Refugee Agency's Description of Refugees is Disturbing

Clementine

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Dec 18, 2011
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They are trying to convince companies to hire refugees. Never mind that millions of Americans are unemployed. And then they make suggestions to the companies on how to deal with refugees and these tips contradict the positive image they are trying to paint. For instance, they claim that refugees are punctual, then later explain that they have no conception of time. I am wondering if companies will be pressured to hire them. They are given incentives for hiring them and, of course, it will cost the tax payers. We are broke and can't help our vets and elderly, but Obama can find money for fellow Muslims.

"TWIN FALLS, IDAHOā€”The Idaho Office For Refugees wants to sell employers on hiring refugees but actually ends up giving very contradictoryā€”and sometimes downright frighteningā€”information on potential refugee hires in their official publications.

Twin Falls is in many ways typical of rural small town America, and in an age where Hillary Clinton is planning to massively increase the number of refugees if elected, Twin Falls is acting as a mirror for what many Americans are facing. Breitbart News has reported on the economic motivation for the refugee influx in the recent piece Twin Falls Refugee Rape Special Report: Why Are The Refugees Moving In?

Recent crimes involving refugees have brought national focus to Twin Falls, as some local residents worry that the refugee resettlement program has been forced on Twin Falls without proper oversight or public debate. From the sexual assault on the five-year-old girl allegedly perpetrated by refugee boys said to be from Iraq and Sudan, to the the recent charges that an African molested a 33-year-old retarded woman and the arrest of a refugee for coming back to Twin Falls to kill people that heā€™d met in the refugee program, people are asking who these refugees are.

The Idaho Office for Refugees has some answersā€¦and they arenā€™t pretty.

Idaho is one of fourteen states that have withdrawn from the federal refugee resettlement program. Refugees are currently resettled there by voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) and their local affiliates (College of Southern Idaho and Idaho Office for Refugees) under the statutorily questionable Wilson-Fish alternative program.

On one hand, the Idaho Office for Refugees describes refugees as "pre-drug tested, punctual, reliable and honest, trustworthy, quick learners and very positive."

That same organization, however, also provides a brochure to employers giving descriptions as to how to interact with their cultures.

Even the hiring process or a job interview is fraught with dangers that might trigger a refugee. As the Handbook explains:

Some refugees suffer from PTSD (postā€traumatic stress disorder) from their excruciating experiences of leaving their country, torture, violence, separation from loved ones and time spent in refugee camps.
Triggers for PTSD can involve
ā€“ Panels (like at an interview or meeting), which can be reminiscent of a torture or interrogation session

The brochure also provides a culture-by-culture description that explains to employers how they need to adjust to the refugees. Rather than reassuring future bosses that the refugees they might hire have been told that since they are in America, they need to adjust to America society, the brochureā€”worth reading in its entiretyā€”makes it clear prospective employers are going to be dealing with workers who view the world very differently.

Take, for example, the description of the Sudanese, one of the groups that Twin Falls has been importing:

Cooperation within the group is critical, and it is considered taboo to promote oneā€™s self interest above the community interests. One Sudanese case manager notes that the most important cultural note for the Sudanese is to learn the importance of time in the U.S. (e.g., making and keeping appointments and following schedules). A Nuer source said the Sudanese do not accept the concept of "no." They may need guidance setting realistic goals, managing time and making decisions.

How does that description of "doesnā€™t understand the concept of no" work out in practice?

The Nuer people mentioned by the Idaho Office for Refugees are an ethnic group concentrated in South Sudan. As the Associated Press and NBC recently reported:

The soldier pointed his AK-47 at the female aid worker and gave her a choice.

"Either you have sex with me, or we make every man here rape you and then we shoot you in the head," she remembers him saying.

She didnā€™t really have a choice. By the end of the evening, she had been raped by 15 South Sudanese soldiers.

Twin Falls has also been importing refugees from Eritrea and Burmaā€¦but donā€™t look them in the eye. As the official brochure from the Idaho Office for Refugees warns you:

Eritrea
Roughly half of Eritreans are Muslims and half are Christians. Eye contact in the first encounter is generally viewed as a sign of disrespect; avoiding eye contact and looking away are considered as virtues equated to reverence.

How about the Burmese?

Direct eye contact can be another cultural difference, as looking a speaker in the eye can be considered an act of challenge.

Okay, so we wonā€™t look them in the eye. Letā€™s just keep it friendly and ask about the wife and kids, yes? No. Bad Move.

In the section on Iraqā€™s culture, which they describe as valuing "patriarchal" society, the brochure states:

In Muslim society, there is a much greater difference between public and private behavior than in Western societies. In traditional families, it is an invasion of privacy, for example, for a man to ask another man how his wife is; one asks instead how his family in general is, or how his children are.

So, donā€™t ask an Iraqi about the wife. And REALLY donā€™t ask an Afghan. In the section on Afghanistan, it says:

It is considered a breach of manners among liberal Afghans, and an act requiring revenge among conservatives, for a man to express interest of any sort in another manā€™s female relatives.

No word from the Office about whether the Afghans imported are "conservative" or "liberal" so youā€™re on your own to figure out if you were just rude or whether someone is going to seek revenge.

How about the simplest of actsā€”giving instructions to employees and making sure they understand those instructions. Good luck with that one, as the handbook makes clear:

In some cultures, saving face is very important, and some refugees might agree and say yes automatically in response to directions or questions when they might not fully understand. Conversely, some refugees might say no when they do understand things as an act of modesty, so as not to seem like they are bragging.

But at least they will show up on time, right? After all, refugees are described as "punctual." Not so much, as the brochure describes like an ethnic studies teacher explaining multiculturalism to their freshman class:

In Western culture, time is seen as a limited resource which is constantly being used up. In other cultures, time is more plentiful, if not infinite.

In timeā€limited cultures, punctuality is extremely important. It is insulting to waste someoneā€™s time, because "time is money."

In cultures where time is plentiful, like India or Latin America, this is not the case. To avoid misunderstandings, communicate clearly to employees that punctuality is imperative for your business, and communicate expectations about being on time.

Remember: all of these descriptions come from a brochure telling people why they SHOULD hire refugees, not a racist screed written by Nazis.

So, why hire a refugee? The brochure makes that clear, too: money.

Agency For New Americans Idaho (ANAIdaho) has created a summary of the incentives available to employers looking to hire refugees. On a federal level, many businesses can take advantage of a Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), which offers a tax credit of up to $2,400 per refugee. Additionally, according to ANAIdaho "the Idaho Department of Labor pays up to 50% of a refugeeā€™s salary up to $5,000 for an agreed upon period of training," as well as "the full salary for up to 520 hours of supplemental employment for a refugee."

The cost to taxpayers doesnā€™t stop there, however.

The local refugee resettlement center explains that the refugees themselves receive many thousands of dollars to support their first eight months in Idaho. If flying in from Salt Lake City they will be met at the airport by a refugee resettlement coordinator. The refugees will be taken to an apartment "furnished with both required and additional items" with enough "culturally appropriate" food to last for three days; the next day they are given their first check and driven to the bank. Usually within two days of arriving they will be brought into an office to be given information about the town and how to integrate into the culture, and upon leaving are then "offered a trip around town to do follow-up food shopping."

Within the first 90 days of their arrival, the refugeesā€™ apartment deposit and first monthā€™s rent will be paid for as well as "a week or two of food ā€” depending on the size of the family." This totals $1,125 per person, all money used by the Refugee Center and provided by the U.S. Department of State.

After these first thirty days and until they hit a certain income level or eight months have elapsed ā€” whichever comes first ā€” the refugees will be provided a certain amount of money per month: "one person receives $382 monthly, and a family of four receives $782. For one person, the case is closed once he or she earns $637 per month; or $1,303 for a family of four." This money comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The refugees also become eligible for a matching grant after their first 30 days. This is equivalent to "$200 per adult and $40 per child per month. Refugees are also eligible to receive lump sums of $150 periodically, such as 120 days after arrival." The refugees are also given assistance maintaining extended employment for up to five years. As Zeze Rwasama, director of the College of Southern Idaho Refugee Center, says: "the Refugee Center helps them try to resolve any issues with those jobs, such as working conditions or conflicts with management."

Conflictsā€¦like making eye contact or asking about someoneā€™s wife. Welcome to the exciting world of refugee employment."





http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/08/17/read-the-scary-descriptions-of-refugees-by-idaho-refugee-agency/
 
Muslims given preferential immigration status...
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US Refugee Admissions From Around the World: 45.9% Muslims, 43.5% Christians
August 23, 2016 ā€“ As the Obama administration races towards its goal of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States this fiscal year, its overall refugee admission program has opened the door to more Muslims than Christians from around the world.
As of Monday, the U.S. had admitted a total of 66,480 refugees from 74 countries since the beginning of FY 2016 last October. Of those, 30,543 (45.94 percent) are Muslims and 28,973 (43.58 percent) are Christians. According to the Pew Research Center, this is the first time in a decade that the U.S. has admitted more Muslim refugees than Christians. The large number of Muslim refugees is attributable to sizeable contingents from Syria (9,322 Muslims out of a total of 9,389 refugees), Somalia (7,524 Muslims of a total of 7,528 refugees), and Iraq (6,276 Muslims of a total of 7,742 refugees.)

Meanwhile, the largest share of Christians among the refugees admitted in FY 2016 include those from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (10,477 Christians of a total of 11,180 refugees), Burma (6,761 Christians of a total of 10,747 refugees), Eritrea (1,400 Christians of a total of 1,686 refugees), and Bhutan (1,100 Christians of a total of 4,954 refugees.) Apart from Muslims and Christians, larger groups among the remaining FY 2016 refugees include 2,642 Buddhists (the majority from Burma and Bhutan), 1,652 Hindus (most from Bhutan), 458 Bahaā€™i (most from Iran) and 293 Yazidi (from Iraq and Syria).

syria-refugeesap1.jpg

According to State Department Refugee Processing Center data, the sectarian breakdown of the 30,543 Muslim refugees admitted this fiscal year is:

--14,241 Sunnis, including 9,229 from Syria and 3,590 from Iraq;

--3,904 Shiā€™a, including 2,472 Iraqis and 1,141 Afghans;

--12,116 refugees self-reported simply as ā€œMoslem,ā€ including 7,090 from Somalia and 2,614 from Burma;

--268 Ahmadi Muslims, all from Pakistan (a country whose constitution does not recognize Ahmadis as Muslims and whose penal code criminalizes Ahmadi worship); and

14 ā€œMoslem Ismaiciā€ from Afghanistan (probably refers to Ismailis, a branch of Shiā€™a Islam.)

Among Christian refugees, the largest contingents include:

--12,299 described simply as ā€œChristian,ā€ including large groups from Burma, Bhutan and the DRC;

--4,569 Pentecostals, many from the DRC and Ukraine;

--3,360 Catholics, about half of them from the DRC; and

--2,098 Protestants, more than half of them from the DRC.

Data on refugeesā€™ self-reported religious affiliation is only available from FY 2002 onward.

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Muslims given preferential immigration status...
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US Refugee Admissions From Around the World: 45.9% Muslims, 43.5% Christians
August 23, 2016 ā€“ As the Obama administration races towards its goal of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States this fiscal year, its overall refugee admission program has opened the door to more Muslims than Christians from around the world.
As of Monday, the U.S. had admitted a total of 66,480 refugees from 74 countries since the beginning of FY 2016 last October. Of those, 30,543 (45.94 percent) are Muslims and 28,973 (43.58 percent) are Christians. According to the Pew Research Center, this is the first time in a decade that the U.S. has admitted more Muslim refugees than Christians. The large number of Muslim refugees is attributable to sizeable contingents from Syria (9,322 Muslims out of a total of 9,389 refugees), Somalia (7,524 Muslims of a total of 7,528 refugees), and Iraq (6,276 Muslims of a total of 7,742 refugees.)

Meanwhile, the largest share of Christians among the refugees admitted in FY 2016 include those from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (10,477 Christians of a total of 11,180 refugees), Burma (6,761 Christians of a total of 10,747 refugees), Eritrea (1,400 Christians of a total of 1,686 refugees), and Bhutan (1,100 Christians of a total of 4,954 refugees.) Apart from Muslims and Christians, larger groups among the remaining FY 2016 refugees include 2,642 Buddhists (the majority from Burma and Bhutan), 1,652 Hindus (most from Bhutan), 458 Bahaā€™i (most from Iran) and 293 Yazidi (from Iraq and Syria).

syria-refugeesap1.jpg

According to State Department Refugee Processing Center data, the sectarian breakdown of the 30,543 Muslim refugees admitted this fiscal year is:

--14,241 Sunnis, including 9,229 from Syria and 3,590 from Iraq;

--3,904 Shiā€™a, including 2,472 Iraqis and 1,141 Afghans;

--12,116 refugees self-reported simply as ā€œMoslem,ā€ including 7,090 from Somalia and 2,614 from Burma;

--268 Ahmadi Muslims, all from Pakistan (a country whose constitution does not recognize Ahmadis as Muslims and whose penal code criminalizes Ahmadi worship); and

14 ā€œMoslem Ismaiciā€ from Afghanistan (probably refers to Ismailis, a branch of Shiā€™a Islam.)

Among Christian refugees, the largest contingents include:

--12,299 described simply as ā€œChristian,ā€ including large groups from Burma, Bhutan and the DRC;

--4,569 Pentecostals, many from the DRC and Ukraine;

--3,360 Catholics, about half of them from the DRC; and

--2,098 Protestants, more than half of them from the DRC.

Data on refugeesā€™ self-reported religious affiliation is only available from FY 2002 onward.

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The U.N. is calling the shots.

I think the number of Christians being approved is way smaller now than ever before. It's been described as seeding Muslims all over the world, apparently to ensure diversity and acceptance of Islam.

Problem is that the Muslims aren't always accepting of their non-Muslim hosts. And many have a backwards view of the world.

While agencies are trying to force them on others, they also come with warnings, as mentioned in the OP. There are more things to be warned about than to appreciate with some of them. They see women and children as possessions, undeserving of rights, and subject to punishments for failing to obey. They have made the streets far more dangerous for women. Other countries actually advised women to change their habits, from where they walk to how they dress.

Somehow, the Obama administration thinks it's a good idea to import more people who are against our way of life, especially the freedoms for all, including women.
 
Still, very few refugees are persecuted Christians...
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15% Over Target: 11,491 Syrian Refugees Admitted Already; 0.46% Are Christians
September 12, 2016 ā€“ With three weeks of the fiscal year to go, the Obama administration has exceeded its Syrian refugee admission target by 15 percent, with 11,491 resettled in the United States as of the beginning of this week.
Since President Obamaā€™s goal of 10,000 Syrian refugee admissions in FY 2016 was achieved on August 29, the number continues to pick up steadily. August ended with a new monthly record of 3,189 Syrian refugee arrivals, and a further 751 have been ushered in so far in September: 749 Sunni Muslims; two Catholic Christians. State Department Refugee Processing Center data show that of the now total 11,491 arrivals this fiscal year, the vast majority ā€“ 11,300, or 98.33 percent ā€“ are Sunnis. Just 54 of the 11,491 ā€“ 0.46 percent ā€“ are Christians. They comprise 14 Catholics, six Orthodox, four Protestants, one Greek Orthodox, plus 29 refugees identifying themselves simply as ā€œChristianā€ rather than by denomination or sect. The remaining 137 are made of up of 20 Shiā€™a Muslims, 90 refugees described simply as Muslims, 17 Yazidis, four Jehovahā€™s Witnesses, five refugees identified as ā€œother religion,ā€ and one as having ā€œno religion.ā€

Millions of Syrians of all religious persuasions have fled the civil war that has ravaged their country since mid-2011. At the start of the conflict an estimated 74 percent of Syrians were Sunni and an estimated 10 percent were Christians. Since the civil war began, the U.S. has admitted a total of 13,364 Syrian refugees, of whom 13,019 (97.4 percent) are Sunnis and 102 (0.7 percent) are Christians. The remainder include Shiā€™a Muslims (33), other Muslims (150), Yazidis (18), Jehovahā€™s Witnesses (12), Zoroastrians (6), refugees self-reported as having ā€œno religionā€ (8), refugees identifying themselves as ā€œother religionā€ (11), atheists (3) and Bahaā€™i (2). Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, persecution on the grounds of religion is one of five criteria for determining whether an applicant should be granted refugee status (the others relate to race, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group.)

syria-refugeeunhcr-ap.jpg

The administration has asserted that atrocities against Christians, Yazidis, Shiā€™a and other minorities in areas under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) amount to genocide. Still, calls on the administration to increase the proportion of Christians and other minorities among the Syrian refugees being welcomed into the country have been met by assertions ā€“ from the president, among others ā€“ that the U.S. will not impose a ā€œreligious testā€ on applicants. Obama has yet to announce plans for refugee admissions from Syria for the new fiscal year ā€“ although the administration did announce earlier that global admissions would rise from 85,000 in FY 2016 to 100,000 in FY 2017. He is hosting a leadersā€™ summit on refugees at the United Nations in New York next Tuesday, on the sidelines of the annual General Assembly opening.

That forum will likely provide the platform for Obama to declare a FY 2017 Syrian refugee admission target; the purpose of the event is to encourage all countries to commit more money and to welcome more refugees next year ā€“ with the goal of doubling the total number of admissions worldwide. A third aim is to encourage frontline states to do more to help refugees already located there, granting millions of refugees the right to work legally and their children the right to attend school. Currently the U.N. refugee agency has 4.79 million Syrians registered as refugees, with the largest numbers in Turkey (2.7 million), Lebanon (1.03 million), Jordan (656,000) and Iraq (239,000).

15% Over Target: 11,491 Syrian Refugees Admitted Already; 0.46% Are Christians
 
They're seeding the terrorists into red states, and deliberately, so yes, there is an agenda, and they aren't even pretending to be 'vetting' them. Obama and most Democrats are enthusiastic about a political ideology whose solution for dealing with Christians is genocide and slavery for the few survivors.
 
ā€˜Deception Detection Technologyā€™ Not Used to Screen Refugees...
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DHS Officials Admit They Have Not Used ā€˜Deception Detection Technologyā€™ to Screen Refugees
September 14, 2016 ā€“ At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday titled ā€œShutting Down Terrorist Pathways into America,ā€ officials at the Department of Homeland Security admitted they have not explored the use of (invested in) ā€œdeception detection technologyā€ for screening refugees and other visa applicants despite a law signed last year directing the agency to do so.
Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) said the use of such technology was suggested as part of 32 recommendations by a bipartisan task force for identifying foreign fighters last year ā€“ recommendations that ā€œhave been working their way through Congress and being signed into law.ā€ ā€œOne Iā€™d like to follow up on, which was actually in that law was directing DHS to review and consider investing in deception detection technology. The chairman brought this up. I feel a bit like a broken record. I bring this up at every hearing. I bring it up at every meeting. I bring it up at every classified discussion,ā€ she said. According to McSally, research has shown that ā€œeven the best most highly trained operatives can only detect deception in about 50 percent of the cases when a human being is lying to them.ā€ She said there is ā€œoff-the-shelfā€ deception detection technology ā€“ some of which was developed at the University of Arizona and demonstrated to agencies within the DHS.

McSally said other such technology exists ā€œthat can very cheaply and easily help detect deception while youā€™re doing interviews overseas and other places and all the different ways that could be exploited, whether thatā€™s filling out the ESTA form or doing the K1 interview process.ā€ ESTA stands for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. The form is found on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website and is required to be filled out by ā€œeligible international travelersā€ who wish to travel to the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program. The K1 visa is the fiancĆ© non-immigrant visa for the foreign-citizen fiancĆ© of a U.S. citizen. Tashfeen Malik, the wife of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, traveled to the U.S. on a K1 visa as Farookā€™s fiancĆ©. Malik and Farook killed 14 people when they opened fire on his co-workers on Dec. 2, 2015. They later died in a police shootout.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said in December 2015 that Malikā€™s visa application was not thoroughly vetted, because it did not ā€œshow sufficient evidenceā€ that Malik and Farook met in person as was required on the visa application. ā€œThereā€™s technology out there, and ā€¦ I feel like we are moving at the speed of bureaucracy while the bad guys are moving at the speed of broadband,ā€ McSally said at Wednesdayā€™s Homeland Security Committee hearing. ā€œSo Iā€™m asking again what, since the law was signed last year directing DHS to investigate the use of deception detection technology, what has been done?ā€

ā€œCongresswoman, Iā€™m embarrassed to say that Iā€™m not prepared to answer that question, but I will take it for the record in terms of where we are,ā€ Francis Taylor, DHS under secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, testified. ā€œIā€™m familiar with the work weā€™ve been doing with the Office of Science and Technology in the pilot with the University of Arizona and others on this technology ā€“ something weā€™re very interested in, something we invest a lot in training our personnel on detecting deception, eliciting responses in their questioning, but youā€™re right,ā€ Kevin McAleenan, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at DHS, testified. ā€œAnything that can enhance our capabilities we want, so thatā€™s something that weā€™ll take back and continue to pursue,ā€ McAleenan added.

ā€œThank you. I hear this every time I ask it, just to be frank with you, and I understand. I worked in the military. Itā€™s a big bureaucracy. It doesnā€™t move quickly, but thereā€” especially given the indications that we have with Tashfeen Malik and others that clearly are in interviews lying, I mean this stuff needs to be looked at and employed I think very quickly and thoughtfully,ā€ McSally said. ā€œItā€™s a manpower intensive process that weā€™re trying to do to shore up these vulnerabilities. We get that, but if we can use the technologies to help, weā€™ll really be able to address these vulnerabilities, so Iā€™m kind of a little bit tired of the ā€˜weā€™ll get back to you,ā€™ and I really want to hear a report. Maybe we can have a follow-up meeting, seeing how we can push to implement this in a faster way. Itā€™s in the law,ā€ she added.

DHS Officials Admit They Have Not Used ā€˜Deception Detection Technologyā€™ to Screen Refugees

See also:

White House Goal: 40,000 Additional Refugees from Near East, South Asia
September 15, 2016 ā€“ The U.S. State Department has set a goal of admitting 110,000 refugees to the United States in Fiscal 2017, a 29.4 percent increase from the FY 2016 target of 85,000, ā€œbut at this point, no country-specific targets have been set,ā€ White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday.
ā€œI do have the regional breakdown here,ā€ Earnest continued. ā€œ[T]he regional target for FY 2017 is 40,000 for the Near East and South Asia region.ā€ The Near East includes Middle Eastern countries and northern Africa. South Asia includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and surrounding countries. Earnest said vetting the refugees is ā€œnot cheap,ā€ and he indicated that President Obama might admit even more of them, if only Republicans would provide more money for that purpose: ā€œSo I'm sure the president would be willing to consider increasing this commitment further if Congress were prepared to provide the resources necessary to get it done.ā€

Earnest repeated the administrationā€™s assurance that individuals admitted to the United States as refugees have to undergo more rigorous screening and vetting than any other individual that enters the United States. ā€œThe President places our national security at the top of his priority list,ā€ Earnest said. ā€œAt the same time, the President believes that the United States has a responsibility, as a leader on so many issues around the world, to play an important role in bringing refugees to the United States, and this is something that the President expects to discuss at the U.N. next week.ā€

President Obama plans to host a leadersā€™ summit on refugees on the sidelines of next weekā€™s United Nations General Assembly in New York. Earnest said Obama will ā€œtalk about what more countries around the world can doā€ to alleviate the crisis, as millions of people flee war and famine in their home countries. ā€œThe president is quite proud of the commitments that you have seen from the United States in addressing this issue,ā€ Earnest said. He added that the United States has ā€œramped up our commitment in recent years in a way that reflects the responsibility that the United States has to lead on these difficult issues.ā€ In June, when Obama announced he would lead the summit on refugees, the White House said it would seek to ā€œdoubleā€ the global number of resettled refugees, putting one million more in school and granting one million more the legal right to work. A reporter told Earnest that the 110,000 U.S. refugee goal for 2017 ā€œis not even close to doublingā€ the number of refuges admitted to the U.S., ā€œso Iā€™m wondering, why the limitation?ā€

ā€œI think the context here is important, Earnest replied. He noted that the 110,000 refugees is 57 percent more than the number admitted to the U.S. in Fiscal Year 2015. ā€œSo I think that does represent a substantial increase in our commitment to addressing the refugee problem around the world.ā€ Earnest added that the U.S. is the largest donor of humanitarian relief to countries that are resettling Syrian refugees; and he said the U.S. admits more refugees through the U.N. refugee program than the rest of the countries in the world combined. ā€œThat, I think, is an additional indication of just how committed the United States is to fulfilling our responsibility here. But I think what we need to see is a greater commitment around the world to not just shunting this burden off to a handful of countries. ā€œAnd I think the other reality here is that the president's commitment to ensuring that the United States plays a leading role on this issue is not shared by a lot of people in Congress, including by a lot of people in the Republican majority in Congress.

White House Goal: 40,000 Additional Refugees from Near East, South Asia
 
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10 countries with the most displaced people...
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More than half of the worldā€™s 21 million refugees live in these 10 countries
3 Oct.`16 - Wealthy nations are shirking their responsibility to refugees and exacerbating the global crisis, according to a report published Monday by Amnesty International.
The report, ā€œTackling the global refugee crisis: From shirking to sharing responsibility,ā€ calls on some nations to increase the number of refugees they host so that no single country is overwhelmed. The nations hosting the bulk of refugees are Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethiopia, Chad, Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Amnesty. The human rights organization said more than half of the worldā€™s 21 million refugees live in those countries. But those nations account for less than 2.5% of the worldā€™s GDP, the monetary value in goods and services produced by countries, creating a situation that is ā€œinherently unsustainable.ā€ About 30 countries offer some kind of refugee resettlement program, according to the report. ā€œWealthier countries are not doing their fair share,ā€ said Tarah Demant, senior director of the identity and discrimination unit at Amnesty International USA. ā€œWeā€™re looking at a global crisis that affects everybody, but the burden of responsibility is falling on countries that donā€™t have the resources.ā€

The report does not suggest a specific resettlement number for any country. But Amnesty International was among several rights groups that supported a United Nations proposal this year to resettle 10% of the worldā€™s refugees annually. Human rights groups lambasted wealthier nations for rejecting the target. The Amnesty report says determining what would be a countryā€™s ā€œfair shareā€ for resettlement could be based on criteria such as national wealth, population and unemployment numbers. Other considerations could be a countryā€™s safety record, its existing claims by refugees seeking asylum and whether refugees would have access to the same judicial processes and protections as the host population, Demant said. The report acknowledges that this solution probably would be ā€œcondemned by some as too simplistic.ā€ But ā€œnot by those countries that are hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees,ā€ the report says.

According to the report, refugees on all continents face crushing challenges such as living in makeshift shelters without adequate food, water and sanitation facilities, as well as detention and persecution. Many ā€œare living in grinding poverty without access to basic services and without hope for the future,ā€ the report says. ā€œNot surprisingly, many are desperate to move elsewhere.ā€ But as things currently stand, their chances of being resettled in wealthy, industrialized nations are slim. Many of the worldā€™s wealthiest nations host the fewest refugees, ā€œboth in absolute numbers and relative to their size and wealth,ā€ according to the report. The United Kingdom, for example, has accepted about 8,000 Syrians since 2011, while ā€” according to the latest U.N. statistics ā€” more than 670,000 Syrians are registered as refugees in Jordan. The Arab kingdom has a population almost 10 times smaller than Britain and just 1.2% of its GDP, Amnesty said.

Most of the almost 5 million people who have fled Syria since the civil war started more than five years ago live in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, according to U.N. data. The U.S. has taken in nearly 12,000 Syrian refugees since the start of the conflict, according to U.S. State Department figures. Roger Waldinger, director of the Center for the Study of International Migration at UCLA, said rich nations have an obligation to take in refugees because they are signatories to the U.N. convention on refugees and ā€œthey have all accepted the doctrine of not sending them back.ā€ ā€œIt is in their interest to bind themselves into an agreement to take more refugees,ā€ said Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Global Development. ā€œIt is in their interest to show they stand for principles of common humanity.ā€

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