Thread: Obama admin unilaterally changes law to allow immigrants with ‘limited’ terror contac

Obama admin unilaterally changes law to allow immigrants with ‘limited’ terror contact into US

5:21 PM 02/05/2014
Caroline May
The Daily Caller



The Obama administration has issued new exemptions to a law that bars certain asylum-seekers and refugees who provided “limited material support” to terrorists who are believed to pose no threat from the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department published the new exemptions Wednesday in the Federal Register to narrow a ban in the Immigration and Nationality Act excluding refugees and asylum seekers who had provided assistance, no matter how minor, to terrorists.

“These exemptions cover five kinds of limited material support that have adversely and unfairly affected refugees and asylum seekers with no tangible connection to terrorism: material support that was insignificant in amount or provided incidentally in the course of everyday social, commercial, family or humanitarian interactions, or under significant pressure,” a DHS official explained to The Daily Caller.

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry signed the exemptions.

DHS contends that the law change is “commonsense” and that immigration procedures will remain the same in other respects.

“In addition to rigorous background vetting, including checks coordinated across several government agencies, these exemptions will only be applied on a case-by-case basis after careful review and all security checks have cleared,” the official added. “This exemption process is vital to advancing the U.S. government’s twin goal of protecting the world’s most vulnerable persons while ensuring U.S. national security and public safety.”

While the administration says the rule change is reasonable, former State Department official and current director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies Jessica Vaughan questioned the administration’s right to unilaterally change the law.

“[T]here is a very legitimate question as to whether the administration actually has the authority to change the law in this way,” Vaughan wrote in an email to TheDC. “It seems to me that they are announcing that they will be disregarding yet another law written by Congress that they don’t like and are replacing it with their own guidelines, which in this case appear to be extremely broad and vague, and which are sure to be exploited by those seeking to game our generous refugee admissions program.”

While Vaughan conceded that there are a number of immigrants seeking protection who have been denied due to unintentional contact with terrorists, she sees the exemptions as likely another opportunity for people to get around the system.

“If the recent past is any guide, those evaluating these cases will be ordered to ignore red flags in the applications, especially if the applicant is supported by one of the many advocacy groups that have the ear of senior DHS staff,” she explained. “The administration already approves of the admission of gang members as asylees and criminals in the DACA program and grants of prosecutorial discretion, so I don’t expect them to be troubled by the admission of terrorists and garden variety fraudsters in our refugee program. This is how we end up with families like the Tsarnaev brothers [the Boston marathon bombers], who were originally admitted for political asylum.”

On the other side of the spectrum, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy cheered the changes to that law passed by Congress following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

According to Leahy’s office, the senator has been pushing for such exemptions for years.

“The existing interpretation was so broad as to be unworkable. It resulted in deserving refugees and asylees being barred from the United States for actions so tangential and minimal that no rational person would consider them supporters of terrorist activities,” the Vermont Democrat said in a statement. “These changes help return our nation to its historic role as a welcoming sanctuary to the world’s most vulnerable populations. It is long past time to return common-sense to our refugee and asylum laws and these new exemptions are an important step in that process.”

There are the types of asylum or refugee status seekers who would have been previously barred from entering the U.S., according to DHS include:

1) Individuals who provided small or inconsequential amounts of support without an intent to further any terrorist or violent activities, such as a refugee who gave a bowl of rice to a member of an opposition group.

2) Individuals who, in the ordinary course of business transactions or social or family interactions, have incidentally provided support with no intent of abetting violent or terrorist activity. For instance, an owner of a restaurant who serves food to any paying customer, even though he knows some of them are members of an opposition group; or a mother or father who-as any parent would-fed and clothed their young adult child, even when they knew their child is part of a resistance movement.

3) Individuals who have provided certain humanitarian assistance – for example, an aid worker who handed out bottled water and blankets to victims of a natural disaster or those displaced by civil conflict, some of whom happen to be members of an opposition group.

4) Individuals who have provided support under significant pressure that does not quite rise to the level of duress (for which there are already exemptions in place), but that is significant enough that anyone in the same situation would see no reasonable alternative and would do the same. We have seen, for example, a farmer who regularly pays a toll to a resistance group in order to cross a bridge to take his food to market, or a Syrian refugee who pays an opposition group to gain safe passage out of Syria.

Vaughan pointed out that in some cases, only the word of the individual would be used to make a determination.

“In my experience as a former State Dept. consular official, I know that there are some qualified applicants that get excluded because we cannot be sure if they are truly associated with terrorist or criminal groups, but it is better to err on the side of caution when it comes to national security and public safety,” she explained. “After all, there are usually other resettlement options for these people – they don’t have to come to the U.S., even if that’s what they want.”

And while the changes will affect those seeking protection in the short term, the manner in which the Obama administration changed the law will not be lost on Republican skeptics of immigration reform in the long term.

“This glaring end-run around Congress underscores that immigration reform is doomed to failure,” a Senate GOP aide told TheDC.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/05/ob...rists-into-us/

'limited terror contact'

February 6, 2014
Corruption Chronicles
Judicial Watch

As if President Obama’s backdoor amnesty weren’t bad enough, the administration just issued an official order allowing the U.S. to take in once-banned refugees and asylum seekers who have provided “limited material support” to terrorists.

With the stroke of a few pens—those belonging to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry—the nation’s zero tolerance for any sort of terrorism-related support has vanished. It also marks yet another alarming example of a president who changes or replaces laws passed by Congress when he doesn’t like them. Besides immigration, we’ve seen this in the selective enforcement of Obamacare.

This week the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department issued an “Exercise of Authority” to tweak the Immigration and Nationality Act, implemented decades ago to govern immigration and citizenship in the United States. The law includes a ban on admitting refugees and asylum seekers who may have provided terrorists with any sort of material support, even the kind that may be considered trivial by some. In other words, the federal law rightfully had a zero tolerance for any kind of involvement with terrorist elements.

Not anymore and we have Obama and his minions to thank for it. Under the new rules “an alien who provided limited material support” to a terrorist organization won’t be banned from staying in the U.S. if—get this—they are believed to pose no threat. No word on who determines that. The new exemptions are posted in the Federal Register, which few people bother reading, but thankfully a conservative political news publication wrote about it this week (link to article at beginning of this thread). Don’t expect to see much coverage in the traditional mainstream media.

Here is an amusing quote from a DHS official explaining the change in the story: “These exemptions cover five kinds of limited material support that have adversely and unfairly affected refugees and asylum seekers with no tangible connection to terrorism: material support that was insignificant in amount or provided incidentally in the course of everyday social, commercial, family or humanitarian interactions, or under significant pressure.” Never thought a Homeland Security official would deem any material support for terrorism “insignificant.”

Specifically, the new exemptions will grant asylum to individuals who provided small or inconsequential amounts of support to terrorism without the intent to further any terrorist or violent activities. This includes individuals who, in the ordinary course of business transactions or social interactions, incidentally provided support with no intent of abetting violent or terrorist activity. It also covers humanitarian assistance and support for terrorists “under significant pressure that does not quite rise to the level of duress.”

The exemptions will be granted on a case-by-case basis, the new rules say. Of interesting note is how this all came about. According to the Exercise of Authority, it was created after Attorney General Eric Holder, Kerry and Johnson had a big powwow, officially referred to as “consultations.” They determined that it’s not fair to “bar certain aliens who do not pose a national security or public safety risk from admission to the United States and from obtaining immigration benefits or other status.”

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/20...upport-asylum/

5:31 PM 02/06/2014
Caroline May
The Daily Caller



The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee expressed deep concern over the Obama administration’s change to immigration law, allowing those who have provided “limited material support” to terrorists the access to the United States.

According to Chairman Bob Goodlatte, the new policy amounts to another loophole in the nation’s immigration system.

“This loophole provides bad actors an opportunity to easily manufacture reasons that ‘forced’ them to provide material support to terrorists,” Goodlatte said in a statement Thursday. “With today’s national security threats, why would we ever willingly loosen our immigration laws to allow those who have helped terrorists game the system? The Obama administration should not weaken our laws so that those who have supported terrorists can take advantage of them.”

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State published the new exemptions in the Federal Register to narrow a ban in the Immigration and Nationality Act excluding refugees and asylum seekers who had provided limited material support to terrorists.

“These exemptions cover five kinds of limited material support that have adversely and unfairly affected refugees and asylum seekers with no tangible connection to terrorism: material support that was insignificant in amount or provided incidentally in the course of everyday social, commercial, family or humanitarian interactions, or under significant pressure,” a DHS official explained to The Daily Caller at the time.

Goodlatte, however, called the exemptions “naïve” given current terror threats, and pointed out the goal should be keeping Americans safe.

“President Obama should be protecting U.S. citizens rather than taking a chance on those who are aiding and abetting terrorist activity and putting Americans at greater risk,” he added.

He concluded by saying the “administration is abusing the powers granted it by Congress to provide relief in appropriate cases.”

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/06/go...tion-loophole/

Added Judicial Watch article to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=2...Support-Asylum

Published February 09, 2014
FoxNews.com

The Obama administration's use of an executive directive to ease the rules for people trying to enter the United States or stay in the country even though they have given “limited” support to terrorists or terror groups is causing problems for Republicans working on immigration reform.

"President Obama should be protecting U.S. citizens rather than taking a chance on those who are aiding and abetting terrorist activity and putting Americans at greater risk," says Virginia GOP Rep. Robert Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and part of the GOP House leadership team working on immigration reform.

He and other Republican lawmakers argued that the administration is relaxing rules designed by Congress to protect the country from terrorists.

And Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt on "Fox News Sunday" repeated the concerns of fellow Republicans and others about Obama repeatedly saying that "he can use his pen and his telephone" to work around Congress.

The change is one of Obama's first actions on immigration since he pledged during his State of the Union address last month to use more executive directives.

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department now say that people considered to have provided "limited material support" to terrorists or terrorist groups are no longer automatically barred from the United States.

A post-Sept. 11 provision in immigrant law, known as terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds, had affected anyone considered to have given support to terror groups. With little exception, the provision has been applied rigidly to those trying to enter the U.S. and those already here but wanting to change their immigration status.

The Democrat-controlled Senate last year passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a 13-year path to citizenship to some of the estimated 11 million people now living illegally in the United States. The Republican-led House has shown signs recently about a desire to at least offer legal status for some illegal immigrants, but suggested last week such legislation will not get passed this year.

For Morteza Assadi, a 49-year-old real estate agent in northern Virginia, the law has left him in a sort of immigration purgatory while his green card application has been on hold for more than a decade.

As a teenager in Tehran, Iran, in the early 1980s, Assadi distributed fliers for a mujahedeen group that opposed the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and was at one time considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Assadi said he told the U.S. government about his activities when he and his wife applied for asylum in the late 1990s. Those requests were later granted and his wife has since become a U.S. citizen. But Assadi's case has remained stalled.

"When we are teenagers, we have different mindsets," Assadi said. "I thought, I'm doing my country a favor."

Assadi said he only briefly associated with the group, which was removed from Washington's list of terrorist organizations in 2012, and that he was never an active member or contributor to its activities. Now he's hopeful that the U.S. government will look at his teenage activities as "limited."

His lawyer, Parastoo Zahedi, said she has filed a case in federal court to force U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to process Assadi's green card application, but now hopes the government will act on its own.

"In the past, the minute your name was associated with a [terrorist] organization you were being punished," Zahedi said. "Not every act is a terrorist act and you can't just lump everyone together."

The Homeland Security Department said in a statement that the rule change, which was announced last week and not made in concert with Congress, gives the government more discretion, but won't open the country to terrorists or their sympathizers. People seeking refugee status, asylum and visas, including those already in the United States, still will be checked to make sure they don't pose a threat to national security or public safety, the department said.

In the past, the provision has been criticized for allowing few exemptions beyond providing medical care or acting under duress. The change now allows officials to consider whether the support was not only limited but potentially part of "routine commercial transactions or routine social transactions."

The change does not specifically address "freedom fighters" who may have fought against an established government, including members of rebel groups who have led revolts in Arab Spring uprisings.

In late 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Services said about 4,400 affected cases were on hold as the government reviewed possible exemptions to the rule. It's unclear how many of those cases are still pending.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the rule change will help people he described as deserving refugees and asylum-seekers.

"The existing interpretation was so broad as to be unworkable," Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. He said the previous rule barred applicants for reasons "that no rational person would consider."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...es-for-terror/

by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin 18 Feb 2014, 8:54 AM PDT
breitbart.com



That may sound like a ridiculous question, and it certainly should be. But now President Obama has once again chosen to ignore the laws of the land as he announced an "asylum" program for those who have provided support to terrorists.

On February 5th, The Federal Register, a daily journal of the US government, included an announcement by the US Departments of State and Homeland Security that foreign asylum seekers who had "loose or incidental ties to terror or insurgent groups" would be granted asylum in the United States. Americans were supposed to be comforted by the assurance that there would be a thorough background check on these people before they were allowed to enter the country.

Edward Snowden's background check should be a perfect example of how flawed this background check system is. In reality, our government agencies are very incapable of doing a thorough job at this, due largely to priorities and workloads.

This is a reckless policy done by fiat, and it reflects a total disregard for the seriousness of the threat from Islamic extremists at a time when the administration has made no effort to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Benghazi attacks. The intelligence community has good info on at least some of these attackers. Furthermore, the administration has an incredible history ignoring threats and of going all out to appease terrorists and their supporters in myriad ways.

Remember that the FBI had a record of at least fourteen emails between Maj. Nadal Hassan and a known Islamic extremist Imam, Anwar Al-Awlaki, before the November 2009 Ft. Hood shooting yet did nothing. In December 2009, the administration ignored warnings regarding a young extremist named Umar Abdulmutulab, who tried to blow up a commercial airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. In February 2012, then-FBI director Robert Muller allowed Muslim advocacy groups to purge over a thousand pages related to Islam from the counter-terrorism training curriculum for FBI agents.

Congresswoman Michelle Bachman visited the FBI a few weeks later and reviewed the purged material. She later expressed to several national security specialists that everything that was purged was directly from the Koran and Hadith and that the FBI could not explain why the documents were removed. Also consider the volume of information that the U.S. Government had on the Tsarnaev brothers before the Boston Marathon bombing. Again, it was ignored.

And now we have significant information available about those who killed four brave Americans in Benghazi, yet no action has been taken at the same time that we are announcing that terrorist supporters can legally immigrate to America. Will that include some who supported the attack in Benghazi? Since the administration has shown no inclination to find the whole truth about Benghazi and no actions have been taken to capture or kill the perpetrators, it seems logical to ask whether this new policy will include any of these terrorist supporters.

As a nation, we should all be outraged by this new policy and by the failure to get to the bottom of the Benghazi attacks. Congress has yet to get all the facts out in public about what happened in Benghazi, and no one has been held accountable. The question is why. Anyone who thinks that this problem is just Harry Reid and the Democrats needs to rethink that assessment.

The Republicans are just as culpable, especially Speaker John Boehner. Rep. Frank Wolf called for a special bi-partisan committee with subpoena power (HR 36) to do a thorough investigation of Benghazi over a year ago. Republicans have slowly signed up in support of Wolf's proposal, with 186 signatures on the Resolution now. The problem is that Speaker Boehner refuses to convene this special committee for esoteric reasons, opting instead to use the current committee structure which has had more than adequate time to call in the long list of survivors of Benghazi as well as myriad key military, diplomatic, and CIA personnel.

Why is Boehner stalling? What is he covering up? Will this new policy of asylum for terror supporters eventually allow the killers or their cohorts to enter the U.S. legally? This is an ugly story and one that is getting uglier. Americans cannot forget Benghazi and must rise up in a groundswell of overwhelming outrage over the lack of support for getting to the full story about what happened there, and more importantly, what did not happen. Why wasn't there a rescue attempt by the U.S. military?

We all need to demand support for Rep. Wolf's HR 36, as it is likely the only way to get to the whole truth. Additionally, concerned Americans should be burning up the phone lines demanding that congressional leadership hold the president accountable for this incredible breach of public trust.

Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin is executive vice president at the Family Research Council and was an original member of the U.S. Army’s Delta Force.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2...RATE-TO-THE-US