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Obama Administration unilaterally eases restrictions on immigrants with ties to jihad terror groups

Feb 7, 2014 8:36 am By Robert Spencer

Militants of al Shabaab train with weapons on a street in the outskirts of Mogadishu

Honey, the new neighbors are wearing ski masks, waving around AK-47s and screaming “Allahu akbar.” What could possibly go wrong? “Administration eases restrictions on asylum seekers with loose terror ties,” by Judson Berger for FoxNews.com, February 6 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Obama administration has unilaterally eased restrictions on asylum seekers with loose or incidental ties to terror and insurgent groups, in a move one senator called “deeply alarming.”

The change, approved by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry, was announced Wednesday in the Federal Register. It would allow some individuals who provided “limited material support” to terror groups to be considered for entry into the U.S.

Supporters of the change, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., argued that the current ban on anyone who has ever aided terrorists has unfairly blocked thousands of refugees.

“The existing interpretation was so broad as to be unworkable,” Leahy said in a statement. “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.”

But critics say despite the good intentions, the change raises security concerns, particularly after a report published Thursday on asylum fraud.

“In light of these and other facts, it is thus deeply alarming that the Obama administration would move unilaterally to relax admissions standards for asylum seekers and potentially numerous other applicants for admission who have possible connections to insurgent or terrorist groups,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said in a statement on Thursday. “We need to tighten security standards for asylum, not relax them even further.”

Sessions also complained that the administration was, on its own, altering the Immigration and Nationality Act. “What is the point of Congress passing a law if the administration abuses its ‘discretion’ to say that law simply no longer applies?” he said.

The change would apply to people the U.S. government does not consider a threat but could nevertheless be tied to terror groups, and therefore barred from entry. A Department of Homeland Security official said these individuals have been “adversely affected by the broad terrorism bars of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).”

The official offered several examples of how the change might help otherwise innocent refugees — including a restaurant owner who served food to an opposition group; a farmer who paid a toll to such a group in order to cross a bridge or sell his food; or a Syrian refugee who paid an opposition group to get out of the country.

“These exemptions cover discrete kinds of limited material support that have adversely affected refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants and other travelers: material support to non-designated terrorist organizations that was insignificant in amount, provided incidentally in the course of everyday social, commercial, or humanitarian interactions, or provided under significant pressure,” the official said.

The official said the change would let the administration apply the exemptions on a “case-by-case basis” after a review that already includes rigorous security screening. “Our screening procedures check applicants’ names and fingerprints against a broad array of records of individuals known to be security threats, including the terrorist watch list, and those of law enforcement concern,” the official said.

Though the change would apply to those who helped non-designated terror groups, Sessions noted that Al Qaeda, for example, was not officially designated as a foreign terror organization until 1999.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, claimed the change was another effort to maximize the number of people being allowed into the country.

“This administration no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt in making these kinds of rule changes,” he said. “The consequences are potentially dire for … public safety.”

The Washington Times also reported Thursday that a 2009 fraud assessment found at least 70 percent of asylum applications had signs of fraud.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Useful idiots Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Transmaster says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 9:04 am

    But if you are a Dr. Shakil Afridi, who risked his life to help this sorry administration’s effort to kill Osama bin Laden he gets nothing.

    • Karliner says

      Feb 8, 2014 at 11:25 am

      agreed, and others but Dr Afridi and oh all those ILLEGAL ( immigration reform) immigrants whom we do not have a CLUE who they are will get carte blanche …it’s sick, SICK

  2. Nomuslims says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 9:14 am

    I have a better idea, NO muslim asylum seekers PERIOD!

  3. Don Davenport says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 9:26 am

    We are doomed!

  4. Charli Main says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 9:39 am

    Can you hear all that outrage and howling of rage from the Muslim league, the Arab league and the Muslim Red Crescent ??? No, neither can I.
    So, why aren’t all these Muslim organisations fighting tooth and nail to get their suffering Muslim brothers and sisters re-homed in the dozens of Muslim countries around the World???
    All you hear is the constant whining and complaining from these organisations THAT THE WEST IS NOT DOING ENOUGH TO HELP ALL THESE POOR SUFFERING MUSLIM REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS.
    WHY DON´T THE MUSLIMS HELP THEIR OWN PEOPLE, INSTEAD OF DUMPING THEIR PROBLEMS ON THE CHRISTIAN WEST.
    Ah yes, of course!!!!! its NOT about poor Asylum Seekers. Its all about STEALT JIHAD.!!!

  5. Jay Boo says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 9:58 am

    Huma Abedin.s relatives must be looking forward to this.

    Is Obama trying to turn the USA into the EU?

    • JessieJames says

      Feb 7, 2014 at 10:13 am

      In a word………..yes!

    • Islamisdeath says

      Feb 7, 2014 at 1:26 pm

      That and/or He’s trying to grease the way for the caliphate.

  6. JessieJames says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 10:14 am

    The infidelity of America to its own Constitution and the moral principals upon which this once great nation was founded by the deluded pawns which this country has chosen to be the voice of leaders has slowly and irrevocably eroded the foundation of our existence like a malicious cancer. We are a dying nation, doomed without hope, unless………………

    • kikorikid says

      Feb 8, 2014 at 5:44 pm

      “irrevocably”?

      Not so! We haven’t even had the fight yet.

  7. exsgtbrown says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 12:59 pm

    there’s a reason Muslim countries aren’t being swarmed with immigrants from other religions….

  8. Kepha says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 10:03 pm

    I’m sorry, folks, but a girl who raises her skirts in public in a rough neighborhood to show she has no panties on and yells, “Come and get it!” Really doesn’t have a right to complain if she is raped. Unfortunately, the name of that girl is America.

  9. dumbledoresarmy says

    Feb 8, 2014 at 12:12 am

    Well: at least kick up a stink, dear Americans, and let all and sundry know – in letters to the editor, and in letters to congress and Senate, especially your elected representatives, and perhaps by actual delegations in person – that the *only* Syrian refugees you want the USA to even consider accepting, or for that matter, Iraqis and Egyptians, are…the Christians.

    Not. one. Muslim.

    Just the Christians…for they really *are* endangered, and they will not, after coming to the USA and settling in, hatch plots to mass-murder their hosts.

    Groups like Barnabas Fund have plenty of experience and would be able to help vet the applicants to weed out any fakes.

    We Aussies and Canadians and Brits *must* insist on the same thing, to all and sundry in our *own* governments. NO Muslims! No more Muslims! It’s too dangerous. It’s an expensive, stupid risk. *Demand* that if we are to take any refugees from Syria we must give all available places to the Christians, who need them the most, and who do *not* represent a potential deadly Fifth Column.

    Hypothetical: suppose that, per miraculum, overnight, every Muslim in Australia suddenly disappeared and reappeared in Syria, and 600 000 Syrian Christians took their vacated places, in Australia. Would not our security situation instantly change for the better, become less anxious and expensive, with all those Muslims..gone? Would not a bunch of Syrian orthodox churches and monasteries be much, much nicer neighbours than, say, the sinister Lakemba Mosque?

  10. gravenimage says

    Feb 8, 2014 at 12:57 am

    Obama Administration unilaterally eases restrictions on immigrants with ties to jihad terror groups
    ……………………………..

    So *that’s* what he meant by “comprehensive immigration reform”…

    Suicidal madness…

  11. Karl Stein says

    Feb 8, 2014 at 3:35 pm

    It is obvious. Obama is helping his co-religionists. When will the Democrats wake up.

    • kikorikid says

      Feb 8, 2014 at 5:50 pm

      Democrats OR Progressives. They are holding hands and dancing
      with Islamist.

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