Another $400 Million, Total is now $5.9 Billion to Syrians

Posted on September 27, 2016September 27, 2016 by Denise Simon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it was providing an additional $364 million in humanitarian assistance to help Syrians caught up in the country’s civil war, bringing total U.S. humanitarian spending for Syria to about $5.9 billion.

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Anne Richard said the funding would help provide food, shelter, safe drinking water, medical care and other support for millions of Syrian refugees and the communities that host them.

Richard told a State Department briefing about three-quarters of the additional funding would help people still inside Syria and the rest would assist Syrians who have fled the country.

She also said the United States had admitted some 85,000 refugees over the past fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That figure included about 12,500 Syrian refugees, exceeding the administration’s goal of 10,000, she said.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the push for additional humanitarian aid funds came in part because of deteriorating conditions in Aleppo after the collapse of a ceasefire sponsored by the United States and Russia.

The forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have launched a massive push against rebel-held areas of the city, where some 250,000 civilians are believed to be trapped. Intensive bombing has killed hundreds of people, many of whom died in buildings collapsed by bunker-buster bombs.

“Until the past few weeks we felt like we were on a firm path towards a possible diplomatic resolution to this. We still believe that’s possible,” Toner told a briefing.

“That doesn’t mean we’re not mindful … of the tremendous humanitarian suffering that’s going on right now in Aleppo. And that’s why we’re working so hard to ramp up our assistance,” he added.

While saying the United States continued to seek a diplomatic resolution of the problem, he left the door open to other action.

“We’ll continue to weigh all options. Those discussions are ongoing. I don’t want to rule anything out, but right now we’re focused on the diplomatic one,” Toner said.

He noted the United States has warned that failure to achieve a ceasefire could lead to an escalation of the conflict.

“We cannot dictate what other countries … may or may not decide to do in terms of supporting certain groups within Syria,” Toner said. “You may have a further deterioration on either side … and by deterioration I mean more arming and more conflict between them, and intensification of the conflict.”

****

Jeh Johnson said in a Senate hearing that the government focuses on refugees for resettlement that are good for the country. The vetting in comprehensive and some of the standards to be met by applicants are classified. The concentration is on women and children.

From the DHS website:

U.S. Expands Initiatives To Address Central American Migration Challenges

Over the past year, the United States has taken a series of steps to address the ongoing humanitarian challenges in Central America, particularly for the many vulnerable individuals attempting to leave the region and come to the United States, while also promoting safe and orderly migration and border security. As part of this ongoing effort, the United States is announcing the following initiatives to help vulnerable families and individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

World Refugee Day: #RefugeesWelcome

Several months ago while I was in Turkey I met a 9-year-old refugee named Jaafar. I was immediately impressed with this extraordinary little boy who spoke almost perfect English.

Readout of Secretary Johnson’s Trip To Turkey

Secretary Johnson visits a Turkish-government run Syrian refugee camp in Adana, Turkey Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson concluded a three-day trip to Turkey, where he visited a refugee camp, reviewed resettlement processing, spoke to a number of Syrian and Iraqi refugee families, met with government officials in Istanbul and Ankara to discuss a range of homeland security-related issues, and signed two bilateral accords to codify mutual commitment to deepen collaboration.

Written testimony of USCIS Director for a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing titled “Crisis of Confidence: Preventing Terrorist Infiltration through U.S. Refugee and Visa Programs”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Leon Rodriguez addresses the the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Watch: Here’s What the Refugee Screening Process Looks Like

Summary: Watch this video to see exactly what a potential refugee goes through to resettle in the U.S.:

Readout Of Administration Call With Law Enforcement Officials On Refugee Screening

Senior Administration officials spoke by phone today with state and local law enforcement representatives from across the country to provide information on the U.S.’s stringent refugee admissions policies and security screening measures. Officials on the call included Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas; Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Simon Henshaw; U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske; and FBI National Security Branch Executive Assistant Director John Giacalone.

Written testimony of USCIS Director for a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security hearing titled “The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Its Impact on the Security of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Leon Rodriguez addresses USCIS’ role in refugee resettlement, and the screening measures and safeguards developed by the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Written testimony of USCIS for a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest hearing titled “Oversight of the Administration’s FY 2016 Refugee Resettlement Program: Fiscal and Security Implications”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) Refugee, Asylum and International Operations Refugee Affairs Division Chief Barbara Strack and USCIS Fraud Detection & National Security Associate Director Matt Emrich address USCIS’s role in refugee resettlement, and the screening measures and safeguards developed by the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

7700 Terrorists at the Southern Border

Posted on September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

Oh….another leak and no word from the Department of Homeland Security….

Leaked FBI Data Reveal 7,700 Terrorist Encounters in USA in One Year; Border States Most Targeted

Breitbart: Leaked documents with sensitive FBI data exclusively obtained by Breitbart Texas reveal that 7,712 terrorist encounters occurred within the United States in one year and that many of those encounters occurred near the U.S.-Mexico border. The incidents are characterized as “Known or Suspected Terrorist Encounters.” Some of the encounters occurred near the U.S.-Mexico border at ports-of-entry and some occurred in between, indicating that persons known or reasonably suspected of being terrorists attempted to sneak into the U.S. across the border. In all, the encounters occurred in higher numbers in border states.

Some of the documents pertain to the entire U.S., while others focus specifically on the state of Arizona. The documents are labeled, “UNCLASSIFIED/LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE” and contain data from the FBI-administered Terrorist Screening Center, the organization maintaining the Terrorist Screening Database, also known as the “Terror Watch List.”

CNN

The leaked FBI data are contained in a fusion center’s educational materials, specifically the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center’s (ACTIC) “Known or Suspected Terrorist (KST) Encounters Briefing” covering from July 20 2015 through July 20 2016. The leaked documents are composed of 10 individual pages, but Breitbart Texas chose to release only nine of them due to page 10 containing contact information for ACTIC.

Page Two of the documents contains a map of the entire U.S. with the numbers of encounters per state. The states with the highest encounters are all border states. Texas, California, and Arizona–all states with a shared border with Mexico–rank high in encounters.

Page Three shows a map of where the encounters occurred in the state of Arizona. The majority from this map occurred in Phoenix, a major destination point for people who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The map also shows that encounters occurred at ports-of-entry, likely from persons either walking up and asking for asylum or from Sinaloa cartel attempts to smuggle them into the U.S. in vehicles. Most significantly, the map shows that many of the encounters occurred near the border outside of ports-of-entry, indicating that persons were attempting to sneak into the U.S.

Page Six shows a pie chart indicating that the majority of encounters in Arizona were with Islamic known or suspected terrorists, both Sunni and Shi’a. Eighty-nine encounters were Sunni, 56 were Shi’a, 70 were “Other International Terrorist Groups or Affiliates,” and only 52 were with “Domestic Terrorism.”

Page 7 contains definitions to help understand the maps.

Breitbart Texas provides the leaked documents and data below: (Go here to see all pages)

Page 1 of 9 by Brandon Darby on Scribd

San Bernardino to New York: Deobandi Courtesy of Barack and Hillary

Posted on September 24, 2016September 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Ahmad Rahami Posted Radical Videos in 2010, Went to Syria: Sources

Ahmad Khan Rahami spent time at Pakistan seminary tied to Taliban

Guardian: Exclusive: Suspect in New York and New Jersey bombings spent three weeks in 2011 at Kaan Kuwa Naqshbandi madrassa, source says, amid questions of terrorism links

Ahmad Khan Rahami, the man suspected of placing bombs in New York and New Jersey last weekend, spent time in a religious seminary in Pakistan closely associated with the Afghan Taliban, according to a government official.

The 28-year-old, who was born in Afghanistan but became a US citizen, spent time at the Kaan Kuwa Naqshbandi madrasa on his two visits to Pakistan, a security official working for the government of Balochistan province told the Guardian.

Rahami spent three weeks in 2011 receiving “lectures and Islamic education” at the school in Kuchlak, a dusty cluster of villages 20km north of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, he said.

Kuchlak is a well-known hub for the Taliban, the Islamist movement that has waged a 15-year insurgency against local and Nato forces in nearby Afghanistan. It is home to many madrasas, the seminaries intimately linked with the Taliban, originally a movement of religious students.

US officials have revealed basic details about Rahami’s two visits to Pakistan, the first in 2011 when he spent a couple of months in Quetta and got married and almost a year in 2013 when he also made a car journey to Afghanistan.

But very little information has emerged from inside Pakistan about what Rahami did during his visits.

Related reading: U.S. State Dept/Pakistan Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

International Religious Freedom Report 2010

The government official, who did not wish to be named because he was speaking about a highly sensitive subject, said Pakistani security agencies have tried to “hide all the details of his visits to Quetta” and keep as much information as possible out of the media.

Rahami, he said, also visited other sensitive areas in the province, including Surkhab and Nushki, where former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was killed by a US drone in May.

Pakistan has long been accused of playing a “double game” with the US, both supporting the Nato counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and allowing the Taliban to use its territory a vital rear base.

A western expert on the Taliban said Abdul Samad, the Afghan owner of the Kuchlack madrasa, was an important local figure.

“The madrasa is a place where you have multiple Afghan Taliban going there and hanging out in [Samad’s] court, as well as active ISI officers,” he said, referring to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, an army-run spy agency.

“Samad is the kind of person who should have been shut down long ago but enjoys a high degree of protection,” he said.

Despite being part of the mystical, Sufi strain of Islam, which many hardliners abhor, Samad is highly respected by the movement, he said.

A Karachi-based cleric told the Guardian the school was a sizeable operation, with more than 200 students.

Despite several attempts to reach Samad for comment, the Guardian was unable to make contact with the madrasa.

Although the Taliban’s leadership is often described as the “Quetta Shura” many analysts consider Kuchlak to be the actual command centre for many senior members of the movement.

The Taliban’s white flags have been reportedly seen flying in the town’s graveyards and Shahbaz Taseer, a Pakistani kidnapped by militants in Lahore in 2011 and held for more than four years, was released in Kuchlak in March by the Taliban.

Rahami’s father Mohammad Rahami has said his son had grown increasingly interested in Islamist movements, watching Taliban and al-Qaida videos, and listening to their poetry. Rahami had also shown sympathy towards the Taliban, a former employer said.

Related reading: San Bernardino/ The Islamic Center of Riverside or Brooklyn

Given the Taliban has long avoided entanglement in international jihad, insisting it is interested only in forcing foreign troops out of Afghanistan, it is unlikely Rahami was operating under instruction when he planted his bombs. A notebook found on Rahami when he was captured after a shootout on Monday suggests he may have been inspired by the Islamic State group.

But the claim Rahami attended an important Taliban-sympathising madrasa could be embarrassing for Pakistan at a time the country is under intense international criticism, not least from India, which accused Pakistan this week of hosting “the Ivy League of terrorism”.

Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, said that because more than 1 million Afghan refugees lived in the province it was “difficult to know what sort of activity is being conducted by some individuals”.

“Filtering out the terrorist influences in such a huge community is a very difficult task,” he said.

Nor could the government be expected to be aware of a US traveller such as Rahami, who has “deep links in the host community”.

“If he was not spotted by the CIA and FBI or Homeland Security, then this shows that it is really global problem,” he said.

*** The basis for the swap of the Taliban 5 out of Guantanamo for Bowe Bergdahl? It all seems Qatar was the core and interlocutor for the Taliban. Clinton and Obama managed the failed process.

Negotiations with the Taliban initiated by the United States were for getting all factions to talk to each other. Why bother talking to the Taliban? The answer is that, as both President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear while I served as special representative, the war in Afghanistan is going to end politically and we would either shape that end or be shaped by it. If there is ever to be peace in Afghanistan, Afghans will need to talk to other Afghans about the future of Afghanistan. Since the Taliban today officially refuses to talk to Kabul’s representatives, getting to these talks might require a US effort to help open the door.

Those US-Taliban talks, which lasted from mid-2011 to March 2012, ultimately failed. While many details rightly remain classified, here are three of the lessons I learned sitting across the negotiating table from the Taliban that may be helpful to those who may seek to reopen the dialogue with them or others who need to talk to an insurgent group in some present or future conflict:

Set clear conditions and moral guidelines and stick to them. These need not be preconditions. Indeed, before talks with the Taliban began, Secretary Clinton made clear that while the US had no preconditions for talking to them, Washington would support reconciliation with only those insurgents who met three important end conditions: Break with al Qaeda, end violence, and live inside an Afghan Constitution that guarantees the rights of all individuals, especially women. Force must be backed by diplomacy, and diplomacy must be backed by force. Talking with the Taliban was part of the larger “diplomatic campaign” Secretary Clinton launched in 2011 to complement the military surge President Obama had ordered in 2009. This diplomatic campaign tried to harness all of the instruments of non-military power to support Afghanistan, such as development assistance, private-sector investment and support for civil society. As part of this effort, we organized international meetings in Istanbul, Bonn, Chicago and Tokyo, at which nations and international organizations pledged future political and material support for Afghanistan. These conferences were also designed to send the Taliban clear messages that the international community was committed to supporting Afghanistan beyond 2014. More here.

Last item of note: In part from Newsweek: The groups targeting the state follow the Deobandi interpretative tradition of Islam. This is important because this means that they share a significant common organizational infrastructure. For example, they rely on mosques and madrassas that adhere to the Deobandi tradition of Islam. When 9/11 happened and Pakistan was forced to work with the Americans, these Deobandi groups were furious. Many of these groups came to know Al-Qaeda through their association with the Taliban in Afghanistan. [The Afghan Taliban emerged from Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan.] And these Deobandi groups were furious that the Pakistani state was aiding the overthrow, not only of the Taliban government, but the only government in the world that was exercising a Deobandi version of Sharia [Islamic law]. After 9/11…[some] of these Deobandi groups began fracturing and disobeying the [Pakistani] state. That’s when the insurgency began. Over time these Deobandi organizations began calling themselves the Pakistani Taliban.

Obama Shut it Down to Hide it….

Posted on September 23, 2016September 23, 2016 by Denise Simon

Obama Administration Shut Down Whistleblower Program Revealing 1,811 Aliens From Terrorist Countries Granted Citizenship

Breitbart: Under the Obama administration, 1,811 aliens from terrorist countries were granted U.S. citizenship instead of being deported—and the Obama administration ended the program that uncovered the extensive fraud.

Originally, the Associated Press reported that the aliens’ fingerprints were not in searchable government databases, allowing them to apply for citizenship under different names and birthdays.

The scope of the problem is massive: “Fingerprints are missing from federal databases for as many as 315,000 immigrants with final deportation orders or who are fugitive criminals,” the Associated Press stated. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not reviewed about 148,000 of those immigrants’ files to add fingerprints to the digital record.”

Three of the aliens under final deportation orders who were granted citizenship gained access to secure commercial airliner areas and maritime facilities. Another is working as a law enforcement officer.

But the Obama administration shut down that program, the Office of Inspector General found:

In 2016, OPS [Office of Operations Coordination] eliminated Operation Janus and disbanded its staff, which raises concerns about the future ability of ICE [U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] and USCIS to continue identifying and prioritizing individuals for investigation. Since 2010 and until recently, Operation Janus identified these individuals, created watchlist entries to ensure law enforcement and immigration officials were aware of them, and coordinated DHS and other agencies’ activities related to these individuals. Two DHS employees outside of OPS said that without Operation Janus, it would be difficult to coordinate these cases and combat immigration fraud perpetrated by individuals using multiple identities. We received this information late in our review and cannot assess the future impact of this change.

ICE didn’t consistently log the digital fingerprints of illegal aliens their agents found until 2010—and federal prosecutors have repeatedly declined criminal cases that could end in the aliens being stripped of their citizenship.

The implications were not lost on one DHS whistleblower.

“If the Department of Homeland Security was serious about this, they would not have shut down the program that discovered this lapse in the first place,” whistleblower Philip Haney said on Fox and Friends Tuesday. “They say they’re addressing it, but they shut the program down that originally discovered it. It’s hard to effectively address it. But they say they have recommendations that the agencies are following, and they’re expecting a follow-up report.”

Haney believed that “high-level fraud” took place: “These individuals are from countries of concern, for terrorists. All of them. The report makes that quite plain. If you come to a law enforcement officer, and you don’t have your complete records, your fingerprints in particular, that could halt the process right there. How people came into the country, either legally or illegally, and accidentally gained citizenship is an impossible concept to me, as a law enforcement officer.”

**** Streamline

Border Patrol does not have guidance on using Streamline for aliens who express fear of persecution or return to their home countries, and its use of Streamline with such aliens is inconsistent and may violate U.S. treaty obligations.

In December 2005, Border Patrol began using Operation Streamline (the precursor to the current Streamline initiative) in response to an increase in illegal alien entries from countries other than Mexico in 2004 and 2005. Implemented in collaboration with and assistance from DOJ and the U.S. Courts, Streamline is a Border Patrol initiative where Border Patrol refers aliens entering the United States illegally for the first time or attempting reentry to DOJ for criminal prosecution. Border Patrol officials said the goal of Streamline is to reduce the rate of alien re-entry recidivism.

Before 2004, Border Patrol only referred a limited number of illegal entry aliens to DOJ for criminal prosecution. Historically, when apprehending aliens entering the United States illegally for the first time, Border Patrol would: immediately return most Mexican nationals to Mexico through the

Voluntary Return process, that is, departure without an order of

removal;

administratively detain and process aliens for formal removal from the

United States through the civil immigration system;

* issue a Notice to Appear in immigration court and release aliens on their

own recognizance pending their appearance; or

* refer to prosecution aliens deemed dangerous based on criminal history

or suspected of smuggling.

According to Border Patrol officials, in 2004 and 2005, illegal entry for Other Than Mexican (OTM) foreign nationals increased in Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector.2 Border Patrol could not use Voluntary Return procedures for OTMs because Voluntary Return is not an option for aliens from countries that do not have a contiguous border with the United States.

In addition, ICE had limited detention capacity to hold these aliens pending immigration hearings or removal, and Border Patrol did not have the authority or capacity to detain long-term OTMs it apprehended. As a result, Border Patrol released most OTMs into surrounding U.S. communities with a Notice to Appear in immigration court. This practice was commonly referred to as “catch and release.” The volume of OTM illegal alien entries continued to increase in the Del Rio sector, which Border Patrol attributed to the spread of information in some Central and South American countries about the practice of releasing OTMs into U.S. communities. Read more here from the Inspector General’s Report.

Hoorah for Senator(s) Grassley/Johnson, Shame on WH/DHS

Posted on September 22, 2016September 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer: The OIG report is here.

FreeBeacon: The number of individuals who were supposed to have been deported but were instead granted citizenship is far higher than was initially reported by media covering the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s office report on the matter.

On Monday, the Inspector General reported that 858 individuals from “special interest countries” — meaning countries that are considered to be “of concern to the national security” of the US — were supposed to have been deported but were instead granted US citizenship.

The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s office said in a footnote that 1,811 people had been granted citizenship wrongly. More here.

****

Email shows federal immigration bosses in OT push to swear in new citizens ‘due to election’

FNC: An internal Obama administration email shows immigration officials may be literally working overtime to swear in as many new “citizen voters” as possible before the Nov. 8 presidential election, a powerful lawmaker charged Thursday.

The email, from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office chief and part of a chain of correspondence within the agency, urges the unnamed recipient to swear in as many citizens as possible “due to the election year.”

“The Field Office due to the election year needs to process as many of their N-400 cases as possible between now and FY 2016,” reads the email, which was disclosed to FoxNews.com by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“If you have cases in this category or other pending, you are encouraged to take advantage of the OT if you can,” the email continues. “This will be an opportunity to move your pending naturalization cases. If you have not volunteered for OT, please consider and let me know if you are interested.”

Parts of the email were redacted before it was disclosed to FoxNews.com, but it was sent by the branch chief of the Houston Field Office District 17. It was not clear to whom it was addressed.

“I couldn’t have said it better!” reads the July 21 note introducing the forwarded missive. “It’s the end of the year crunch time, so let’s get crunchy! Go Team Houston! Thanks for all your hard work!”

Johnson and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in a Wednesday letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, said it appears the agency is trying to swear in new citizens as the election between Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP choice Donald Trump approaches.

“Your department seems intent on approving as many naturalization cases as quickly as possible at a time when it should instead be putting on the brakes and reviewing past adjudications,” the senator’s letter read.

Johnson referred to a report this week from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General that found at least 858 people from terror hotspots and other countries of concern had been mistakenly granted citizenship despite facing orders of deportation under other identities.

“Considering that USCIS already has a troubling record of inadequate review of naturalization applications, and mistakenly giving away citizenship to terrorists, criminals and other fraudsters, it is disturbing that they are now in full and blind rubber stamp mode to crank out new citizens,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

In a USCIS planning document submitted to Congress earlier this year, USCIS reported it expected to receive 828,000 total applications this year, up from a planned 815,000 last year, an increase of 13,000, Vaughan said.

A DHS official did not immediately offer comment on the matter.

The effort is reminiscent of a similar bid to bring in new voters when Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, said Claude Arnold, a retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations.

“I am not at all surprised by this revelation,” Arnold said. “This is a repeat of the Clinton election playbook. Then it was to help re-elect Bill Clinton, this time it is to help elect Hillary Clinton.”

The all-out push shows the Obama administration is using levers to help Clinton win, said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“In the pursuit of a partisan advantage, one party has decided integrity in the system is irrelevant,” Stein said. “They don’t really care about checking backgrounds or verifying status and eligibility – it is more about increasing the number of eligible voters in the upcoming election.”