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Jun

Congressman: Obama’s Indifference to National Security ‘Baffling’

Published on June 8th, 2016

By Joe Guzzardi
June 8, 2016
 
Census Bureau statistics recently released show that during the last two years, immigration has increased 39 percent. About 3.1 million immigrants came to the U.S in 2012-2013, a total that doesn’t include immigrants census takers may have missed in their official count.
 
Grave concerns have intensified about the potential for fraud and terrorism in some congressional quarters. Despite warnings from federal immigration enforcement officials of the danger that inadequate tracking brings, millions of visa holders entered the U.S. with little if any vetting. Instead, according to House Judiciary Committee member Randy Forbes (R-VA.), the Obama administration puts “tremendous pressure” on Department of Homeland Security to green light visa applications.
 
During the last five years, 680,000 immigrants from Muslim-majority nations have received permanent U.S. residency, and within the next year, an additional 170,000 permanent residents from terrorist sponsoring nations will arrive. Furthermore, Obama has vowed to resettle 10,000 Syrians and Iraqi refugees by the end of his presidency. To achieve his 10,000 goal, Obama authorized an expedited approval process for the refugees, cutting the time frame from 18-24 months to 90 days.
 
Since 2014, the Obama White House has aggressively blocked proposed investigations into the immigration histories of at least 113 foreign-born nationals apprehended on terror charges. FBI sources said that they’re following up on more than 1,000 active cases of ISIS members living in the U.S. Furthermore, early this year, the State Department released a previously withheld report which acknowledged it has known since 2004 that what it called “Arab extremists” have been smuggled across the border.
 
When the House Subcommittee on National Security held a hearing to investigate the flawed security process, Kelli Ann Burriesci, DHS deputy assistant secretary for screening coordination, could not answer Congress’ simple questions: how many individuals with expired visas still live in the U.S, how many Syrian refugees had entered U.S in the last year, or how many Americans have travelled to Syria. “We may be admitting individuals who wish to do us harm, or who do not meet the requirements for a visa,” a DHS official testified to Congress in March.
 
For several years, the tragic consequences of lax screening have been all too visible. The most prominent examples are the Boston Marathon bombers and last year’s San Bernardino mass murders where one of the shooters held a fiancée visa and boldly pledged her loyalty to ISIS on Facebook.
 
Terrorism experts are convinced that the threat of attacks on the U. S. is at its highest point in modern history. As Representative Forbes noted, the problem with the existing system is that just because individuals haven’t previously committed a terrorist act doesn’t mean they won’t eventually commit one. The Obama administration’s insistence on taking actions that raise the risk of terrorist attacks is “baffling” to Forbes, and millions of Americans.
 

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @joeguzzardi19

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