoke refugee or asylum status to anyone who returns to the land of their alleged persecution without “good cause.”

Of course, if S.744 passes there will be much to do about what exactly is “good cause” and how a refugee or asylee might apply to return “home” for a visit.  Going home to a funeral might be a ‘good cause’ but as Graham pointed out going home to learn bomb-making should have a penalty.  Graham’s victory is a symbolic victory for common sense, but likely temporary.

Arguing against Graham (and voting against him) were Senators Leahy and Durbin (no surprise).  Graham was successful by voice vote.   However, cynic that I am, I think Leahy and Durbin just went through the motions of opposing Graham for the sake of making a show for their “humanitarian” lobbyist friends.

Throwing Graham a bone to keep him on board (with the Gang of Eight and Grover) now was probably more important—they can always dump his amendment later in the process.  And, besides, now Graham can say he strengthened security measures in the bill.

You must call Senator Grassley this morning to tell him you support this effort! (see below)

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is offering an amendment to S.744  to remove all references to refugees/asylum from S. 744 until after a report is completed about how the Tsarnaev terrorists were granted asylum!  I could kiss the Senate Judiciary Committee ranking Republican!

Erol Kekic of Church World Service does not want more security provisions added to S.744.

I stopped in his office last Wednesday when I went to DC for the State Department hearing and left a letter for him asking him to do just what the Washington Times is reporting (LOL!  But, I am sure he figured this out without any help from me!).

From the Washington Times (hat tip: Joanne).  Emphasis below is mine:

The Boston Marathon bombing hasn’t derailed the immigration debate, but it has sent lawmakers back to the drawing board on some key provisions, including changes to the asylum system that the two suspects in the bombing used to come to the U.S.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were brought to the U.S. a decade ago by their parents, who fled the deteriorating economy and burgeoning conflicts in the Central Asian region the family had called home.

Now, as the Senate Judiciary Committee works its way through the 867-page immigration bill, some lawmakers say it’s a chance to make changes that could help prevent a future incident.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the committee, has introduced an amendment that would prevent any changes to the asylum or refugee systems until at least a year after an audit of what went wrong in Boston.

“The Boston bombing probably made us take a closer look at the asylum provisions in the underlying bill,” Mr. Grassley said. “My asylum amendments don’t address Boston specifically, but they will require a look back by the inspector general before any changes to weaken the current asylum law goes forward.”

The asylum program is for those who apply from within the U.S., while the refugee program is for those applying from outside the border. The U.S. is the most generous country in the world in granting protections, but the programs also have seen periods of fraud and abuse.

Mr. Grassley said the bill written by the “Gang of Eight” senators actually waters down some of the security measures in current asylum and refugee law, and he said he would prefer to see the process stiffened instead.

Let the whining begin! 

Refugee contractors are out in full force trying to protect their turf.  You see, they are paid by the head (with your tax dollars) to resettle refugees and get asylees hooked up with welfare goodies.  They don’t like Senator Graham’s amendments one bit either!

Human rights groups [Federal contractors---ed]…. are gearing up for a fight over another proposal by Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who wants to prevent anyone granted asylum or refugee status from returning to their home countries, unless they got a waiver from the Homeland Security Department.

And, who is one leading whiner—Erol Kekic of contractor Church World Service.  Kekic testified at the State Department hearing on Wednesday for CWS and for the lobbying arm for contractors—Refugee Council USA.   Mr. Kekic is from Bosnia, here is his bio.

Erol Kekic, director of the Church World Service’s immigration and refugee program, said there are situations where someone wants to return home to see a dying relative or to try to play a role in constructive politics. And then there are the situations where someone was granted asylum years before, but their home country has since stabilized.

“If we’re going to deny protection for people like that I think that’s really taking away from any common sense,” Mr. Kekic said.  [Most people would see it's common sense that if a person returns to the place of his persecution he is either crazy or never persecuted in the first place!---ed]

He said it wasn’t even clear whether Homeland Security officials could track every person they suspected of returning to their home countries.

We better damn well be able to track these people after what we learned in Boston!

NOW!  Please call or fax Senator Grassley’s office and tell him to strip out all refugee and asylum references in S.744.  No matter what happens with his amendment, thank him for his concern for our security!

Here is his fax and phone number.  If you call it will ring for awhile…they are being swamped with calls.

(202) 224-3744
Fax: (202) 224-6020

This is the most important thing you can do today if you want to get this refugee program under control.  And, don’t forget to call Senator Rand Paul too.  Although he isn’t on the committee he will eventually play a huge role in determining whether this monstrous bill—S.744—passes.

PLEASE ALSO GET THIS AROUND VIA SOCIAL MEDIA—PLEASE TWEET!

Update:  The refugee contractors are tweeting like crazy esp. IRC, CWS and Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).

]]> http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/senator-chuck-grassley-wants-to-strip-refugeeasylum-sections-from-gangs-bill/feed/ 3 acorcoran http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/senator-rand-paul-why-are-we-bringing-so-many-iraqis-to-the-us/ http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/senator-rand-paul-why-are-we-bringing-so-many-iraqis-to-the-us/#comments Mon, 20 May 2013 11:47:24 +0000 Ann Corcoran http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/?p=76768 ]]> From the editor:   for all those arriving here, be sure to see Senator Grassley amendment to S. 744 here.

Didn’t we give Iraq a democratically elected government Paul went on to say!  Yup!

Maybe Rand Paul needs to ask his pal Grover Norquist those questions.***

Below is a story I missed last month (again in the wake of the Boston Chechen refugee terrorist act).

And, if Paul keeps this up I will have to withdraw my criticism of  him here when he was kissing-up to the Gang of Eight plus Grover bill.

Tell Senator Paul to keep his distance from Open Borders Muslim sympathizer Grover Norquist. AP Photo

The snarky HuffPo article does mention that two Iraqi refugee terrorists were convicted in Kentucky, but there is another problem with importing the high number of Iraqis.  Iraqis are not finding work (unemployment rate is 67%) and they are heavily supported by welfare (95% are receiving food stamps).  Some are so unhappy that they have returned to the Middle East.

The HuffPo reports the number of Iraqi refugees entering the US through 2012 (64,174), but so far in FY2013 we have already imported 11,066 which means we will top 20,000 this year alone!  Some may be Christians but a large percentage will be Muslims!

The Huffington Post back in April:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) expressed concern Tuesday morning about Iraqi refugees who might be coming to the United States to commit acts of terrorism.

Speaking about immigration on “The Dennis Miller Show,” Paul said that the United States needs to reexamine its asylum-granting policies and specifically mentioned the number of refugees fleeing Iraq, a country still dealing with intense violence years after the U.S. invasion in 2003.

“We’ve exempted [Paul must mean 'resettled'---ed] 60,000 Iraqis in the last three years. My question is, for one, are any of them intending to do us harm? And two, we won the war in Iraq — why would they be running from a democratic government?” Rand asked an agreeable Miller.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the United States has admitted 64,174 Iraqi refugees since 2007…

[....]

In 2011, Paul sounded off about background checks on Iraqis seeking refuge after two Iraqi refugees in Kentucky were charged with conspiring to send weapons and supplies to al Qaeda operatives in Iraq. The two men were successfully thwarted by an FBI sting operation. One was sentenced to serve a life term in federal prison; the other to a 40-year term.

***In 2007, long before the War in Iraq was over Grover Norquist and “conservative” buddy David Keene were pushing for the US to bring in Iraqis.  They,along with Ted Kennedy, said we broke it (Iraq), so the only way to fix it is to “welcome” tens of thousands to the US.

Readers, thanks to the help of a reader from Kentucky, Robin, we have identified Rachel Bovard as the staff person in Senator Paul’s office who is working the immigration issue for the Senator.  I dropped a letter off to her last Wednesday when I was in DC for the State Department hearings asking that the Senator investigate the Refugee Resettlement Program.   Please contact her by phone or e-mail and encourage the Senator to keep asking questions and to oppose S.744 which will make it easier for more refugees and asylum seekers to come to America.

And, while you are at it, warn her about what Rep. Frank Wolf revealed about Grover Norquist on the House floor, here in October of 2011, Wolf:  You can never say again that you didn’t know!

Send her the link to my post too!

Rachel Bovard, Policy Advisor to Senator Rand Paul, phone 202-224-4343 or e-mail: Rachel_Bovard@paul.senate.gov

We told you about that here last Thursday.  (Go there to see what you must do!)

You need to call today too!  S.744 will increase the number of refugees and asylees in the US and it provides a slush fund for “non-profits” like the 9 BIG federal refugee contractors and their 300 plus subcontractors.

I recommend that you tell Senators that due to recent refugee-perpetrated terrorism cases that they should strip all references to the refugee program from S.744 and hold separate hearings!

To add insult to injury, the word is that the US State Department helps to fund the lobbying offices for the contractors.  I have written about that before especially as it relates to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (or any of the nine)—it infuriates me to think the Bishops are taking your hard-earned tax dollars to fund their lobbying campaigns!

Here is what the IRC says about their DC shop.  And, btw, they were not at the State Department hearing on Wednesday.  Where were they?  Or did they feel they had an inside track to the State Dept and didn’t need to provide their wishlist for 2014 before their critics in public?

Asst. Secretary of State for PRM, Anne Richard, in Philadelphia recently with an Iranian transgender refugee.

Oh, yeh, they do have an inside track—Anne Richard, the Asst. Secretary of State for the refugee program, just recently left the IRC as one of its 6-figure salaried veeps.   Classic Washington DC case of the revolving door (federal contractors in and out of government jobs)!

The International Rescue Committee office in Washington, DC maintains relations with U.S. government offices, especially those that support some of the IRC’s programs.  This includes the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration, and Refugees and the U.S. Agency for International Development.  The IRC meets regularly with decision-makers on both sides of the political aisle, and in both the Executive branch and Congress, to raise issues of concern and advocate for change in U.S. government policies.  The IRC is also active working in coalitions  and with other non-governmental organizations.  Members of IRC’s public policy and advocacy department in Washington, DC also plan and guide IRC’s global advocacy efforts [Like snuggling up to Hamid Karzai?---ed].  The Washington, DC office houses staff from IRC’s International Programs Department and the Women’s Refugee Commission.

Contact Us:

International Rescue Committee
1730 M Street, NW – Suite 505
Washington DC 20036
Tel: 202-822-0166
Fax: (202) 822-0089
e-mail: advocacy@rescue.org

Gang member, Senator Graham, has amendments to S.744 for the purpose of increasing security in the refugee program.

Senator Lindsey Graham still has two amendments pending that are apparently inspired by the Boston refugee bombers ‘success’ in killing and maiming innocent Americans on April 15th.  We told you about them here and here.  It will be interesting to see if those commonsense security enhancements make it through mark-up.  You can bet the IRC is lobbying hard against them today!

Here is our entire archive on the IRC for the ambitious readers among you!  They just hired former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to step into his $450,000 a year job as its new CEO.

Photo is from Philadelphia Gay News, here.  Muslims persecute gays, so there is a big push to bring in refugees who are LGBTs from Sharia-loving countries.

At the State Department hearing this past Wednesday in Washington, representatives from contractors US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Church World Service and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society all praised the US State Department for the expeditious arrival (so far) of refugees in FY2013.

So, just now as I checked the Palestinian arrivals at WRAPS, I see that, for only being a little over half way into the fiscal year, we have brought a larger number of refugees than usually arrive by this time.  So far, as of April 30th, we have brought in 39,778 refugees.  We could easily hit 80,000 at that rate which would be higher than previous years.

Waad Ramadan Alwan. His fingerprints were on an IED in Iraq, but he got into the US as a refugee!

Here are the top 5 nationalities of refugees resettled so far:

Iraqis:  11,066  (The State Dept. knows how many of these are Muslims and how many are Christians! See Muslim share of immigrant population growing, here)

Burmese:  9,336

Bhutanese (really Nepal): 5,067

Somalis:  4,387   (This number is so high because they re-opened family reunification for Somalis.  It had been closed  beginning in 2008 due to high levels of fraud detected.  At this rate, 2013 will come close to the highest Bush years.)

Cubans:  2,199  (could Florida’s wealthy Cubans be pushing Senator Marco Rubio?)

Hurry! Someone tell Senator Rand Paul!  Just now as I searched for a photo of  one of Bowling Green, Kentucky’s Iraqi refugee terrorists, I came across a story only a few weeks old where Paul is asking, why the heck are we bringing so many Iraqis?  Maybe Senator Paul doesn’t know that S.744 (The Gang of Eight plus Grover bill) will make it easier and provide more money for refugees and asylum seekers to get into the US!  He could do something about that!—strip all refugee/asylum provisions from the bill and hold separate hearings on the program!

If you are a new reader here, scroll back through the previous few days for stories on Somali, Chechen, and Uzbek refugee terrorists in the US (and Palestinian immigrant terrorists too!).

Thanks to Jeff, here is a mind-blowing story in the Baltimore Sun on Friday about the arrest of a pair of Palestinians who have been running a multi-million dollar cigarette smuggling scam for years.  Because they lived a modest lifestyle and no one knows where all the money went, it’s a good bet it was leaving the country to fund Islamic terrorists around the world (or maybe funding them right here at home!).

We need to thank the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly who unraveled the scheme from the New York end.  In Maryland our police are way too busy swatting benign conservative Americans like Terry Porter in rural towns.

And, as is the usual case, there is no mention of the brothers’ immigration status—how did they come to be living legally in America in the first place (assuming they were legal immigrants)?*

From the Baltimore Sun:

The Palestinian immigrant and his brother lived next door to each other in homes in West Ocean City, over the years opening a number of businesses throughout the area — three pizza shops, a Mexican restaurant, a liquor store, gas stations, and development companies, court records show.

This week, however, authorities in New York alleged that Basel, 42, and Samir Ramadan, 39, were also at the top of a multimillion-dollar cigarette-smuggling ring and said they believe members of the organization may have funneled some of their proceeds to terrorist groups. [Update: Photos of the Palestinian alleged terror funders are here---ed]

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the Ramadan brothers had deposited more than $55 million from their untaxed cigarette sales into small banks in and around Ocean City, making a profit of $10 million along the way.

[.....]

Only a fraction of the money has been recovered, and the brothers’ lifestyles were described by authorities as modest. That, along with alleged links among some of the members of the ring to known terrorists such as Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind cleric serving a life sentence for a conspiracy to blow up New York City landmarks, raised concerns that the money might be funding militant groups.

There is a lot more!  Read it all!

LOL! Someone should check to see if they were political donors to O’Malley and the boys!

Just for your information, we write often about food stamp fraud (trafficking) busts here at Refugee Resettlement Watch (archive here).  The majority of the scams are coming from immigrant-run convenience stores.

* We don’t resettle very many Palestinian refugees (a few in recent years) mostly because the militant Islamists in the Middle East want to leave them right there in their supposed “camps” funded largely by US taxpayers so as to remain a thorn in Israel’s side.  I don’t know how these Palestinians got into America legally.   I do think the food stamp scammers are using the Investor visas we give out like pez candy.

No worries!  Only a quarter of a million US Muslims say violence against civilians in the name of Islam may sometimes be justified!

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life came out with a new study just yesterday about the religious make-up and size of the mostly legal immigrant population in the US.

As you read through this ponder these facts (I’ve rounded the numbers):

~ The US population is around 315 million.

~Pew says the US Muslim population as of 2011 was 2.75 million.

~We are adding roughly 1 million immigrants a year (for the past 20 years) and 100,000 of them are Muslim.

~Christians make up the largest share, but the share of Muslims and Hindus is growing.

Here are some interesting segments of Pew’s conclusions (I’ve highlighted the parts that interest me):

Over the past 20 years, the United States has granted permanent residency status to an average of about 1 million immigrants each year. These new “green card” recipients qualify for residency in a wide variety of ways – as family members of current U.S. residents, recipients of employment visas, refugees and asylum seekers, or winners of a visa lottery – and they include people from nearly every country in the world. But their geographic origins gradually have been shifting. U.S. government statistics show that a smaller percentage come from Europe and the Americas than did so 20 years ago, and a growing share now come from Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region.

With this geographic shift, it is likely that the religious makeup of legal immigrants also has been changing. The U.S. government, however, does not keep track of the religion of new permanent residents. As a result, the figures on religious affiliation in this report are estimates produced by combining government statistics on the birthplaces of new green card recipients over the period between 1992 and 2012 with the best available U.S. survey data on the religious self-identification of new immigrants from each major country of origin.  [US refugee program does track religious affiliation, they just don't make the information public.---ed]

While Christians continue to make up a majority of legal immigrants to the U.S., the estimated share of new legal permanent residents who are Christian declined from 68% in 1992 to 61% in 2012. Over the same period, the estimated share of green card recipients who belong to religious minorities rose from approximately one-in-five (19%) to one-in-four (25%). This includes growing shares of Muslims (5% in 1992, 10% in 2012) and Hindus (3% in 1992, 7% in 2012).

More coming from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The geographic origins of new permanent residents have shifted markedly during the past two decades, according to U.S. government data. In 1992, a total of 41% of new permanent residents came from the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa region or sub-Saharan Africa. By 2012, more than half (53%) of new green card holders were from those regions.

No surprise!  Most Muslim population growth in US is coming from immigration.

The estimated number of new Muslim immigrants varies from year to year but generally has been on the rise, going from roughly 50,000 in 1992 to 100,000 in 2012. Since 2008, the estimated number of Muslims becoming U.S. permanent residents has remained at or above the 100,000 level each year. [Readers, that means that probably the biggest chunk of legal Muslim immigration is coming through our refugee and asylum programs---ed]

Between 1992 and 2012, a total of about 1.7 million Muslims entered the U.S. as legal permanent residents. That constitutes a large portion of the overall U.S. Muslim population (estimated at 2.75 million as of 2011).

Most Muslim immigrants coming from Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Iraq, Somalia and Ethiopia.

The most common countries of origin among Muslim immigrants in 1992 included Pakistan, Iran and Bangladesh. Those countries, as well as Iraq, also were among the most likely birthplaces of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012.

In recent years, a higher percentage of Muslim immigrants have been coming from sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 16% of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2012 were born in countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia. In 1992, only about 5% of new Muslim immigrants came from sub-Saharan Africa.  [Whew! That means about 16,000 Somalis and Ethiopians came last year!  Higher than I thought!---ed]

Now just for fun, go to Pew’s worldwide Muslim survey last month, here.

Don’t you just love it how Pew spins this with the word ‘few’!

Few U.S. Muslims voice support for suicide bombing or other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam; 81% say such acts are never justified, while fewer than one-in-ten say violence against civilians either is often justified (1%) or is sometimes justified (7%) to defend Islam. Around the world, most Muslims also reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians. However, substantial minorities in several countries say such acts of violence are at least sometimes justified, including 26% of Muslims in Bangladesh, 29% in Egypt, 39% in Afghanistan and 40% in the Palestinian territories.

So, if we have roughly 2.75 million Muslims in the US and 8% say it’s often or sometimes justified to use suicide bombings and violence against civilians in the name of Islam, that means that 220,000 American Muslims think violence against civilians is justified (someone check my math, maybe I have too many zeros!).  Ahhhhh!

I’m confident (aren’t you?) that when we take immigrants from Egypt, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories that we are only getting those from the percentage who do not approve of violence against civilians in the name of Islam—right!

I bet there is a lot of juicy stuff in here for anyone with the patience to dissect it!

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