Free Republic

Some small-town residents of Rutland, Vt. are upset at their mayor’s decision to resettle 100 Syrian refugees throughout 2017 in the area. Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras defended his decision, saying the town’s demographics are declining, and they are having trouble recruiting younger workers. He also thinks refugees will bring cultural diversity. . . . Louras’s decision sparked outrage among some residents who say they had little say in the mayor’s decision, which would effect them all.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday his administration would build "safe zones" to try to help civilians trapped in Syria's bloody conflict, an idea that President Barack Obama said would be too hard to enforce. Mr Trump and Mr Obama spoke separately of the conflict after efforts to evacuate civilians from the city of Aleppo ground to a halt on Friday after weeks of bombardments by the Syrian army. "We're going to try and patch that up and we're going to try and help people," said Mr Trump, who takes over from Obama on Jan. 20. "We're going to...

TEL AVIV – Israel is set to double its annual water supply to Jordan as the country suffers from a deepening water crisis, made worse by the influx of refugees flooding its borders since the Syrian civil war broke out. Next month, Israel’s national water carrier, Mekorot, will lay a new pipeline from the Sea of Galilee and through the Jordan Valley to provide the Hashemite Kingdom with 100 million cubic meters of water annually, double its current allocation, the Israeli website Globes reported on Wednesday.

RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) -- Arabic language classes are drawing 25 to 30 people a week in preparation for the new arrivals in town. High school students are helping collect furniture and housewares for them, and employers have inquired about giving them jobs. For the past several months, Rutland has been getting ready to receive 100 mostly Syrian refugees beginning early next year. But with Donald Trump taking office in late January, Rutland's plans and those of other U.S. cities that have agreed to take in people fleeing the civil war have been thrown into question, given the incoming president's hostility...

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration has resettled 13,210 Syrian refugees into the United States since the beginning of 2016 – an increase of 675 percent over the same 10-month period in 2015. Of those, 13,100 (99.1 percent) are Muslims – 12,966 Sunnis, 24 Shi’a, and 110 other Muslims – and 77 (0.5 percent) are Christians. Another 24 (0.18 percent) are Yazidis. During the Jan.-Oct. period in 2015, 1,705 Syrian refugees were admitted, of whom 1,664 (97.5 percent) were Muslims and 29 (1.7 percent) were Christians. Meanwhile the surge of Syrian refugee admissions initiated by the administration last February has continued...

In an effort to keep more Syrian migrants from flooding into Europe, the European Union (EU) is providing funding for a million debit cards for Syrian refugees in Turkey. Turkey is currently home to some 3 million Syrian migrants who have been prevented from traveling to Europe thanks to an accord between the EU and the Turkish government that went into effect last March. The debit cards, called the Kizilay card (Turkish for “Red Crescent”), are meant to ease the economic burden on Syrian migrants as well as provide a substantial cash injection into the Turkish economy. The cards can...

In an otherwise unremarkable opinion over the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal appellate court judge has issued a sharp rejoinder to the Obama administration over an issue that has been discussed in the news–the almost complete lack of Syrian Christian refugees being brought over to the U.S.The Heartland Alliance’s National Immigration Justice Center, a progressive liberal advocacy organization “dedicated to ensuring human rights protections” for aliens and asylum seekers, including apparently terrorists, filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The lawsuit claimed that DHS was refusing to release the identity of Tier...

Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of wanting "to take in as many Syrians as possible," referring to a "secret tape" as supposed proof that the Democratic presidential nominee would allow refugees to flood the US if elected. "Wow, just came out on secret tape that Crooked Hillary wants to take in as many Syrians as possible," Trump tweeted. "We cannot let this happen — ISIS!" The Republican presidential nominee has long argued that if the US continues to let in refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war, ISIS terrorists will find ways to slip into the country with them. Terrorists have...

States that refuse to help resettle Syrian refugees are guilty of illegal discrimination, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, delivering a judicial rebuke to GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, who as Indiana’s governor had tried to halt Syrian resettlement. Judge Richard Posner, writing for the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said there’s no evidence that Syrians are more dangerous, and he said even if they are, allowing Indiana to refuse to resettle them would only foist the problem onto neighboring states. “Federal law does not allow a governor to deport to other...

The State Department admissions for all of September of non-Muslim Syrian refugees represented only 1.1 percent of the total, with 1,825 Muslim refugees admitted, and only 22 from Yazidi and various Christian sects who are being targeted for genocide by the Islamic State in Syria. Admissions for the month of August were 3,159 Muslim and 30 non-Muslim refugees—fewer than one percent. Year-to-date, non-Muslim Syrian refugee admissions account for less than one percent (0.8) overall, with 11,818 Muslims and only 95 non-Muslims of all groups. Those were the numbers as of today from the State Department's Refugee Processing Center. These numbers...

The United States has admitted 12,500 refugees from war- ravaged Syria over the past year, surpassing President Obama’s target, and expects to admit even more next year, a State Department official said Tuesday. The Syrians are among 85,000 refugees from all over the world who have been resettled in the fiscal year that ends late this week, said Ann Richard, the assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. That is up from 70,000 in the previous year. The White House aims to admit 110,000 refugees over the next 12 months.~SNIP~

One hot-button issue in the first Presidential debate will be the Syrian and other refugees that are allowed into the country. The vetting process of asylum seekers for resettlement in the United States usually takes between 18 to 24 months. But to meet President Obama’s goal of bringing in “at least 10,000” more Syrian refugees by the end of 2016, the process was cut to 3 months. And on August 29, White House spokesman Josh Earnest announced, “this goal that was met a month ahead of schedule.”

Stone Mountain, Georgia — a city with just over 6,000 residents and a poverty rate well above the national average — has resettled more Syrian refugees than Los Angeles and New York City combined.

Stone Mountain, Georgia — a city with just over 6,000 residents and a poverty rate well above the national average — has resettled more Syrian refugees than Los Angeles and New York City combined. Since October 1 (the start of the fiscal year), 72 Syrian refugees have been placed in Stone Mountain, State Department data shows. Los Angeles has resettled just 45 Syrian refugees, while NYC has only resettled nine. Syrians aren’t the only refugees placed in Stone Mountain this year. Since October 1, 299 refugees have been resettled in the Georgia town. That’s roughly five percent of Stone Mountain’s...

Despite "heroic" promises to accept 160,000 Syrian refugees, European Union member states have only accepted 6,000 to date while the US alone has already admitted 8,000 of the 10,000 promised. So in light of recent terrorist attacks this begs the question is the U.S. being honorable or just dumb? According to Nayla Rush of the Center for Immigration Studies the answer might just be the latter (although she's far more polite than we are): excerpt at source Given the inability to properly vet refugees, even the New York Times has questioned Obama's logic after a number of refugees have been...

The pace of Syrian refugees entering the U.S. has surged in recent weeks, government figures show, putting the Obama administration on track to meet its target of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees before the end of September -– and reviving Republican concerns about the security implications. State Department reports show that 2,340 Syrian refugees arrived last month in the United States. That's more than what occurred during the entire seven months after President Obama directed his team to prepare for 10,000 admissions from the war-torn country. Total admissions for the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, now come to about...

They initially introduced his name as a western name “David S”. Then his name changed to Ali David Sonboly (which sounds western) when his real name is Ali Daud Sonboly/Sunbuli which is an Arabic name (better pronounced Sunbuli) and has an exclusively Arabic meaning: ‘from the wheat kernel’. Sonboly is no Iranian. He is Syrian. His Facebook page showed that he is pro Turkey’s Islamists. That, plus he had a record with the Interpol and was being watched. He is also not a teenager as they show us, but an adult as videos showed. What the reader should conclude after...

With ten weeks to go until the end of the fiscal year, the Obama administration continues to admit Syrian refugees at an accelerated pace, and has now exceeded two-thirds of President Obama's target of 10,000 by September 30. The proportion of Christians among those resettled continues to languish below half of one percent, while other non-Sunnis account for just over one percent. As of Monday, 1,515 Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war in their homeland had been admitted since the beginning of July, and a total of 6,726 since FY 2016 began on October 1, according to State Department Refugee...

“I know this, because we received a confidential tip from a parent, who couldn’t get anyone in New Brunswick to help. The media, the police, the politicians — everybody is petrified of being called ‘racist’ for even mentioning the disaster that has come from putting unassimilated Muslim migrant men right into our schools.” Just as in Rotherham, England: officials were so afraid of being accused of “racism” and “Islamophobia” that they let Muslim rape gangs destroy the lives of hundreds, and maybe over a thousand, non-Muslim girls. The fear of “racism” will be the death of the free West. ===========================================================...

Who thought trying to find a Syrian refugee in a refugee camp would be like finding a needle in a haystack? Rebel Media reporter Lauren Southern visited the Calais Jungle, a large refugee camp generally inhabited by those trying to eventually immigrate illegally to the UK. When the debate over Syrian refugees began in America, our main concern was that terrorists would slip through the cracks. For Europe, they’re finding non-Syrian “refugees” are slipping through. And contrary to the narrative Barack Obama created, that those opposed to refugee resettlement were afraid of “women and children,” there really weren’t many women...