THE HOUSE JUDICIARY Committee on Wednesday approved a bill that would reduce the already small number of refugees allowed into the United States, and effectively codify the bigotry of Donald Trump and other GOP candidates.
The Refugee Program Integrity Restoration Act (H.R. 4731) proposed by Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., would impose new caps on refugee resettlement limits, discriminate on religious grounds, redefine the word “refugee,” and give local and state governments broad powers to refuse resettlement.
In ordinary circumstances, the question of how many refugees America accepts is made at the executive level. President Obama has set a target for accepting 100,000 refugees into the United States in fiscal year 2017. This bill, however, would effectively take the decision out of his hands by imposing a hard limit of 60,000 refugees in 2017, even as the world is dealing with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
But other provisions included in H.R. 4731 would make it hard for the government to even reach that reduced target.
According to the text of the bill, state and municipal level government officials could refuse refugees through “any action formally disapproving of resettlement in that locality.” This provision effectively grants veto power over resettlement to local officials. Such a provision could greatly complicate any resettlement program.
The bill also creates a new definition of who is a refugee by stating that protection from violence would not be offered “if that violence is not specifically directed at the person.” For Syrians and others, the violence of the war is not directed at them as “individuals,” but rather is occurring as part of a broader conflict.
“If you look at the situation in Syria, Russia is bombing entire townships, not singling people out as individuals, but targeting them regardless because they are in a war zone,” says Jennifer Quigley of Human Rights First. “The language in this bill is a huge change from existing standards and would drastically narrow the definition of who constitutes a refugee.”
During this election cycle, a number of Republican presidential nominees have called for incorporating religious discrimination in the refugee process. H.R. 4731 would compel the Department of Homeland Security to “grant priority consideration to such applicants whose claims are based on persecution … by reason of those applicants being practitioners of a minority religion in the country from which they sought refuge.”
During the present conflict in Syria, the vast majority of refugees come from the majority Sunni Muslim population, which has also borne the brunt of the government’s military crackdown. While they are among the most desperately needy refugees in the world today, because they are not “minorities” in their society, the bill would make it harder for them to gain refuge in the United States. “What this provision is trying to get at is stopping the resettlement of Syrian Muslim refugees, by basing acceptance criteria on identity rather than need,” says Quigley.
During this election cycle, GOP candidates have seemed to be competing to express the greatest hostility toward refugees. Ted Cruz and others have said that the United States should refuse all refugees except Christians, while Donald Trump recently promised his supporters that he would look Syrian children in the faces and say, “You can’t come here.’”
The xenophobic rhetoric in response to the current refugee crisis is ironic given the GOP’s history. Ronald Reagan, viewed as an icon by most Republicans, famously granted asylum to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflicts in Southeast Asia and Central America, and even invoked America’s generous refugee policy in his 1989 presidential farewell speech. Even George W. Bush, who ignited some of the conflicts that people are today fleeing, chose to restart the Refugee Resettlement Program after 9/11.
“Some of the Republicans advocating against refugees today don’t know that historically GOP presidents have had welcoming asylum policies toward people fleeing conflicts,” says Quigley. “The rhetoric in this presidential campaign is making it easier for legislation like H.R. 4731 to be proposed, but it is also silencing traditional refugee supporters by making them feel uncomfortable about speaking out against it.”
Top photo: A child cries as migrants cross a river north of Idomeni, Greece, attempting to reach Macedonia on a route bypassing the border fence, March 14, 2016.
Without commenting directly on the validity of accepting more or less “Syrian” refugees, I have noticed that without fail the corporate media has used the pictures of young children and families to portray the refugees in spite of the fact that over 80% of them are young adult males. It is obvious that the corporate media is try to manipulate people opinion on this matter in a subtle way.
It’s xenophobic to want to take care of Americans first? It’s xenophobic to want background checks on the same people other Muslim country’s wouldn’t take because they’re considered a terror risk? Why are a huge majority of these “immigrants” healthy military age males until a photo op is needed that is? Why are we not taking the Christians in that are being slaughtered without mercy? Kerry finally admitted the obvious, that this is genocide, but I guarantee nothing will change in regards to the 98-2% Muslim to Christian ratio of immigrants the U.S. takes in. Despite the bs numbers being pushed on the sheeple the U.S.is broke and we have no good jobs being made . 90+% of Muslims in England are on welfare and we definitely don’t need more of that but the democrats need more idiots so they open the floodgates and the rest of the country pays for it. If it’s xenophobic to worry about Americans first than we need much more of it from these politicians who forgot they are not global representatives, they are supposed to look out for us first. If we guarded our border like every other country in the world this wouldn’t be an issue but now that Americans are seeing immigration is costing us a half a trillion dollars a year they are starting to wake up and want common sense change as would any other country.
The only solution to this mess is to create a safe no fly zone in northern syria to harbor and take care of refugees. The meanwhile, efforts should also be undertaken to form a coalition that includes russia and few arab states to eradicate daesh from central, north east and east syria. Once this is accomplished, we would move to set the fondations of a political transition without Assad. Refugees from the no-fly zone would then return to their homes to participate in local elections and refetendum on a new constitution.
“xenophobic rhetoric”
Those two words are the problem.
First, to be clear, the u.s. government can’t fix anything, and most of the ideas put forth by politicians and illegitimate 3-letter agencies can be debunked by a High School student.
What most of the sheep seem to forget is that this is an issue of Nationality.
Race and language are NOT Nationality.
When someone is nervous about allowing people from a different Nation, they are concerned about issues of Nationality.
In the u.s. we allow too many people to be here illegally from other nations.
“Refugees” is a word used to make illegal immigrants appear justified in breaking federal laws. Adults should know better, and journalists actually have no excuse not to know this as well.
Perhaps the immigrants are oppressed and mistreated in their nation. But that is not any type of excuse to be allowed to come to the u.s. without going through the proper, legal process of becoming a citizen.
We The People know that illegal immigration is costing us actual jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars per year, and we are sick of it.
Where someone is from, and what language they speak does not matter to We The People. Get legal or get out.
We can not take in the whole world but you can send assistance to these people and for the men they are not refugees. These men are young well fit and healthy who can fight for their lands like our men and women do. As for the religious aspect of this latest ordeal I find it funny how majority of the people that were brought here were Syrians and a couple of Christians. It tool six long months before Obama and his administration would even say the Christians were being murdered. Six months before he would admit the genocide that was taking place in those countries and that is a crying shame for him to wait till over 30,000 innocent people died horrible horrible deaths and in your article you talked about Cruz saying about only letting Christians in but you fail to mention why he might have said that. If people are going to write up a piece at least add both sides of the story. Because it wasn’t the Syrians who were being brutally murdered like the Christians were. Then of course Trump is going to have to say about telling the children they can’t come over but maybe because Obama has all the borders wide open for anyone to come in and having kids coming from Mexico over and keeping them and then he allows their families to come as well. Mexico is not at war like the East is but like I said speak both sides to the story. Americans can not pay for the world we do have our own problems at the moment. While Obama is living the life of a king on the American taxpayers money Americans are losing their jobs and he still wants to bring more and more people over. Half of the Americans here don’t work because they live off the government which gets its money from the taxpayers. With all of the jobs moving out of the country now there will not be many taxpayers left to keep up with the huge demand of so many refugees our government keeps throwing on the working man’s back.
There’s a certain hypocrisy in decrying the President’s ability to unilaterally conduct pre-emptive wars, while supporting his usurpation to rule by executive action decree in other matters properly subject to congressional jurisdiction.
The continuous pre-emptive warmaking in the Middle East is the cause of the refugee crisis. The way to stop war driven mass migration is to stop the wars. Taking in refugees is like having a pressure safety valve so that continuous warmaking is sustainable.
There are huge problems with a historically extremely high immigration rate that’s reached around 3 million per year, into a shrinking labor market. Twenty five years ago, when the economy was much healthier for jobs, the annual immigration rate was nowhere so high. The social and economic fabric is not strong enough to sustain such high levels.
The problems can be solved humanely without adding more of a burden to society while depressing further worker wages, which the corporate world benefits from.
Stop the wars, right now. Send assistance to help people rebuild where they are from, and which they would not leave unless we also are complicit in driving them from their homes.
Prime Minister Trudeau opens his arms and lets a decently large number of refugees into Canada, recognizing them as fellow human beings fleeing violence.
Many people here in the US, most notably figures like Trump and his supporters, not only try to slam the door shut but also insults, demeans, accuses, and otherwise denies the humanity of the people fleeing the violence in the Middle East (much of which our government’s, both ruling parties’, foreign policy is responsible for in the first place).
I am ashamed of my country. The only two things keeping me here are the fact that I am poor and thus immigrating away from here would currently be almost impossible, and the existence and continued ability of the US Green Party to get at least some candidates on the ballot.
You don’t flee violence in your own country. You stop it.
~O~ and his bosses arm ISIS, wind them up, set them down, and they go crazy, and you media gets videos of Batman cliffhanger episode contrivance executions.
They can start by lifting the polyester sacks off their women, and the pussies that pass for men can fight back for their own countries instead of using “refuge” status to land work in civilized countries.
Because shooting at bombs always works.
@Joshua H. –
You are correct, this is indeed shameful. And it is very alarming that so many lawmakers and citizens support such bigotry.
Good for the Green Party for doing that consistently, as well as for whoever is responsible for forming opinions like yours and the previous posters’ regarding the fact that those Syrian refugees deserve an exponentially higher amount of humanity than they’ve been shown and that multi-billion/trillion dollar military defense firms should pay the most money in order to resettle and relocate safely and humanely each and every single refugee fleeing the crisis in the Middle East, considering that they are the ones (along with the government of the day) responsible for the illegal war(s) in Syria, for example.
In America, land of the marginally free and home of the intolerant bigots, we have a long history of destroying countries then letting a few of the survivors in our doors to show American “good will.” I cannot see this time being any different than all the past goodwill “acts” to our unfortunate enemies/victims. I believe the impossibly long vetting process will keep all the malcontents out but that’s just my take on this. I would like to see a more transparent encompassing process just maybe to mitigate animosity towards our citizenry.
These Republicans would have promoted legislation to ban Jewish refugees from entering the United States in the years leading up to the Holocaust. Oh, yes they would have:
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007455
“Indeed, the United States refused to reduce the many obstacles to getting an immigrant visa, with the result that until 1938, the immigration quota for Germany was unfilled. Many German Jews who were in immediate danger were forced to emigrate elsewhere, such as France, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia, where eventually the wave of German conquest overtook them. ”
“President Franklin D. Roosevelt, responding to mounting political pressure, called for an international conference to facilitate the emigration of refugees from Germany and Austria, and to establish an international organization to work for an overall solution to the refugee problem.”
Who opposed the efforts to allow Jews living under Hitler’s oppression to emigrate to the United States? That effort was led by all the anti-FDR Republicans, the likes of Bush family grandaddy Prescott Bush, noted investor in Nazi Germany (via the Union Banking Company, which controlled coal deals in Silesia, Poland on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Poland). They were uniformly opposed to Jewish migration to the United States. One of their leaders was Republican Congress member Senator Gerald Nye: [wiki]
“. . .Nye was instrumental in the development and adoption of the Neutrality Acts that were passed between 1935 and 1937. To mobilize antiwar sentiments, he helped establish the America First Committee. According to Nye, American involvement in the “war for democracy” could be explained in terms of a conspiracy of arms manufacturers, politicians and international bankers. In common with many conservative isolationists, Nye subscribed to an anti-semitic belief in a Jewish conspiracy pushing the US into war . . .”
There is plenty of historical evidence that Jews weren’t welcomed into the United States due to their support for anarchist and communist causes that stood in contrast to the values held by the vast majority of Americans at that time. The citizenry both then and now, don’t want to bring people into the country who have values that are hostile to their own people. It’s quite natural to feel and act that way.
Thank goodness it’s natural to want to change it as well.
“The shameful US response to the Syrian refugee crisis by the numbers” Vox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCl6s68_sGY
World’s nations have an opportunity to rise to the higher consciousness, which reflects the qualities, such as selflessness, generosity, serving others without expectations, compassion, love, etc., and turning away from the negative energies of the lower consciousness, which reflects qualities, such as fear, anxiety, political benefits, etc.
You call it what you want, but given all the terrorist attacks, rape victims, murders, etc., that have happened here and abroad, it is smart to ensure the refugees coming in are not terrorists themselves. I thin you are mixing the two. Assuming that people who want to be safe are xenophobes or racists, when the vast majority of them are not saying they don’t want to accept refugees, but rather put a process in place to ensure or mitigate terrorists from coming in. You are suggesting that we should put aside ANY concern for our own safety and allow anyone who wants to come in, come in, because to do otherwise means we are a racist or a xenophobe.
I understand that people want a better life and I am all for it. Truthfully, it’s our policies and actions that have thrown the middle east into chaos and therefore in part should be r responsible. We don’t belong there and we should have never gone there, but as you can clearly see with every country accepting refugees crimes, rapes, murders, terrorists attacks, etc. are going through the roof. If you can ensure that won’t happen, I’m for it.
That’s what the majority of people are saying, not the twisted words or false implications that the mainstream media is saying. They love to spin everything into a direction that does not exist. Trump said himself, clarifying that he does NOT want to ban all Muslims, only screen them to ensure the safety of the country. There is nothing wrong with that.
I bet that Trump won’t be kicking the Saudi Royals out of their luxury mansions in Beverley Hills, will he?
http://qz.com/568178/donald-trump-owes-much-of-his-fortune-to-wea/
“That’s because Trump’s real estate and licensing income relies in part on wealthy Muslims, and Muslim-backed businesses, both located in the US and overseas—and particularly on a willingness to pay handsomely for things with the “Trump” name on them. Here’s a look at some of the more prominent deals and partnerships with Muslim individuals, governments, and companies that have buoyed the Trump brand over the years.”
Trump is just a blowhard self-promoter who uses race-baiting and religion-baiting to whip up hate and fear among his disenfranchised white supporters.
Straw man tactic, you are trying to prove a point that has nothing to do with my point. I frankly don’t care how Trump has made his money. I am not even a Trump fan, and I am ashamed of the things that our government has done across the world. I am even for taking refugees, but only if, there is a vetting process to ensure the safety of our country. You can see statistically (documented fact) that where refugees are being accepted with out any sort of vetting process crime, theft, murder, rape and terrorist acts are significantly increasing. Unacceptable.
By the way, “disenfranchised white supporters” is not the only ones supporting Trump. You might want to look at the make up of Trump supporters… There is numerous African American and Latin American supporters ranging from every day joes to political figures. What their tired of is the establishment and the status quo. I can’t blame them. Everyone of the candidates is in the back pocket of the establishment except for Trump, I can see the appeal. He’s not my choice, but I can see why people would vote Trump. Not because they like him, but because they hate the establishment that much.
“he does NOT want to ban all Muslims, only screen them to ensure the safety of the country. ”
According to the FBI over 93% of the terrorist attacks in the USA are by non-Muslims, so should we block all Christians and Jews from entering the United States until we can ” figure out what is going on”? And since we face far, FAR less threat from Muslims, logic would dictate that we allow them in.
https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005/terror02_05#terror_05sum
I’m guessing that inconvenient fact doesn’t jibe with the “politically correct” rightwing narrative that pretends that you’re more likely to be murdered by Muslim terrorists than Judeo-Christian terrorists.
Your statistics are from 2002 to 2005 and are not current. Furthermore, the war was just getting started and the ramifications of what the CIA calls “blow back” wasn’t in full force. You can clearly see a significant increase in all sorts of crimes in countries that are accepting refugees without any sort of process. And typically when a terrorist attack happens like 9/11 or Paris, it’s never small in the damage it does.
Lastly, I would say that anyone coming into the US and wanting to live here should go through a vetting process regardless of who they are. It’s smart to do and it ensures the safety of the country.
Again, I’m not against it, I’m just for being smart and ensuring the chaos that is happening over there isn’t brought over here.
But the actual % people killed by Muslim terrorists I’d easy higher than any other group. But you keep using your selective stats.
Can you provide the link where Trump says that he is not looking to ban Muslims , but just to screen them . I am sure no such statement was ever made by him. It is just a figment of your imagination.
As far as the screening of refugees goes, it is very thorough and stringent. First the UN refugee organisations screen the prospective refugees for months, and then the individual countries do their own screening. The whole process can take up to 2 yrs.
So the excuse of not taking these desperate refugees because they might be terrorists, is absolutely an excuse for bigotry . If a terrorist wanted to come into the US, he can come in via the tourist visa program. Millions of tourists come to the US every year, and they are not screened for years before arriving.
Only slightly OT, the following is a speech (very possibly) written by William Shakespeare from a multi-authored play about Sir Thomas More, in which More calms rioters who were looting and destroying property in an attempt to expel foreigners from London.
Since all of the hostile crap going on in the Middle East for the last 15 years has been for the benefit of Israel’s sense of ‘security’, all refugees from that area should be sent there.
Because, of course – “Never again!”
I missed a documentary on Hitler that was on History tonight.
Great.
First we need to wipe out the threat of ISIS then mind our own business.
We are already the highest contributor to the UN refugee agencies, almost more than everyone else combined.
Don’t need to import more problems from 6000 miles away.
“First we need to wipe out the threat of ISIS”
Yes, because we showed such extraordinary talent in creating ISIS through “Shock n’ Awe”, what we should do now is draw up plans on “How To Wipe Out ISIS” and everything will be teh awesome!
“Don’t need to import more problems from 6000 miles away”
So, as nation of immigrants whose white flight from Europe has ended, it’s time to tear the words off the Statue of Liberty that say, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Because that was from a simpler time unlike the much “scarier” time we’re living in now, right? We’ve never faced anything like the extraordinarily minor threat of terrorism that has reduced so many grown men in this country to invertebrate worms.
And even though according to the FBI over 93% of the terrorism committed in the USA is by non-Muslims (ie. Judeo-Christians), we can’t take a chance on allowing infants, children, and elderly refugees into our once great nation! We need to make America great again by making it a hollowed out, cowardly, nation of namby-pamby, wimps scared of their own shadow. Our founders would be so proud!
If only there a realistic way of reducing the fear of all of the women and children victimized by the cowardice of those bankers, military defense firm CEOs, and bigoted racist politicians so that they could teach all of the men who’ve turned into such invertebrate wusses back into human beings who aren’t bigoted racist war criminals. I really do wish that, by the way.
“First we need to wipe out the threat of ISIS”- you remind me of the old joke about the recipe for rabbit stew:
“first…catch a rabbit!”
ladies and gentleman, the prototypical Trump supporter!
Uh Zap, we created ISIS when we invaded Iraq and destroyed that nation. Then we did a repeat in Libya. ISIS was born in Iraq and is now terrorizing people in a Libya we also destabilized.
The ISIS we created is also sending refugees fleeing out of Syria.
So, given that we “imported” hell into the Middle East that has created thousands of refugees, the very least we can do is to accept them in the U.S.
The very least.
This bill and Obama’s version are good examples of how human beings
are seen as commodities in a commercial transaction
because all of the warmongering and promoting of “terrorism”
around the globe is part of the (“Free”) trade policies which
are necessary to insure private accumulation of monetary wealth,
which is the over-riding priority in the fake U$A.
This shows that the “judiciary committee” operates
under a commercial mentality where justice is rationed
like other commodities and the markets determine
value.
It is the same in the white house and the congress.
The Treasury department has the final say.
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/18/sheldon-adelsons-israeli-tabloid-crush-donald-trump/
Nobody imagines that GOP presidents had any sympathy for the plight of refugees. The United States needed workers, and refugees helped keep down general wages. Now with 11 million undocumented immigrants, that need simply doesn’t exist.
In addition, wars in the Middle East spur arms sales and make those countries increasingly dependent on selling oil, even at low prices, just to meet their basic needs. While these things are good for the US economy, the new refugees might view them unfavorably – potentially making it harder for them to integrate into American society.
So unless someone can demonstrate how accepting refugees will increase profit margins, any deal appears to be stymied.
“historically GOP presidents have had welcoming asylum policies towards people fleeing conflicts”
Hahaha! Who is this Jennifer Quigley of Human Rights First? Where did she get her education, Trump University?
5 Years of mandatory military service, or 5 years of mandatory public service in a federally sponsored infrastructure rebuilding program akin the civilian conservation corp..
I disagree with you on some of the details, but the main issue is on your side: prohibiting people from becoming refugees “merely” because their country is a war zone is contrary to the whole idea of refugees in the first place. I’m all for trying to find a way to make them comfortable somewhere outside the U.S., but there won’t be any progress toward that goal if the legislators imagine they’re just going to shove them on an airplane and send them back to the war zone. Perhaps even more alarming is the denial of refugee status for anything other than the listed factors.
For example, the last time the Cold War was on people would defect from Eastern bloc countries seeking prosperity in the U.S., but doing so was a crime there. Under this law, if we found that they did not state opinions while they were there that put them at immediate risk of prosecution, then the mere fact they could be prosecuted for fleeing would not bar us from returning them.
I’m not even clear on whether Iranians sentenced to death for same-sex relations would be eligible, as these were actions, not membership in a “social group”!
That said, there are some lesser parts of the bill that don’t seem that unreasonable. Provided that “resettlement of a refugee may not be provided for” refers to federal monetary aid only, and not some scheme to jail refugees who cross the wrong line, it makes some sense to withhold a federal program from communities that explicitly ask not to be part of it. There will always be SOMEBODY who takes the money and the immigrants, and it makes sense to let communities have some control so they go in areas where population loss is an issue, not population growth. I also see nothing unreasonable about a “discriminatory” religious provision that says it’s legitimate to give Jews emigrating from Nazi Germany a spot at the front of the line. That just sounds like common sense.
This is disgusting. I am ashamed of our lawmakers.