Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

Remembering Some Facts on the Iran Nuclear Deal

Posted on by

There are at least two side deals, which Susan Rice admitted to. One dealing with the IAEA and the other of the PMD’s (possible military dimension) sites with particular emphasis on Parchin and Fordow.

Fordow is protected by Russian-made, S-300 advanced air defense system at the Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility. dordow s300

So, what is going on now?

 

  • Europe Works to Save the JCPOA | The P5+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert, April 25, 2018
    April 25, 2018
    As time winds down to the May 12 deadline President Trump set for negotiating a “fix” to the nuclear deal with Iran, Washington’s P5+1 partners are warning Washington of the consequences if the deal collapses.
  • The P5+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert, March 22, 2018
    March 22, 2018
    The JCPOA Joint Commission met for its first full meeting since Trump’s threat to pull out of the deal unless so-called “flaws” are corrected. Director General Yukiya Amano reports that the IAEA has access to all needed locations. Russia vetoed a resolution condemning Iran for failing to implement an arms embargo on Yemen, and more in this issue.

 

For some historical context on the deal…..

When the Obama administration decided to launch this effort, he even called on the Catholic Bishops? Are we to assume there was some confab at the Vatican? Yup!

Back in March 2014, a delegation of US bishops made a historic visit to Qom, Iran and held a meeting with Iranian religious leaders. On November 17, an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC will have the chance to hear firsthand what they discussed in Qom, and during a subsequent meeting in Rome in June of this year.

The first meeting focused on the need for a world free of nuclear weapons. Following up on opportunities presented by this visit, in July 2014, Ploughshares Fund provided a $50,000 grant to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to build a sustainable and effective channel of communication between US and Iranian religious leaders. Supporting such ‘Track II’ dialogues can indirectly aid official negotiations around tough issues, in this case, talks around Western sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program.

Although purely a people to people moral dialogue, the sensitive political situation made it difficult for a reciprocal delegation of Muslim clerics from Iran to visit the US, so the two parties met in Rome. The June 5-10 encounter focused on the moral tenets of each faith, especially as they relate to human rights, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism. Keeping this constructive dialogue open remains important – even though the Iran nuclear agreement has entered into effect and is working, relationships between Iranians and Americans remain fragile.

Ayatollah Mahdi Hadavi Moghaddam Tehrani and Ayatollah Abolghasem Alidoost headed the five-member Iranian delegation. Representatives from the USCCB participating in the dialogue included Bishop Oscar Cantú of Las Cruces, New Mexico, chair of the bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace; Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington; Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa; and Bishop Denis Madden, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore. Bishops Cantú, Madden and Pates will report out on the Qom and Rome meetings during the November 17th Washington, DC event.

Following the dialogue, a joint declaration was issued by US Catholic bishops and Iranian religious leaders calling for developing a culture of encounter, tolerance, dialogue and peace that respects the religious traditions of others. The leaders emphasized that they regard the development and use of weapons of mass destruction and acts of terrorism as “immoral.”

“Together,” Bishop Cantú said on the occasion, “we commit ourselves to continued dialogue on the most pressing issues facing the human family, such as poverty, injustice, intolerance, terrorism, and war.” He called the joint declaration “the fruit of sincere dialogue between two religions that are united in their concern for the life and dignity of the human person.”

Ploughshares Fund is proud to support these extraordinary dialogues, which aid in fostering cross-border understanding around the thorniest problem we face today: the risks associated with nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons proliferation.

*** Who is Ploughshares? It was founded by Sally Lilienthal.

Instead of getting ready for a quiet life of retirement, the 62-year-old sculptor, human rights activist and mother decided to take on nuclear weapons.

“I thought that if a lot of people felt the same way I did but didn’t know what to do about it, we might get together and search for new ways together to get rid of nuclear weapons that were threatening us all,” she later told the San Francisco Chronicle.

With a little help from her friends and a lot of grit and determination, Sally founded Ploughshares Fund in her San Francisco living room in 1981, the same year IBM announced its first Personal Computer.

Sally was ahead of her time in many ways. After college, she moved to Washington, DC during World War II to work in the Office of War Information when few women held office jobs. Later, she co-founded the California chapter of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, served on the regional ACLU board and was national vice chairwoman of Amnesty International.

*** Where did the 35-year-old organization get its war chest to support a major media organization’s coverage of the negotiations and contribute so generously to one of the most prominent campaigns championing the deal?

Mostly through other large-scale grant-making foundations and philanthropic organizations, some of the largest in the world, such as The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, each of which gave more than $100,000 to Ploughshares in 2015, according to its latest financial report. The craigslist Charitable Fund, of the classified advertisement website company, chipped in with between $25,000 and $99,000.

Ploughshares also received its share of support from members of the Hollywood community, particularly Jewish ones. It received a donation of between $10,000 and $24,999 from actor Michael Douglas, and between $5,000 and $9,999 from the Streisand Foundation, which was established by the Jewish singer-actress Barbra Streisand.

Through the rest of its donors, Ploughshares received $6,980,384 last year, much of which went toward pushing the nuclear accord, which was struck between the P5+1 world powers and Iran last July and then defeated congressional scrutiny. In September, a bill to reject the deal ultimately failed to receive the required backing to override President Obama’s veto power.

Approval Process for Cyberwarfare Challenged

Posted on by

Cyber is a real battlefield and yet it gets almost zero ink in the media. The reason is due in part to exposing vulnerabilities, forced ransoms and stolen data.

NotPetya could be the beginnings of a new kind of ... photo

Just a couple of years ago: Chet Nagle, a former CIA agent and current vice president of M-CAM, penned an article in the Daily Caller, stating, “At FBI headquarters in July, the head of FBI counterintelligence, Randall Coleman, said there has been a 53% increase in the theft of American trade secrets, thefts that have cost hundreds of billions of dollars in the past year. In an FBI survey of 165 private companies, half of them said they were victims of economic espionage or theft of trade secrets — 95% of those cases involved individuals associated with the Chinese government.”

The threats all appear to have a foreign genesis and the United States does not have a real cyber policy due in part to debates over whether cyber attacks are acts of war. Can the United States fight back with her own cyber weapons? Not really, kinda, maybe.

Tracking the theft is left to the FBI, while responding is left to the U.S. Cyber Command. Army Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone is the head of Cyber Command facing strategic threats from Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. During his confirmation hearings, Nakasone was grilled on how he would position the agencies to confront mounting Russian aggression in cyberspace, whether through attempted interference in U.S. elections or targeting the electric grid and other critical industrial systems.

Members of the White House’s National Security Council are pushing to rescind Presidential Policy Directive 20, an important policy memorandum that currently guides the approval process for government-backed cyberattacks, three current U.S. officials familiar with the matter tell CyberScoop.

The effort is driven in part by a desire from some NSC staff to create a more streamlined channel for military leaders to get their offensive cyber operations greenlit, insiders familiar with the matter said. The sources spoke under the condition of anonymity to freely discuss sensitive national security matters.

The move comes as lawmakers openly question whether U.S. Cyber Command, the nation’s premier cyber warfare unit, is hamstrung from responding to Russian meddling due to bureaucratic red tape. CyberScoop previously reported that multiple congressional committees are considering policies that could empower the military’s cyber mission.

But the push for change faces resistance from the intelligence community and several other federal agencies involved in cybersecurity.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials have expressed concerns over what rescinding the directive will mean for their own active computer spying missions. These covert operations, which are typically pursued by intelligence agencies like the CIA or NSA, could be exposed by the launch of “louder” disruptive-style attacks from the military. The presence of multiple hacking teams simultaneously targeting a single network often makes it easier for them all to be discovered by the victim.

Prior reporting by CyberScoop has shown that a long-running turf war exists between different federal agencies regarding the proper use of hacking tools in order to protect the homeland.

Even before Trump came to office though, the framework in question was considered a source of frustration inside the Pentagon.

Signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the directive’s critics say that it was written in a confusing manner that leaves open-ended questions. In addition, critics tell CyberScoop that too many federal agencies are allowed to weigh in on proposed cyber operations, causing “even reasonable” plans to be delayed or outright rejected.

Insiders who are resistant to eliminating the directive admit that PPD-20 is flawed, but fear change because they’ve not seen a replacement plan.

“Better the devil you know, or something like that,” a former U.S. official said. “This is such a crucial decision because whatever comes next will dictate how arguments are settled inside government … you have the military on one side and the IC on the other.”

The NSC, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. The NSA referred CyberScoop to U.S. Cyber Command, who in turn did not respond to a request for comment.

Currently, PPD-20 requires U.S. government agencies to run approvals for offensive operations through a chain of command that stretches across the federal government. The process is largely focused on controlling those operations that go beyond the confines of everyday digital espionage, or computer exploitation, to simply collect information.

According to PPD-20, if an operation is considered “of significant consequence,” it requires the direct blessing of the president in addition to the interagency group. Hacking operations that, for example, shut down a power grid or cause equipment to explode would fit into such a description. But experts say it also includes less flashy tactics like deleting data or corrupting software in a destructive manner.

“This directive pertains to cyber operations, including those that support or enable kinetic, information, or other types of operations,” PPD-20 reads. “The United States has an abiding interest in developing and maintaining use of cyberspace as an integral part of U.S. national capabilities to collect intelligence and to deter, deny, or defeat any adversary.”

After coming under scrutiny last month, outgoing NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers told lawmakers that there’s an “ongoing policy discussion” about redrawing the regulations looming over military cyber operations. Unlike conventional military activities, the internet makes it difficult for policymakers to draw clear cut boundaries. This challenges also runs up against longstanding laws that underpin, and therefore divide, the work of soldiers and spies.

Historically, intelligence agencies — empowered by Title 50 of the U.S. Code — have led the way on U.S.-backed hacking that occur in countries like Iran or China; where armed conflict is absent. Military operations fall under the purview of Title 10 of the U.S. Code.

It’s not clear whether giving military leaders more leeway to conduct hacking operations will ultimately make those units more effective at their missions. The details surrounding these activities are always classified, which inhibits the public from having a substantive policy debate.

Ultimately, the decision to eliminate PPD-20 falls solely to the executive branch. Sources tell CyberScoop no final decision has been made.

What makes PPD-20 difficult to analyze is the fact that it remains a classified document, despite it being leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The classification means current officials are barred from publicly commenting on it.

Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, said that Snowden’s PPD-20 leak was notable because it revealed the U.S. government’s thought process behind “the rise of unwanted norms caused by escalatory cyberattacks.”

“Reading between the lines, the framework acknowledges the negative effect on global cyber norms that events like Stuxnet can cause because of escalation,” said Rid.

Rid also believes the directive was “naïvely constructed,” relying too much on the idea that cyberattacks only impact other machines, and not people.

“When you look at what’s happened in 2016, and really since then, it makes the people who wrote PPD-20 seem like they don’t understand the current threat environment where Russia, and to some degree Iran, are combining active measures with cyber to change public perception,” he told CyberScoop. “Russia is basically kicking the U.S.’ ass.”

7 States Suing Over DACA, Know the Details

Posted on by

There are countless lawsuits already and here comes another. Several DACA cases have been ruled against by liberal judges. Now Texas has joined other states.

 

TX v USA Re DACA Complaint 050118 by Kaitlyn on Scribd

Perhaps those judges have not read all the real details of DACA.

Renewal deadline approaching for DACA applicants photo

DACA is a request for consideration, it is NOT an automatic approval and it is temporary. See the stipulations here.

DACA banner with forms

Guidelines

You may request DACA if you:

  1. Were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012;
  2. Came to the United States before reaching your 16th birthday;
  3. Have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007, up to the present time;
  4. Were physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making your request for consideration of deferred action with USCIS;
  5. Had no lawful status on June 15, 2012;
  6. Are currently in school, have graduated or obtained a certificate of completion from high school, have obtained a general education development (GED) certificate, or are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States; and
  7. Have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor,or three or more other misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.

***

The Obama administration chose to deploy DACA by Executive Branch memorandum—despite the fact that Congress affirmatively rejected such a program in the normal legislative process on multiple occasions. The constitutionality of this action has been widely questioned since its inception.

DACA’s criteria were overly broad, and not intended to apply only to children. Under the categorical criteria established in the June 15, 2012 memorandum, individuals could apply for deferred action if they had come to the U.S. before their 16th birthday; were under age 31; had continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007; and were in school, graduated or had obtained a certificate of completion from high school, obtained a General Educational Development (GED) certificate, or were an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States. Significantly, individuals were ineligible if they had been convicted of a felony or a significant misdemeanor, but were considered eligible even if they had been convicted of up to two other misdemeanors.

The Attorney General sent a letter to the Department on September 4, 2017, articulating his legal determination that DACA “was effectuated by the previous administration through executive action, without proper statutory authority and with no established end-date, after Congress’ repeated rejection of proposed legislation that would have accomplished a similar result. Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.” The letter further stated that because DACA “has the same legal and constitutional defects that the courts recognized as to DAPA, it is likely that potentially imminent litigation would yield similar results with respect to DACA.”

Based on this analysis, the President was faced with a stark choice: do nothing and allow for the probability that the entire DACA program could be immediately enjoined by a court in a disruptive manner, or instead phase out the program in an orderly fashion. Today, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Duke issued a memorandum (1) rescinding the June 2012 memo that established DACA, and (2) setting forward a plan for phasing out DACA. The result of this phased approach is that the Department of Homeland Security will provide a limited window in which it will adjudicate certain requests for DACA and associated applications for Employment Authorization Documents meeting parameters specified below.

  • Please see the USCIS website for the latest information about DACA.

 

Meet Kevin Thurm and Here Comes the Clinton Foundation, Again

Posted on by

The last we heard from Hillary, she was whining that no one liked her. Before that, she was still finding excuses for her loss in the quest for the White House. All through that we continued to hear about corruption and fraud in all things Clinton including the foundation(s).

Sidebar: Read about the Foundation ah weirdness in Columbia.

The Clinton Foundation left a toxic legacy in Colombia ... photo

Well….she is back…and Kevin is leading the charge. But bring money for cocktails and photos.

So, who is Kevin?

Kevin Thurm, A83, A17P, is dedicated to finding solutions that last to transform lives and communities. As the CEO of the Clinton Foundation, he leads its efforts to build partnerships of great purpose between businesses, governments, NGOs, and individuals.

Prior to working at the Clinton Foundation, Thurm held various leadership positions in government and the corporate sector. As a senior counselor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he partnered with Secretary Sylvia Burwell and HHS senior leadership on cross-cutting strategic initiatives, including continuing implementation of the Affordable Care Act. At Citigroup, he held senior positions including chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel. Before joining Citigroup, Thurm served as the deputy secretary and chief of staff for the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Donna E. Shalala.

Thurm received a bachelor’s from Tufts University in 1983; a bachelor’s/master’s from Oxford University in 1986, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989.

***

The Clinton Foundation, after seeing a drop in donations amid increased scrutiny and “pay-to-play” allegations, is revving back up with a glitzy fundraising gala that coincides with a broader push by the Clinton machine to stay in the political spotlight.

Axios reported Monday that longtime Clinton supporters received an invitation offering access — a word that dogged Hillary Clinton throughout her failed 2016 presidential campaign — to the family at a May 24 benefit for the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Announcement Is Great News for Trump and Republicans

The cheapest tickets for the event will be $2,500 for cocktails and dinner. Deep-pocketed donors can lay out $100,000 for a package including “leadership reception for two, a premium table of 10, program recognition as Gala Chair and invitations to the Clinton Foundation Annual Briefing.”

The invite features photos of Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, implying they’ll all be attending.

The foundation scaled back its activities in 2016, downsizing the Clinton Global Initiative and placing restrictions on fundraising amid claims of “pay-to-play” by donors seeking access when Clinton was secretary of state. The Clintons denied any such arrangements.

The biggest such controversy related to the sale of Uranium One — a Canadian-based energy firm and holder of 20 percent of U.S. uranium stocks — to Russian energy company Rosatom during Clinton’s time as secretary of state. The connections between the sale of Uranium One and donations to the foundation were first reported by author Peter Schweizer in his 2015 book “Clinton Cash.”

The New York Times reported that the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars from donors connected to Uranium One as the deal was in the process of being approved by representatives of government agencies, including Clinton’s State Department.

Since the election, questions about that deal have not gone away. In October, The Hill reported that the FBI received an account that Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit the Clinton Foundation amid a broader pattern of bribery and kickbacks designed to extend Russia’s footprint to the U.S.

Amid the controversies in 2015 and 2016, the foundation saw a plunge in donations. While data from 2017 are not available, 2016 numbers showed that donations fell by 42 percent, from $108 million in 2015 to $63 million in 2016. Then-acting CEO Kevin Thurm told The New York Post, which first reported on the numbers, that that was due in part to restrictions on fundraising the foundation placed on itself as Clinton ran for president.

But while numbers for 2017 aren’t available, IB Times reported last year that a number of big companies have distanced themselves from the foundation and were choosing not to give. Companies that told the outlet in November they have not donated since the 2016 election included Boeing, Chevron, Dell, General Electric, and Lockheed Martin.

“Last year was a tough year,” Donna Shalala, then-president of the foundation, told The Times in 2017, “because people were beating on us with nonsense.”

Clinton Foundation dealings have continued to stay in the headlines. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March after an inspector general report said he leaked the existence of a probe into the foundation during the presidential campaign and later lied about it.

Meanwhile, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch has continued to publish emails sent by Clinton when she served as secretary of state — emails that touch on foundation activity.

The May fundraiser is the latest sign from the Clintons that they do not intend to retreat from the spotlight. After losing in 2016, Hillary Clinton has set up the political action organization Onward Together and released a lengthy campaign post-mortem titled, “What Happened.” She went on a speaking tour coinciding with the book’s release and has made numerous additional appearances discussing her 2016 loss.

Axios reported Monday that Hillary Clinton was to lead the first meeting of Onward Together on New York’s Upper East Side for a session on “harnessing the energy and activism post-election.” Bill, meanwhile, will publish his novel “The President is Missing,” co-authored with James Patterson on June 4.

An April Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that only 27 percent of those polled had a very or somewhat positive view of the former secretary of state. That makes her less popular than President Trump, whose popularity registered at 35 percent. It marked a new low for her in the poll, which clocked her popularity at 30 percent in August 2017.

 

Take Honduras as an Example

Posted on by

The caravan, the caravan…

There is a crisis going on at the California border check point where an estimated 200 migrants are attempting to gain entry into the United States by using all tactics stressing our resources and laws.

Today: The Caravan at California’s Door photo

(Note the sign provided by ANSWER Coalition)

So, the big question is if these people are desperate to leave their home countries out of fear, crime and corruption, then why have they not visited our embassies in their home countries? They just fled. People fleeing to the United States must and do travel through Mexico. So, where is the humanitarian policy of Mexico to accept these desperate people?

A large number of people attempting to enter the United States come from a handful of countries in Central America such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. So, let us examine Honduras as an example. for a summary of the crime and threat assessment in Honduras, go here.

How Instability in Central America Affects US-Mexico ... photo

In 2009, Obama cut $200 million in non-humanitarian aid to Honduras. The United States must address stabilizing these countries, rather than allowing their failures and exporting the problem(s) to the United States.

But:

Honduras, one of Latin America’s poorest nations, strives to improve its economic and democratic development with U.S. assistance. The United States has historically been the largest bilateral donor to Honduras. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs target a variety of sectors including education, health, economic policy, microenterprise, environmental conservation, food security, municipal development, and justice sector reform. USAID has provided more than $3 billion in economic and social development assistance to the Honduran people since it began working in the country in 1961. Currently, programs focus on addressing the main push factors of migration by improving citizen security, reducing extreme poverty, and improving public administration through transparency and accountability reforms. To achieve these objectives, USAID’s efforts address citizen security through community-based crime prevention activities, with a focus on the highest crime neighborhoods and those youth who are most at-risk. Additionally, USAID strengthens local and national governance, as well as civil society monitoring and watchdog organizations; helps the poorest sectors of society increase food security and incomes; supports the sustainable management of natural resources; expands quality basic education and workplace and life-skills training; and improves the quality and participation of local citizens and civil society in decentralized basic services.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Commerce will be dedicating $1.5 million for a customs and border management program focused on improving trade into Honduras and others parts of Central America. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided $47 million in 2015-2016 for its two programs that deliver school meals to 53,000 students and increase agricultural productivity and trade.

The United States Armed Forces maintain a small presence at a Honduran military base. U.S. forces conduct and provide logistical support for a variety of bilateral and multilateral exercises–medical, engineering, counternarcotics, and disaster relief–for the benefit of the Honduran people and their Central American neighbors. Through the Central America Regional Security Initiative, the United States supports the Government of Honduras by assisting law enforcement entities in disrupting criminal networks; building investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial capacity; and implementing violence prevention programs for vulnerable communities.

In June 2005, Honduras became the first country in the hemisphere to sign a Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact with the U.S. Government. Under the Compact, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation invested $205 million over 5 years to help Honduras improve its road infrastructure, diversify its agriculture, and transport its products to market. In 2013, Honduras received a $15.6 million MCC Threshold Agreement to support Honduran efforts to improve public financial management and create more effective and transparent public-private partnerships.

The State Department website for the embassy in Honduras explains that in order to obtain a visa, the applicant must establish they meet all requirements to receive a visa. The website even includes a ‘visa wizard’ that aids in the application process to determine the specific visa that best fits the case.

There is a fraud unit at all embassies and if fraud is committed during in the visa process, benefits are lost, fines are applied and a jail sentence can be applied.

There is yet another requirement for travel and approval to enter the United States, vaccines.

They include: mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus and diphtheria, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae/type B, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, varicella, pneumococcal disease, and seasonal influenza.

So, given just the vaccine requirements, detention in either Mexico or the United States for those attempting to enter the United States is warranted. The cost however of medical examinations and detention is significant and government agencies cannot estimate those costs to the taxpayer.

Now, here is something quite curious:

Who is a refugee?

According to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, a refugee is defined as someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…”

  • Asylum seekers have submitted a claim for refugee status and are waiting for this claim to be accepted or rejected.
  • Refugees and asylees comprise the majority of displaced persons resettled to the United States.

What are the top countries of origin and asylum*?

The top ten countries of refugee origin are Afghanistan, Iraq, Somali, DR Congo, Myanmar, Colombia, Sudan, Vietnam, Eritrea, and China.

The top ten countries of refugee asylum are Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Germany, Jordan, Kenya, Chad, China, United States, and United Kingdom.

* Countries are listed in order from greatest to least number of refugees as of Dec 2010.

Source: UNHCR Global Trends (2010)

Statistics on International Refugees and US Domestic Refugee Admissions:

Source: UNHCR, 2009 Global Trends: Refugee, Asylum-Seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless People

  • As of 2009, an estimated 15.2 million refugees were located around the world. Of these refugees, 251,500 were voluntarily repatriated to their home nations.
  • In 2011, the United States accepted 56,424 refugees for resettlement.

Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System (WRAPS)

The U.S. has projected a refugee resettlement ceiling of 76,000 individuals for FY 2012.
Source: Presidential Determination No. 2011-17: FY 2012 Refugee Admissions Numbers

Immigrant, Refugee and Migrant Health Branch (IRMH)

The goal of the IRMH Branch within the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine is to promote and improve the health of immigrants, refugees, and migrants and prevent the importation of infectious diseases and other conditions of public health significance into the U.S. by these groups. To accomplish this goal the IRMH branch plays a significant role in refugee health, both overseas and domestically.

Older female refugee

Overseas

  • IRMH develops and implements the Technical Instructions used by overseas panel physicians who are responsible for conducting the medical examinations for U.S.-bound refugees. The Technical Instructions consist of medical screening guidelines, which outline in detail the scope of the medical examination. The purpose of the medical examination is to identify, for the Department of State and the US Citizenship and Immigration service, applicants with medical conditions of public health concern.
  • IRMH also maintains an anonymous collection of surplus blood samples from overseas screenings called the Migrant Serum Bank (MSB). Scientists from around the world can request to use the samples for research projects.

Domestic

  • The Domestic Refugee Health Program facilitates collaboration with state and local health department partners to improve the health care and monitor medical conditions of refugees after their arrival into the United States.
  • IRMH also maintains the Electronic Disease Notification System (EDN), which notifies states and local health departments of the arrival of refugees to their jurisdictions. EDN provides states with overseas medical screening results and treatment follow-up information for each refugee.

IRMH Partners

To accomplish its goals in refugee health, IRMH works with many external partners: