On April 18, the Washington Times reported the US Government has agreed to “accept” up to twenty-five thousand Iraqi “refugees” who fled Iraq as a result of the war there. The report quoted Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration as saying, "It's fair to say that, if we get the referrals [from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees], we could resettle up to 25,000 Iraqi refugees within the president's determination this year."
Apart from the questionable legitimacy of accepting large numbers of “refugees” from a supposed democracy the US has essentially established, helping genuine refugees is, of course, noble and important. Making certain those accepted for admission into the United States under any conditions, including refugee status, are not a threat to America is the most important function the Government can and should do in its immigration related operations. Unfortunately, the Government has not performed well in such matters in the past. While surely Federal bureaucrats from DHS and the State Department will assure us that “all necessary measures” will be employed to insure that no persons who are security threats will be allowed to enter the US as a result of any refugee processing, as this report cites, it is likely that process will not differ much from prior similar efforts.
This is how that process will likely work. Officials will run the known names and fingerprints through available databases. If anything "hits," US officials will presumably do some form of follow up. There is one report out indicating US Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) is soliciting processing teams to volunteer for temporary duty in Damascus. If this refugee processing will occur in Syria, how cooperative will Syrian officialdom be with US authorities if asked to conduct any kind of thorough background inquiry? That follow up, at most, would result in denial of admission. Would the Syrians really arrest a terrorist suspect for us? We may have somewhat better luck conducting a background inquiry in Iraq where US agencies exert some degree of control and authority; but, how much effort will really be put into backtracking the bonafides of a refugee claim in-country by US authorities who are strapped simply trying to maintain some modicum of security and self protection?
As far as the interview process, that will amount to asking a standard battery of questions through a translator (provided by and vetted by whom?) and essentially taking those answers at face value. There will be only a minimal degree of face-to-face interrogation skills applied to any of this to determine if an applicant is being truthful. The USG personnel doing the processing will mostly not be veteran law enforcement or Intelligence operatives but will be benefit givers from USCIS and State Department Consular Officers...essentially social workers for aliens who know the path to their success is to grant immigration benefits. There may be a some small contingent of ICE, FBI and CIA personnel monitoring and reviewing what's going on, but the sheer numbers of potential refugee applicants will only allow for mere "spot checking" by those cops and Intel Officers and most likely they will be under orders to only interrupt the flow in the most egregious and obvious bad-guy cases. In reality, there will be virtually no ability to request or conduct any kind of meaningful follow up background investigation on suspects beyond, perhaps, the posting of a lookout notice. Virtually everything will be rubber-stamped as “approved” unless there is a glaring bad-guy "hit" in the record systems. Bad guys who happen to have an otherwise clean ID record will probably get through.
That, sadly, is the likely reality of what will happen if the Government moves forward with this Iraqi refugee plan. Most unfortunately, among those admitted into the US will probably be some genuine terrorists who will be provided with very genuine and official US immigration and identity documents allowing them to live and work in the United States. This is nothing new. So many other terrorist aliens have similarly gained entry into the United States and “lawfully” remained. The sad truth is little has changed to prevent it from occurring all over again and it appears history is about to repeat itself.
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