Posted by Ann Corcoran on November 6, 2017
This was posted a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn’t seen it until today when the IRC (a resettlement contractor) was crowing about it on twitter.
Friends lobbyist Yasmine Taeb came to her job for the Quakers from the Center for American Progress (Podesta!). No surprise. https://www.fcnl.org/people/yasmine-taeb
The top story at google on the letter is at the Friends Committee.
If you didn’t know, the Friends (aka Quakers) are very pro-more-immigration. They are involved in defending the Palestinians in the Middle East as well (story for another day).
News from the Friends Committee on National Legislation. I’m sure you might have guessed if your member of Congress was on the letter, but we are grateful to the ‘Friends’ for listing them for us.
In response to the Trump administration’s announcement of a historically low refugee admissions goal for 2018, over 100 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the White House calling on the administration to increase the refugee admissions goal from 45,000 to 110,000. Additionally, this letter expresses concern over a proposed “assimilation standard” for refugees.
FCNL Legislative Director for Human Rights and Civil Liberties Yasmine Taeb made the following statement….
FCNL Legislative Director for Human Rights and Civil Liberties Yasmine Taeb made the following statement….
The letter to the president can be found below. [I did not count the signatures, they said 100.—ed]
Dear President Trump,
We write to express our deep disappointment in your decision to set the Presidential Determination (PD) for Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2018 at 45,000. We strongly urge you to reconsider this decision and increase the refugee admission level to 110,000 for Fiscal Year 2018. Further, we are alarmed by proposed changes to the resettlement process to require refugees to meet an assimilation standard and ask you brief us at least 30 days before any such changes are made.
As you know, the world is in the midst of the largest refugee crisis in history. An unprecedented 65.6 million people across the globe have been forcibly displaced from their homes because of violence, persecution, and war. Approximately 22.5 million of those individuals are refugees, and more than half are children. The U.S. has a moral imperative to welcome refugees, who are the most thoroughly vetted people who enter our country. America taking a leadership role during this crisis bolsters our credibility as a nation of immigrants founded on the promise to welcome those seeking a better life. ..
Gidget herself being unavailable, I like how these groups often use some scrubbed youthful bright-eyed front-woman who appears as American as apple pie. Subliminally trying to make people think, 'Someone like this would never import a refugee cop who would blast away a housewife for reporting a noise outside or a jihadist truck-driving innocent pedestrian squasher.'
"our credibility as a nation of immigrants founded on the promise to welcome those seeking a better life."
Besides the fact that I do not believe that "seeking a better life" legally qualifies a "traveler" as a 'refugee,' apparently US history runs counter to the historical norm, where people commonly migrate seeking a worse life. Who knew? --tma
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