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| New look at extreme vetting of refugees after OSU attack |
Nearly 2,500 refugees from terrorism hotspots around the world are
bound for the U.S. after being rejected by Australia, but not even top
lawmakers can get answers about who they are.
In an unprecedented move, the U.S. State Department
has classified details on refugees to be resettled in America via a
secret deal made with Australia. The bi-lateral agreement, which
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called a “one-off,” involves
2,465 people currently being held in Papua New Guinea and Nauru who will
now be transferred onto U.S. soil.
“This is a backroom deal, wheeling and dealing with
another country's refugee problem,” Center for Immigration Studies
fellow Don Barnett told FoxNews.com. “I don’t believe for a moment it’s a
one-time deal. That’s for public consumption.”
The move has also raised a red flag among Congressional oversight members.
In a letter to Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry, key lawmakers
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., complained
about the lack of transparency.
“This situation is concerning for many reasons,” read
the letter, charging that “your departments negotiated an international
agreement regarding refugees without consulting or notifying Congress.”
Screeners from the U.S. Customs and Immigration
Services are set to leave for the Pacific Island nations next month to
begin vetting the refugees.
When staffers probed the number of individuals being
considered for resettlement, they were told it was “classified,” even
though refugee admissions are traditionally public. Officials, however,
did confirm countries of origin to be Iran, Sri Lanka, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Sudan, as well as some deemed
“stateless.”
Iran, Sudan and Syria are the three countries on the
U.S. current State Sponsors of Terrorism list. But Barnett said the
“stateless” category is most worrisome.
“These could be Burmese Muslims, who have posed
assimilation issues for every nation which has taken them,” said
Barnett. “It’s a dangerous precedent which says, ‘We’ll take any ethnic
group with which you don’t get along.’”
Australia has been under fire for paying poor
surrounding island nations to house detention centers for refugees.
Australia created the camps in an effort to curtail “people smuggling”
and has long had a policy which prevents individuals seeking asylum from
entering the country before being vetted.
The Goodlatte-Grassley letter also asked why Australia and other countries refused to take in the refugees.
“If they’ve been vetted and deemed inadmissible, the U.S. can’t say, ‘You don’t want them, so we’ll take them,’” said Barnett.
Speaking at a Nov. 14 press conference, Turnbull
said, “Nobody is taking any more refugees, but what the Americans are
doing is assisting these individuals on Nauru and Manus by bringing them
in within their existing quota.”
The Obama administration increased the quota for the
12-month period that began in October to 110,000 refugees, up from
85,000 the previous year.
Turnbull’s announcement that his country would be
“taking more refugees from Central America” as part of some “commitments
at President Obama's Refugee Summit” has also sparked speculation that
the deal is a trade of refugees from the most dangerous areas of the
world for ones from Central America.
In July, Costa Rica agreed to set up a detention
center for those wishing to enter the United States through a new
program the administration established initially for children to reunite
with U.S. -based parents. The program has been expanded to include
those fleeing gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. It
also created a special category for female heads of households.
“All you have to do is say is you’re a single mother
and you’re in,” said Barnett. “There is all sorts of twisting of the law
here.”
A “particular social group,” is one of the five
categories applicants must meet to obtain refugee or asylum status. The
designated group could be a religion, nationality, race or political
group whose members have a “well-founded fear” of persecution for
belonging.
While U.S. law stipulates refugee status should not
be granted based on generalized violence, according to officer training
materials obtained by FoxNews.com, status can be considered for women
heads of households who are vulnerable to crime, economic hardships or
could be a victim of “Machista,” described in materials as a “cultural
pattern where men father children, [then] abandon [their] family.”
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees estimates that 146,000 individuals will apply to enter the
U.S. through the Costa Rican Center.
In a July 26, 2016 press release the State Department
laid out the logistics in which after pre-screening and transfer to
Costa Rica, “they will undergo refugee processing before being resettled
to the United States or another third country.”
Representatives from the Grassley-Goodlatte committee
are set to receive a classified briefing on the Australian refugee deal
next week. However, numerous questions could remain shielded from
public view including costs, timing, benefit to the U.S. and perhaps
most importantly why it was done in secret.
