Who's word are we taking? Does ISIS have a passport office you can call?
I can see tremendous challenges for people trying to prove who they are and what they've been doing lately when their country has been blown up repeatedly and battle lines have drifted back and forth and that's a shame for the innocent but it's still a challenge.
What God commanded right? Islam would not exist if what God commanded was done.
I'm not trying to deny that this would be difficult when an area is in chaos but I think you may be missing something in what is already done. Here is the current process:
| 1. Registration with the United Nations. 2. Interview with the United Nations. 3. Refugee status granted by the United Nations. 4. Referral for resettlement in the United States. The United Nations decides if the person fits the definition of a refugee and whether to refer the person to the United States or to another country for resettlement. Only the most vulnerable are referred, accounting for less than than 1 percent of refugees worldwide. Some people spend years waiting in refugee camps. 5. Interview with State Department contractors. 6. First background check. 7. Higher-level background check for some. 8. Another background check. The refugee’s name is run through law enforcement and intelligence databases for terrorist or criminal history. Some go through a higher-level clearance before they can continue. A third background check was introduced in 2008 for Iraqis but has since been expanded to all refugees ages 14 to 65. 9. First fingerprint screening; photo taken. 10. Second fingerprint screening. 11. Third fingerprint screening. The refugee’s fingerprints are screened against F.B.I. and Homeland Security databases, which contain watch list information and past immigration encounters, including if the refugee previously applied for a visa at a United States embassy. Fingerprints are also checked against those collected by the Defense Department during operations in Iraq. 12. Case reviewed at United States immigration headquarters. 13. Some cases referred for additional review. Syrian applicants must undergo these two additional steps. Each is reviewed by a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services refugee specialist. Cases with “national security indicators” are given to the Homeland Security Department’s fraud detection unit. 14. Extensive, in-person interview with Homeland Security officer. Most of the interviews with Syrians have been done in Jordan and Turkey. 15. Homeland Security approval is required. 16. Screening for contagious diseases. 17. Cultural orientation class. 18. Matched with an American resettlement agency. 19. Multi-agency security check before leaving for the United States. Because of the long amount of time between the initial screening and departure, officials conduct a final check before the refugee leaves for the United States. 20. Final security check at an American airport. |
| "It means a kind of ideological screening to keep out people who hate a free society even if they are not violent," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that supports tighter controls on immigration. Krikorian met with Trump during the campaign and backs the president's executive order as a "corrective" to the vetting system in place during the Obama years. President Trump signed an executive order suspending the State Department's refugee assistance program for 120 days until "extreme" vetting can be put in place. In an interview with NPR, Krikorian said he backs an ideological test that poses questions for refugees in the vetting process including, in his words, "Do you think it's okay to kill apostates? Do you think it's okay to throw gays off of buildings? Or if Islam's Prophet Muhammad is insulted, there should be a punishment?" If a refugee says yes to any of these questions, says Krikorian, "Then we don't want you here." Trump's executive order on immigration appears to refer to these views by declaring the United States should keep out those with "hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles" and "those who would place violent ideologies over American law." |
| "It's clearly Muslim-targeted," says Muna Jondy, a Michigan immigration lawyer of Syrian descent who's been fielding frantic calls from refugee families in the U.S. whose relatives are now barred from joining them. She points out the refugee screening process already targets those with extreme Islamist views via counter-terrorism vetting, which checks for links to radical Islamist groups. ... In a broad sense, tests of attitudes aren't unprecedented. Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, notes that an ideological test for newcomers is "deeply embedded" in U.S. history. The U.S. barred anarchists in 1903. During the Cold War, she says, "It was people who believed in communism. It's still in our law." But Meissner points out these ideological tests have not had the desired outcome, because over time, the tests "have proven to be poorly equipped to actually predict what people are going to do." And it gets more complex when the beliefs straddle the line between politics and religion. Meissner compares Trump supporters' fear of sharia law and their view that it's at odds with the U.S. system with the fears and debates surrounding the candidacy of John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. Kennedy was Catholic and his detractors feared that if elected, the American president would be taking orders from the Pope. "Then, JFK made his well-known statement about his personal faith and his responsibility to the civil system," Meissner says. For Muslim activists, the idea of a test targeting their beliefs is alarming. Wilfredo A. Ruiz, a Muslim convert and spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, says invasive and subjective questioning about religious beliefs already takes place at airports by border patrol agents. "The questions are now more specific," he says. "Are you Sunni or Shiite? Are you acquainted with Wahhabism? Do you have a Quran in your luggage?" Ruiz says he's filed dozens of complaints in the past few weeks with the Department of Homeland Security for what he calls intrusive questioning of Muslim travelers. His clients often comply, he says, handing over their passwords to cell phones and social media because refusing would result in a long wait and missed flights. "People need to know this is going on," he says, noting that civil liberties groups are working together, sending squads of lawyers to airports in support of passengers detained for questioning. "They no longer see it as a Muslim cause," he says. "Jews, Hispanics, African-Americans — everyone is asking, who's next?" |
