Refugee Crisis: Obama Refuses to See Wolves Among the Sheep (2 Pics)

 More than half the nation’s governors have stood up in unison to say no to resettling 10,000 refugees in the U.S. at a time when the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIS) says it is preparing to attack America, but those state executives may not have the authority to reject the mighty federal government.

Constitutionally speaking, immigration is the jurisdiction of the executive branch. It has been further codified under theRefugee Act of 1980, which makes only one very vague reference to the authority of governors, and that’s to order them to work with the federal coordinator for refugee resettlement. This executive authority was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 2012 when it struck down Arizona’s SB 1070 law limiting illegal immigrants settling into the state.

But that doesn’t mean the U.S. government should ignore the will of the governors or the populations they represent. Rejecting unvetted refugees into the country is not xenophobia or racism or all those other nasty words that “pure-hearted” progressives like to say about people who favor security over a hold-our-breath-and-hope migrant policy.

The majority of refugees from the Middle East, and specifically Syria, may indeed be the poor and downtrodden, but it is still infuriating that liberals can’t understand the argument that if you don’t know who’s coming, you can’t say whether they are a benefit or harm to society.

Just like the “coyotes” who grab up harmless migrants to cross the southern U.S. border illegally, and then hide their cocaine smuggler buddies and worse in their midst, it is a very real concern to say there are wolves lying among the sheep. Even the FBI director has acknowledged that there are ISIS-related investigations in all 50 states.

It’s not mean, it’s just due diligence. Governors of 27 states, and counting, agree.

And while Democratic politicians want to bludgeon conservatives and Republicans over and over again with the “heartless” label, claims that the refugees are somehow going to be properly vetted before they enter the United States, the failure to properly address the illegal immigration policy leaves opponents with a track record for legitimately opposing a fast-track refugee policy.

Repeatedly, Democrats have claimed it will take two years to resettle refugees so noone will enter before he or she has been properly vetted. Vetting includes a background security check and a medical examination.

But here’s where the logical fallacy kicks in hard: If someone without any documentation seeks refugee status after leaving a war-torn country, they may indeed not harbor ill intentions on the U.S., but as demonstrated by the terrorist killed in France who had the fake Syrian passport, why be in such a hurry to risk it?

It should be noted that the suggestions for who makes a good refugee comes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and U.S. embassies. All of the U.S.-bound refugees generally land in secondary countries before they are processed for movement to the United States so the very notion that these agencies get to the root of someone’s background is solely reliant on information provided by the individual and a look to see if that person has been flagged by InterPol or another international terror monitors. Kind of weak.

Indeed, the White House said in September that it will increase the number of Syrian and other refugees admitted from around the world on an annual basis to 100,000 in the next two years. That means 85,000 refugees admitted in 2016 and 100,000 in 2017. That’s after the U.S. allotted space for 70,000 refugees this year.

In just October 2015 through Nov. 13, 2015, the U.S. government resettled 7,123 refugees, 2,729 of whom were from the Near East and South Asia (which includes Afghanistan) and 2, 295 from Africa. How long did those refugees take to process?

Even the State Department’s own resettlement of refugees fact sheet says resettlement takes nowhere near that time.

Given the intense resource demands of expedited resettlement processing, PRM limits “all-steps expedited processing” to those individuals whose lives are at serious risk. As mentioned, expedited processing for resettlement in the United States takes a minimum of 8 to 10 weeks from referral to arrival in the United States, compared to 6 to 12 months or more for normal resettlement processing. While the expedited time frame is significantly shorter, USRAP requirements generally do not allow for more rapid case processing. This period is longer than we would like it to be, but our concerns are tempered by the fact that most U.S. refugee applicants are individuals outside their country of origin and therefore not at immediate risk of persecution.

As noted in the State Department’s assessment, the refugees are out of harm’s way at the point that they are put on an expedited processing program, so why the rush to bring them here at all?

Let’s also add that the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services notes that a refugee is “a person who has fled his or her country of origin because of past persecution or a fear of future persecution based upon race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” Additionally, “people fleeing civil wars and natural disasters may not be eligible for resettlement under U.S. law.”

Hasn’t the president been describing the situation in Syria as a civil war? That was his earlier justification for doing nothing. Now, the White House says Syrians are fleeing terror. It never sees to amaze how he’ll say whatever he wants to fit his agenda, even when his own advisers and party comrades disagree.