Obama keeping lawmakers in the dark over secret refugee deal

Almost 2,500 refugees and terrorists from Islamic terrorism hot spots around the world are coming to the U.S. because Australia is smart enough not to take them. They just don't want any trouble, as it were.

But our top lawmakers are not being told about who these people are, and you can bet that among them will be people who are not taken kindly to infidels.

In a sneaky, unprecedented move of audacious proportions, the U.S. State Department has made a secret deal with Australia to resettle 2,465 unvetted refugees currently held in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the deal a "one-off."

Don Barnett of the Center for Immigration Studies said "This is a backroom deal, wheeling and dealing with another country's refugee problem. I don't believe for a moment it's a one-time deal. That's for public consumption."

The shady move has raised a red flag among Congressional oversight members whose job it is to review, monitor and supervise federal agencies, programs, activities and policy implementation. When you keep the oversight committee in the dark, then you are probably doing something the public you work for doesn't want you to do.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) dispatched a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John "Lurch" Kerry complaining of a lack of transparency.

The letter read in part, "This situation is concerning for many reasons . . . your departments negotiated an international agreement regarding refugees without consulting or notifying Congress."

And the Obama administration is upset that Trump spoke on the phone to the President of Taiwan?

U.S. Customs and Immigration Services will be sending screeners to the Pacific Islands next month to begin the magic vetting process. They will ask such questions as:

1. Did you pack your bags yourself?2. Do you know what's in them?3. Are you a terrorist?

Those who initially probed the number of possible terrorists and others being considered for resettlement were told that it was "classified," in spite of the fact that refugee admissions are traditionally public. Officials did, however, confirm the countries of origin to be Iran (great going Obama), Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Sudan. Some are also deemed as "stateless." 

Iran, Sudan and Syria are on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, while the others are working hard to make the list. Those listed as "stateless" are the most likely to go off half-cocked because we know the least about them. 

Speaking about the "stateless" refugees, Barnett said, "These could be Burmese Muslims, who have posed assimilation issues for every nation which has taken them. It's a dangerous precedent which says, 'We'll take any ethnic group with which you don't get along."

It also says "Give me your tired, your poor, your suicide bombers, yearning to kill me, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the stateless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp in surrender beside the golden door!"

Australia has a long-standing policy that prevents people seeking asylum from entering their country before being fully vetted. The U.S.? Not so much.

The Grassley-Goodlatte letter asked why Australia and other nations refused to take in these refugees. We are all waiting with baited breath (which smells like worms, I guess) for an answer.

"If they've been vetted and deemed inadmissible, the U.S. can't say, 'You don't want them, so we'll take them,'" Barnett said.

At a November 14 press conference, Turnbull said, "Nobody is taking any more refugees, but what the Americans are doing is assisting these individuals on Nauru and Manus by bringing them in within their existing quota."

Obama increased the quota for the 12-month period that began in October. Last year it was 85,000 refugees; this year it's 110,000!

PM Turnbull's announcement that Australia would be "taking more refugees from Central America" as part of "commitments at President Obama's Refugee Summit" has lawmakers speculating that the deal is a trade of dangerous refugees for Central America refugees that Australia would be getting. 

It's kind of like the Iran nuclear deal but with human "nukes" instead of actual nukes.

The Grassley-Goodlatte committee representatives will receive a classified briefing in the Australian refugee deal next week. There will be plenty of questions that we'll never get the answers to--the cost, timing, how it will benefit tue U.S. and why the heck was the deal done in secret by "the most transparent administration in the history of the United States."


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