USCIS OFFICIAL STRUGGLES TO EXPLAIN EFFICACY OF SYRIAN REFUGEES VETTING PROCESS
by CAROLINE MAY
1 Oct 2015
An Obama administration official struggled to quell concerns about the level of vetting Syrian refugees coming to the U.S. receive prior to entry at a Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest hearing Thursday.
In an exchange with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the subcommittee chairman, Matthew Emrich, the associate director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ fraud division, was left speechless several times as the Alabama lawmaker sought assurances that screening processes would be effective.
“I would be happy to — we’d be happy to brief you in another setting on some of the ways that we have to do this,” Emrich said when pressed on the level and reliability of databases to analyze refugee applicants from Syria.
Sessions pressed Emrich to offer the American people assurance that the vetting process will keep them safe, asking “Aren’t you left to basically looking at whatever document [the Syrian refugees] produce in conducting an interview?”
Emrich said, adding that the process also includes an interview:
"I can assure the american people that we have a robust series of screening measures here that encompass the wide range of U.S. government resources that involve U.S. law enforcement agencies and intelligence community members, that these processes and these screening measures are constantly reviewed, that we are continuously looking at ways to improve these, that they incorporate both biometric and biographic checks."
Sessions expressed incredulity at the idea that the vetting process would be effective without comprehensive, verifiable databases. Sessions said:
"Mr. Emrich. there’s no way you can do background checks of any significance. I’m sure we have some intelligence data on a number of people throughout the region, and if you get a hit on that, I’m sure you would reject them. But you have only a minuscule number of people that have been identified, I’m sure, in that fashion. And I don’t believe you you can tell us, with any certainty, that you have an ability to conduct an efficient background check."
He continued, pressing Emrich on whether the administration would have the ability to send an investigator to the region to verify refugees’ claims.
“While we do not have the ability to send an investigator to Syria, we do have resources we can use to verify various elements of someone’s testimony and story,” Emrich responded.
Emrich was not, however, able to offer Sessions assurances that the majority of refugee applicants would be able to be screened against independent, quality databases.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...tting-process/
USCIS OFFICIAL: 90 PERCENT OF SYRIAN REFUGEE APPLICATIONS APPROVED
by CAROLINE MAY
1 Oct 2015
2,300 comments
The Obama administration’s approval rate for accepting Syrian refugees to the U.S. is currently over 90 percent, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service official testified before a Senate panel Thursday.
“Worldwide our average approval rate is about 80 percent,” Barbara Strack, the head the Refugee Affairs Division at USCIS responded when pressed by Sen. David Perdue (R-GA)on the current annual approval rate for refugees.
She noted that Syrian refugees are currently experiencing a higher approval rate.
“Right now it’s higher than [80 percent] for Syrian applicants but it’s likely to come down,” Strack said. “Right now it’s running a little over 90 percent for Syrian applicants but that percentage is based on all the cases that have been decided yes and no, what it leaves out is cases that are still under review or still on hold.”
According to Strack the approval rate is likely to go down as those applications currently on hold are expected to be denied.
“We think a number of those hold cases, when they’re finally decided, are going to turn into denials. So when we have a little more experience with the caseload we expect that the rate will come down somewhat,” she said.
Strack and other administration officials appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest at a hearing examining the fiscal and security implications of the Obama administration’s refugee resettlement program.
Subcomittee Chairman Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) convened the meeting after the Obama administration announced plans to drastically increase the levels of refugees admitted to the U.S. in the coming two years including large numbers from terrorist hot spots like Syria.
Republican lawmakers have raised serious national security concerns about resettling tens of thousands of refugees from dangerous regions with limited vetting resources.
“The economic and physical security of the American people must never be a secondary consideration,” Sessions said at the opening of the hearing. “With workers’ pay stagnant, our entitlement programs on the verge of insolvency, our law enforcement struggling to combat radicalization and increasing violence, and our schools and communities struggling to keep up, voters are rightly wondering about their government’s priorities.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...ions-approved/
