Tag Archive for: vetting

PODCAST: The War against the Infidels

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LISTEN to this podcast of the January 10, 2016 Lisa Benson Show on KKNT 960 The Patriot.  Lisa Benson and New English Review Senior Editor Jerry Gordon co-hosted this show with the assistance of Board of Advisors member, Richard Cutting.

Col. Richard Kemp, (ret.) CBE, former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan and noted commentator on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, discussed why Israel is the outpost of civilization in the Middle east. He urged Queen Elizabeth to visit Israel in 2017, the 100th Anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem from the Turks to honor ANZAC fallen.  He drew attention to British Prime Minister Cameron who has spoken before Israel’s Knesset and his designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.  He suggested that perhaps the Administration might follow suit.

He considers the Muslim Brotherhood as an evil organization seeking to spread Islamist hatred of Israel Europe and the West. Hamas he pointed out had links to the Muslim Brotherhood with objectives similar to that of ISIS.   An ISIS he said was spreading its barbaric Islamic doctrine across the Muslim Ummah from Syria and Iraq to North and sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia.

With regard to the resurgence of the Taliban in a 14 year war in Afghanistan with NATO forces, he said that some of it was attributable to the role of Pakistan intelligence service.  The Pakistanis and Afghans he noted are enemies.  He called attention to the internecine war between the Taliban and ISIS endeavoring to gain power as enemies of the democratic government in Afghanistan. A government plagued with corruption hobbling the country’s security forces.  He called attention to a generational long struggle against Islamist Jihadism in which the West cannot relax. It must stand up and fight.   He noted in passing that the US Administration has taken its eye off the ball with outreach to an enemy, Iran. He attributed some of the present difficulties in the Middle east and South Asia to both the pullout of US forces in Iraq and pull down of ISAF troops in Afghanistan.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka addressed the number one issue in polls taken of Americans, national security and domestic Islamic terrorism.  He suggested that the Administration had to jettison the canard of lone wolf terror acts. The Boston Marathon Bombers, the shooting in Chattanooga, the massacre in San Bernardino and the recent attempted murder of a police officer by a convicted felon and convert to Islam in Philadelphia he said was reflective of the connective tissue of Global Jihad doctrine. That doctrine viewed America and the West as antithetical to Jihadist aims.

He viewed the ability of the US and the EU to vett the millions of migrants and refugees flooding the west as well nigh impossible.  While referencing the intense scrutiny of his parents, refugees from the 1956 Hungarian rebellion against Soviet Communism, he suggested that could only be done under intense and repeated questioning by counterterrorism security echelons using a data base to check documents and bona fides.  He suggested that the US is hobbled by the lack of manpower and a data base to vett, for example, the stream of Syrian Refugees.

Having visited a Syrian refugee camp during the recent Christmas New Year’s holiday, he was struck with two takeaways. He commended the Kingdom of Jordan, without the resources of oil revenues of an incredible job of s country of 6 million handling an influx of 1.5 million Syrian refugees. He tasked the oil rich Gulf States and Saudi Arabia to offer financial and resettlement assistance.  He said there was no sense to send Syrians to the EU or the US. Rather it was incumbent on the contending powers, especially the US, to resolve the conflict, hereby enabling the Syrians in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon to return home.

Regarding the recent settlement between New York City and Muslim and civil liberties advocacy groups ending  the NYPD Muslim community profiling program, Gorka  said in a recent House Armed  Services Committee testimony  that after 9/11, the NYPD had been let down by Federal law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies. The NYPD he noted undertook to build perhaps the best counterterrorism intelligence and surveillance program to monitor and protect the Muslim community in New York against Islamist inroads. Effectively he commented to the House Committee that politics continued to get in the way of national security.

When asked about the current rising Sunni Shiite divide between Saudi Arabia and Iran, he referred to a comment from Israeli PM Netanyahu, who said it was a Game of Thrones pitting the Saudi Wahabbist Sunni Caliphate against the Mullahs of the Shia Mahdist Caliphate in Nuclear Iran.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Vetting Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

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Should Americans be comfortable with the current refugee vetting process? 

Recently, the world was rocked by high profile Islamic terrorist attacks in far flung locales such as Paris, France and San Bernardino, California.  Some Americans have begun to raise serious concerns about how well individuals coming into the United States are screened.  Particularly, those streaming into our republic from such unfriendly places like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Northern Sudan are a justifiable cause for concern.

I have wondered if the vetting process is really any good in the present configuration, particularly in regard to checking out people who are dedicated to a religion that thrives on the deception of non-participants.  Many passports certain people are using to get into our republic could and have at times been filled with false information.  In fact, some Muslim refugees traipsing into our nation have been found to be carrying false information about themselves.

Many applicants seeking entry into America apply for refugee status through the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR).  Then the applicants are forwarded to the traitorous U.S. State Department, which prepares these applications for adjudication by Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Once an applicant is referred to the State Department biometric and biographic checks are conducted against various United States security databases are incorporated in this process, they include.

  1. Department of State
  • Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS)
  • Consular Consolidated Database (CCD)
  1. Department of Homeland Security
  • TECS   (a DHS Security System)
  • DHS Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT)
  1. National Counter Terrorism Center/FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center
  • Terrorist Identifies Datamart Environment
  • Terrorist Screening Database
  1. Federal Bureau of Investigation
  • Extracts of the National Crime Information Center’s wanted Persons File, Immigration
  • Violator File, Foreign Fugitive File, Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File (and the Interstate Identification Index)
  • Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS)
  1. Interpol
  2. Drug Enforcement Administration
  3. Department of Defense
  • Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS)

In addition, the refugee process requires a security advisory opinion to be completed by the FBI and the intelligence community on numerous refugee applicants who are considered higher risk.  Similarly, inter-agency checks (IACs) are constantly being done in connection with a wide range of U.S. agencies.

After the series of background checks, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts a refugee interview.  These interviews cover everything from refugee immigration matters to security and nation-specific inquiries.

For example, Syrian Refugees Offices must undergo a one week training course on Syrian-specific issues, including classified information.  On top of that, scrutiny already is being applied to Syrians through the enhanced review for Syrian applicants process that put additional security and intelligence resources at the disposal of adjudicators.

Only at this point can an applicant be approved.  For those that are approved, health screenings and orientations begin.  The traitorous State Department and Office of refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services work with voluntary resettlement agencies to arrange for resettlement agencies to arrange for resettlement services and assistance.  After an average of 12 to 18 months, this process ends with entry into the United States.

My concern amongst many is that President Obama in typical bigoted, progressive fashion has stepped up efforts to make sure tens of thousands of Muslims file into the United States, while denying entry to Christian refugees from Syria.  It does not matter to Mr. Obama or other progressives in general that Christians are being slaughtered for sport, while the black African Christian that aren’t murdered are forced into brutal slavery, per instructions in the little quran.’

We must not forget that president Obama said that he wants to fundamentally change America.  One of the efficient ways to change America fundamentally is to flood her with people who have nothing in common with and no desire to assimilate into our country or culture.  In the case of dedicated Muslims, the vetting process is very detailed, but in a since fool-hearty.  By the way, since Muslims have declared war on the United States and Israel, it would not be wrong to consider a long moratorium on allowing them into our republic, at least until hostilities are extinguished.

Unfortunately, all dedicated Muslims who follow the tenets of their political/religious persuasion do not believe in assimilation into the countries they migrate to.  Their ultimate goal is domination and reducing women to sharia law third class abused citizens.  As we transition into a new year, let us as Americans rise together in unison from sea to shining sea in a Providentially guided effort to restore our nation under God with Liberty and Justice for all.  Then we will free ourselves from the dastardly plans of those who seek to kill, steal from and destroy America via a fake vetting system and open borders.

Happy New Year, God bless you God bless America and may America bless God.

Come on, you can do it! Say “MORATORIUM”

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Tashfeen Malik dhsWhere are you Virgil Goode?

Did you see that even the New York Times wrote about the female Islamic terrorist and how there was no way to “vet” her or to “screen” her as she came to live among us.  Any logical person can see that.  There was no d*** data, no biographic and biometric information to tap! And, if asked about any terror connections in personal interviews she certainly did not tell the truth.

So, don’t you wonder why only TEN US Senators can see that and that 89 others are so willfully blind. See our post on Senator Paul’s failed attempt at a moratorium on issuing visas to those coming from jihad-producing countries.

And, here see Daniel Greenfield on the killers yesterday.  If you read nothing else from Greenfield’s post, this is the line every one must grasp:

It’s a matter of simple math that as the population most likely to commit terrorist acts increases, so do the acts themselves.

I went back to our archives to see when I first heard anyone suggest a MORATORIUM on Muslim immigration and want to give a shout-out to former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode who saw the San Bernardino slaughter coming 9 years ago!  Learn about how the politically correct harpies at the Washington Post treated him then.  His position, in support of a moratorium on legal (Muslim) immigration to America cost him his seat.  We told you more about him here in 2010.

Political correctness is dead! Everyone of you must start saying the ‘M’ word!  MORATORIUM!  Moratorium on Muslim migration to America, NOW!

Thank you Mr. Goode!  Goode is a Trump supporter in Virginia today!

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Vetting Needed to Separate Friend from Foe Among Refugees

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The Obama Administration is adamant the 10,000 Syrian refugees it plans to resettle in the U.S. are subject to a tough vetting process. The process is tough and long, but a poll in 2014 found that 13 percent have positive feelings towards ISIS. An ideological vetting process that can separate Islamist from non-Islamist is needed to separate valuable friends from deadly foes.

The vetting process should not just rely on criminal records and databases used to detect terrorists and their associates. Because the threat is ideological in nature, it is very possible we could allow in someone with a radical outlook but has yet to establish the kind of operational connections that would show up in a database.

A new bipartisan congressional terrorism report found there isn’t a global comprehensive database of foreign jihadists who have gone to Syria to fight. It says the U.S. doesn’t even have a national strategy against terrorist travel and “information about foreign fighters is crossing borders less quickly than the extremists themselves.” There’s also the serious problem that there is a more general lack of intelligence about Syria.

Watch Clarion Project National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro and retired INS agent Michael Cutler, who gave testimony to the 9/11 Commission, discuss the vetting process for Syrian refugees:

The U.S. has a vetting process of 18 to 24 months. About 1,800 have come to the U.S. in the past two years and a little bit more than half passed the vetting. Names are checked against databases and there’s an interviewing process to make sure there isn’t information linking them to terrorist or criminal activity and that the biography they provided is truthful.

No news reports or explanations by the administration indicate the process includes evaluating the outlook of the applicant to find signs of Islamist sympathies, anti-American views or other forms of extremism like anti-Semitism.

An ideology-based screening process separating Islamists from non-Islamists (as opposed to simply terrorist from non-terrorist) minimizes the chances of a radical getting through and maximizes the chances of identifying an ally to work with. It is not in our interest or in the Syrians’ interest for an Islamist to take a moderate’s place in line.

By failing to identify anti-Islamist friends among the Syrian refugees, we are hurting our cause and losing a chance to undermine the Islamist extremist cause. For example, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy, is a powerful voice against Islamism. He is in the U.S. doing his work because his parents sought refuge in America from the Assad regime.

The U.S. needs Muslim activists like Jasser. We need fluent Arabic speakers and those who understand that part of the world. We need voices who can speak first-hand about the horrors of ISIS, other Syrian Islamists and the Iran-backed Assad dictatorship. We need Muslims who are on the lookout for extremism and will not hesitate to report it and even keep tabs on it. These are roles that Syrian refugees who oppose Islamism can help fill.

The debate over the administration’s desire to bring 10,000 refugees into America is fierce and contentious, but a middle ground exists between an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees and trusting the current plan.

ABOUT RYAN MAURO

Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio. Read more, contact or arrange a speaking engagement.

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U.S. Department of Homeland Security: No way to vet Muslim Syrian refugees

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And since the Obama Administration continues in its resolute denial of the motivating and guiding ideology behind the global jihad, there is no possible way that DHS could effectively subject these refugees to “robust screening.” Any attempt by them to do so is foredoomed.

“DHS Confesses: No Databases Exist To Vet Syrian Refugees,” Investor’s Business Daily, October 6, 2015:

Immigration: As the White House prepares to dump another 10,000 Syrian refugees on U.S. cities, it assures us these mostly Muslim men undergo a “robust screening” process. Not so, admits the agency responsible for such vetting.

Under grilling from GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions, head of the Senate subcommittee on immigration, the Homeland Security official in charge of vetting Syrian and other foreign Muslim refugees confessed that no police or intelligence databases exist to check the backgrounds of incoming refugees against criminal and terrorist records.

“Does Syria have any?” Sessions asked. “The government does not, no sir,” answered Matthew Emrich, associate director for fraud detection and national security at DHS’ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Sessions further inquired: “You don’t have their criminal records, you don’t have the computer database that you can check?” Confessed Emrich: “In many countries the U.S. accepts refugees from, the country did not have extensive data holdings.”

While a startling admission, it confirms previous reporting. Senior FBI officials recently testified that they have no idea who these people are, and they can’t find out what type of backgrounds they have — criminal, terrorist or otherwise — because there are no vetting opportunities in those war-torn countries.

Syria and Iraq, along with Somalia and Sudan, are failed states where police records aren’t even kept. Agents can’t vet somebody if they don’t have documentation and don’t even have the criminal databases to screen applicants.

So the truth is, we are not vetting these Muslim refugees at all. And as GOP presidential front-runners duly note, it’s a huge gamble to let people from hostile nations enter the U.S. without any meaningful background check. It’s a safer bet just to limit, if not stop, their immigration.

“If I win, they’re going back,” Donald Trump vowed. “They could be ISIS. This (mass Syrian immigration) could be one of the great tactical ploys of all time.”

Ben Carson, for his part, said that he would bar refugees from Syria because they are “infiltrated” with terrorists seeking to harm America. “To bring into this country groups infiltrated with jihadists makes no sense,” Carson asserted. “Why would you do something like that?”

The Obama regime claims to have no evidence of terrorist or even extremist infiltration. But Sessions made public a list of 72 recent Muslim immigrants arrested just over the past year who were charged with terrorist activity.

The list doesn’t include the Boston Marathon bombers, who emigrated from Chechnya as asylum seekers. Or the several dozen suspected terrorist bomb-makers brought into the U.S. as Iraq war refugees.

They included two al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists mistakenly resettled as refugees in Bowling Green, Ky. Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi were sent to Bowling Green even though they had been detained by authorities in Iraq for killing U.S. soldiers.

Alwan had crossed the border into Syria. Still, both passed background checks and were declared “clean.” They were then placed in U.S. public housing and afforded other welfare benefits.

While here, the two refugees plotted to obtain Stinger missiles and attack homeland targets. The FBI caught up to them before they could carry out their plans. They are now serving 40 years in federal prison….

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