Terrorists, Refugees, and the U.S. Congress

It’s not enough that our southern border is a sieve. It’s not enough that any attempt to identify potential terrorists is decried as “racial profiling”. It’s not enough that the Democrats in Congress are falling all over themselves to declare defeat in Iraq.

Now we’re about to alter our immigration laws to make it easier for Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq to make their home in the United States. We have decided to invite them in.

“C’mon, boys! Pull up a chair and grab a beer and a plate of pulled pork barbecue — uh, sorry… make that a cup of tea and some falafel — and make yourselves right at home!”

The new open-door policy is contained in legislation before the U.S. Congress. HR 2265 (in the House) and S. 1651 (in the Senate) aim to grease the skids for the entry of Iraqi refugees into the United States.

And the term “refugees” is defined so broadly as to include almost anyone who wants to escape from Iraq. As Christine from CVF says:

As you’ll see, this bill gives refugee status to broad sections of the Iraqi population, with additional exemptions to all other aliens, and with special favorable treatment for anyone with a terrorist background. It’s as if the Bill assumes only two policy options:

1		Surrender Iraq to Al Qaeda and Iranian forces and blame the ensuing genocide on Bush OR…
2		Surrender Iraq to al Qaeda and Iranian forces, blame the ensuing genocide on Bush, and create a program (designed to be confusing, poorly managed and dangerous) to get out as many Iraqis as possible, with a proactive effort to include Iraqis with terrorist and anti-American histories of violence.

Like any other legislation emerging from Congress, these bills are mind-numbing, eye-glazing, sleep-inducing monuments of lawyer-speak and obfuscation, with intricate references to existing statutes and polysyllabic jargon designed to deter the unwashed from examining their content too closely.

But you don’t have to sweat the details, because Christine and DKShideler have done the gruntwork for you. As DK says:

Those bills are some of the most shocking anti-homeland security legislation yet suggested by the Islamist Lobby and their friends in Congress. The House and Senate versions are fairly similar — we’ll walk you through the House version. We welcome any corrections and comments on our analysis — this is our best effort in less than 24 hours.

Go over to the CVF posts if you want to delve deeply into the traitorous behavior of your elected representatives. Read the text of the legislation, add your two cents’ worth, or simply fulminate over what is being done in your name.
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But I’ll give you the off-the-cuff Gates of Vienna interpretation of what’s going on: the well-funded Wahhabist lobby and its bespoke allies in Congress and the State Department have engineered an under-the-radar way to allow virtually any Iraqi national into the country. Not only that, the proposed rule changes affect all immigration, and not just the expected flood of refugees from Iraq.

And why do we expect a flood of refugees from Iraq? Because the Surge is going to fail, of course. Everyone knows that.

What do you mean, you didn’t know that? Where have you been? Don’t you read Time magazine and The New York Times?

We’re losing in Iraq. The Iraqis all hate us. And any Iraqi who cooperates with the United States military, or works with Americans, or even works with the UN, is in mortal danger and must be resettled in the United States.

Not only that, the situation is so dire that we have to waive the earlier provisions of the law designed to keep terrorists and criminals out of the United States. After all, this is more important.

It’s the Democrats in Congress who are leading the advance to the rear in their urgency to declare defeat and get us out of Iraq. But some of the most well-heeled and influential Republicans in Washington have been twisting arms and passing out the canapés to slide this new suicidal measure under the door and into the living rooms of Mr. and Mrs. America.

Moneyed influence plays no favorites. It is a bipartisan enterprise.

I am compelled yet again to quote George Wallace: “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties.”