The United Nations’ refugee agency is claiming that asylum seekers do not represent any kind of national security risk to the U.S.
Refugees pose zero risks to security, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci. Instead of perpetuating terrorism, she said, refugees are the victims of terrorism and often suffer from medical issues and disabilities.
Moreover, Maestracci told Voice of America that any refugees arriving in America are “some of the most vetted individuals entering the United States.”
Maestracci’s remarks stand in stark contrast to pronouncements from President Donald Trump, who has raised concerns about taking in tens of thousands of refugees, given they did not receive proper vetting.
“We’ve taken in tens of thousands of people. We know nothing about them,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last Thursday. “They can say they vet them. They didn’t vet them. They have no papers. How can you vet somebody when you don’t know anything about them and you have no papers?”
Trump signed an executive order Friday indefinitely suspending the entry of Syrian refugees, placed a 120-day ban on refugees entering and prohibited travel from seven majority Muslim countries: Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
And yet, Maestracci said that not only does the UNHCR screen refugees, but numerous U.S. government agencies are involved in the vetting process, as well.
According to UNHCR data, 14,333 Syrian refugees have entered the U.S. since 2012.
The Obama administration brought in 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016, a goal reached in August. In total, 85,000 refugees came to the U.S. in fiscal year 2016, 46 percent of whom are Muslim. That is the highest number of Muslim refugees every brought to the U.S. in a year.
Despite Maestracci’s reassurances, Trump remains entirely unconvinced.
In October 2016, Trump said that refugees constitute “a great Trojan horse” that will inevitably result in future terror attacks. An October poll indicated that 54 percent of registered voters said the U.S. has no responsibility at all to allow entry to Syrian refugees.
The next month Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali refugee, went on a stabbing spree at Ohio State University, which he criticized for failing to have Muslim prayer rooms. The Islamic State claimed credit for the attack, which left 13 people with injuries.
Meanwhile, the refugee-terror connection in Europe is much more explicit, with ISIS smuggling in terrorists and recruiters through refugee flows to radicalize and cause destruction. Although many European governments have tried to downplay the threat of refugee terror, even going so far as to cover up crimes, numerous European intelligence agencies have admitted that ISIS’s statements on infiltrating refugee movements are valid.
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