Despite more reports in recent weeks about Muslim “refugees” raping and attacking people in the U.S. and Europe, President Obama has ramped up his Syrian refugee program – delivering 625 to U.S. cities in one week and crossing the 6,000 mark for total Syrians who have entered the country since October.
With a little over two months before the Sept. 30 deadline to fulfill his promise to the United Nations to resettle 10,000 Syrians, Obama has delivered 6,227 Syrian migrants to 38 states and dozens of cities.
That means more than 1,000 have arrived just since July 1.
Of the 6,227 total who arrived since Oct. 1, 2015, only 23 have been Christian and 10 Yazidi. All the of the remaining 6,194 Syrians, more than 98 percent, have been Sunni Muslim. That’s the same sect that makes up the ranks of ISIS, al-Nusra Front and other groups that are viciously persecuting Christians in Syria.
Michigan, California, Arizona, Texas and Illinois are the top five states for numbers of Syrian refugees received so far in fiscal 2016. These refugees are hand-selected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to be permanently resettled in the U.S.
Only 12 states and the District of Columbia have not received any Syrian refugees so far in fiscal 2016. Those states include Alaska, Alabama, Delaware, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming and West Virginia.
Wyoming is the only state that does not participate in the federal refugee program. Montana has been among the states being eyed for future resettlement of Syrians. A resettlement office has been opened there but so far no Syrians have arrived.
More than 99 percent of the Syrians being permanently resettled in the U.S. are Muslim, with less than 1 percent being Christian.
The U.S. resettled 1,682 Syrians in fiscal year 2015 and only 105 in 2014.
The 10,000 Syrian refugees coming in fiscal 2016 are in addition to the 75,000 refugees being delivered to U.S. cities and towns from all other countries. They come from Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Burma, Bosnia, Congo and many other countries. The refugee drop-offs are done in almost total secrecy, often without the knowledge of even the mayor or schools superintendent.
WND reported last week that in Lowell, Massachusetts, a 13-year-old girl was twice groped at a public pool July 7 by a 22-year-old man freshly imported into the community from Syria as a “refugee.”
The city manager of Lowell told his local newspaper Tuesday that he was not even notified by the U.S. State Department or its resettlement contractor that Syrians were being delivered to his community.
Emad Hasso, 22, of Syria pleaded not guilty Friday to inappropriately touching the girl at the state-run Raymond Lord Memorial Pool in Lowell, according to the Lowell Sun.
This marks the second high-profile sexual assault on an American girl in the past month by a refugee. On June 2, a 5-year-old girl in Twin Falls, Idaho, was reportedly raped by an Iraqi refugee boy while an older refugee from Sudan filmed and coached him during the assault.
More than 24 mostly Republican governors sent letters to the Obama administration following the attacks on Paris and San Bernardino last November and December, saying they did not want any Syrians delivered to their states, but to no avail. Obama sent them anyway.
On Monday a 17-year-old Afghan refugee in Germany attacked train passengers with an ax, severely injuring five people. The U.S. also has an active Afghan refugees program, having admitted 1,581 since Oct. 1, 2015.
Is your city a Syrian destination?
Cities receiving Syrian refugees over the past nine months include the following:
- Arizona: Glendale, Tucson, Phoenix
- California: San Diego, Sacramento, Los Angeles
- Connecticut: New Haven, Hartford, New Britain, Stratford, West Haven
- Florida: Tampa, Clearwater, Jacksonville, Del Ray Beach, Palm Beach, Miami, Orlando, Kissimmee, Lauderdale Lakes, Opa-Locka, Pensacola and Tallahassee
- Georgia: Atlanta, Savannah, Stone Mountain, Marietta
- Illinois: Chicago, Rockford, Aurora, Moline, Hickory Hills
- Colorado: Denver and Thornton, Colorado
- Idaho: Boise
- Indiana: Indianapolis and Carmel
- Des Moines: Iowa
- Kansas: Kansas City and Wichita
- Kentucky: Louisville and Lexington
- Louisiana: New Orleans and Baton Rouge
- Maine: Portland
- Maryland: Baltimore, Riverdale, Ellicott City, Silver Spring
- Massachusetts: Worcester, Springfield-West Springfield, Lowell, Westfield, Billerica
- Michigan: Dearborn, Clinton Township, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Troy, Battle Creek, Ann Arbor, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, W. Bloomfield Township, Madison Heights, Sterling Heights, Ypsilanti, Lansing
- Minnesota: Minneapolis, Rochester and Savage
- Missouri: Saint Louis, Columbia, Creve Coeur, Kansas City
- Nebraska: Omaha
- New Hampshire: Concord
- New Mexico: Albuquerque
- New York: Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, Brooklyn, Utica, Rochester, New York
- New Jersey: Elizabeth, Camden, Bellmawr, Hawthorne, Jersey City, Moorestown, Woodland Park and Paterson
- Nevada: Las Vegas
- North Carolina: High Point, Raleigh-Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Charlotte
- Ohio: Columbus, Toledo and Cleveland
- Oklahoma: Tulsa
- Oregon: Portland and Beaverton
- Pennsylvania: Erie, Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh
- Rhode Island: Providence
- South Carolina: Columbia
- Tennessee: Nashville and Memphis
- Texas: Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, Plano, Sugar Land, Tomball and San Antonio
- Utah: Salt Lake City
- Virginia: Charlottesville, Newport News, Roanoke, Harrisonburg, Powhatan and Falls Church
- Washington: Spokane, Seattle, Richland, Kent
- Wisconsin: Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Milwaukee, Madison.
The mayors of Springfield, Massachusetts; Amarillo, Texas; Athens, Georgia; Manchester, New Hampshire, and several other towns have all complained to the Obama administration that they want more information on refugees before their arrival.
More than 24 mostly Republican governors have also complained, writing letters to the Obama administration after the attacks on Paris and San Bernardino last year saying they did not want to receive any Syrian refugees until a better screening system could be devised.
Citizen activists have complained about the same lack of transparency in many other cities including Spartanburg, South Carolina; Twin Falls, Idaho; Fargo, North Dakota; Rochester, Michigan; Missoula, Montana; and several areas of Tennessee.
But nothing has deterred the Obama State Department, which has ignored the complaints and concerns, citing the Refugee Act of 1980 as the source of its authority. That law, authored by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and former Sen. Joe Biden, gives the states and localities very little power to stop the influx of United Nations-selected refugees.
Basic information like how many refugees are coming, where they are coming from and what public services they will be using are all vital for any city or county that is serious about controlling its government and school budgets yet the refugee drop-offs continue in secrecy.
More than 90 percent of refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps, according to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, and 74 percent are on Medicaid. Most live in low-income subsidized housing.
More than 95 percent of refugees admitted into the U.S. are initially selected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They are then screened for ties to terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.
But Obama’s own FBI Director James Comey warned Congress last fall that it was impossible to verify the backgrounds of Syrians coming from a failed state. The country is embroiled in civil war and has no reliable law enforcement or intelligent data available to the U.S. or any other country or international body, Comey said. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson has voiced similar concerns, yet the State Department continues to put out the same talking points that refugees are the “most heavily scrutinized” and vetted of all immigrants entering the U.S.
The administration was taking 18 to 24 months to screen each refugee, but WND reported in April that the time frame was being reduced to three months so that Obama could make the Sept. 30 deadline to fulfill his promise to the U.N.