DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Ben Carson Compares Syrian Refugees to Dogs

Xenophobic nincompoop says ridiculous statement. News at 11!



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Does anyone not even understand we're using all means necessary to check who these people are? Is everyone that dense?

i don't agree with ben carson on much of anything.

i don't agree with his stances with the refugee's. however, with regards to his point of view, the analogy is correct.

i don't agree with either, but looking at it from his perspective, it was a good analogy.

I think you should let them move into your neighborhood.

You have lost all credibility with these misleading thread titles.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
-Atticus Finch

There are no databases to check for Syrian refugees. As far as what Carson said, I would rather take in 10,000 Syrian dogs than 10,000 un-vetted, and un-vettable humans from that country. Common sense and experience tells us that something like 5-10% of them will be jihadi.

I think you mean xenophobia makes a strong minority assume that.

Many have moved into an area I lived for five years of my life. I'm proud of my adopted city of Toledo, Ohio.

I'm sure they would be quite well received in the community I live with in Alaska, too. The people where I work and live are some of the most generous individuals you'll ever meet.

You're challenging the wrong person if you think I'm a hypocrite. I sacrifice much for what I currently do.

So now you're a martyr for doing what you chose to do?

Martyr? Nah, I'm not dying for some religious cause.

Just making sacrifices to follow an unconventional life path.

During the witch hunts they would just dunk you under water for a very long time, if you survived you were a witch! Now there is a screening process the Republicans could get behind!

My heart tells me we should take them, but my mind says NO.

Jc

Dogs are better than most people. The Syrians would be lucky if anyone compared them to dogs.

To me accepting people into your country that hold rallies to celebrate all the bad things that happen to your country is pure stupidity. Tell them to go home and fight for their country's freedom instead of being useless cowards that can only bully women and little girls.

I have zero compassion for people that hate Americans and treat women like property.

jc

I think it's in a way admirable that so many want to help the syrian refugees, but couldn't we put our money to less risky and just as noble causes? I know some would rather us spend no more money period (and I get that), but to those who want to spend money to help the refugees: what if we put that money to getting more homeless american children off the street? The likelihood of them becoming jihadists is much less since religion is often a function of geography, and it's just as noble of a cause I think. We'd spend less money on "vetting" and more money on food and shelter and clothing.

Means that are inherently lacking.


The Obama administration is fighting a growing national backlash against accepting Syrian refugees, saying the government’s exhaustive screening process and security checks for new arrivals mean they can be safely brought to American soil.


Several high-level administration officials have warned in recent months just how challenging this can be. While they say U.S. security measures are much better than in the past, vetting Syrian refugees poses a quandary: How do you screen people from a war-torn country that has few criminal and terrorist databases to check?


The United States has resettled more than 3 million refugees since the mid-1970s, and the screening system in the post-9/11 era includes multiple background checks, screenings against FBI and other databases and an in-person interview. Debate over the program has intensified since the deadly terrorist strikes in Paris blamed on the Islamic State, though each attacker identified so far whose nationality has been confirmed has been found to be a European national, not part of the wave of refugees from Syria. [two have been identified since to be part of the wave]


“I don’t, obviously, put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees, so that’s a huge concern of ours,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at a security industry conference in September, using another name for the Islamic State. He added that the government has “a pretty aggressive program” for screening refugees but that he is less confident about European nations.


FBI Director James Comey added in congressional testimony last month that “a number of people who were of serious concern” slipped through the screening of Iraq War refugees, including two arrested on terrorism-related charges. “There’s no doubt that was the product of a less than excellent vetting,” he said.


Although Comey said the process has since “improved dramatically,” Syrian refugees will be even harder to check because, unlike in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have not been on the ground collecting information on the local population. “If we don’t know much about somebody, there won’t be anything in our data,” he said. “I can’t sit here and offer anybody an absolute assurance that there’s no risk associated with this.”


The administration plans to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States this year. Half the country’s governors have said they are closing off their states, citing fear of violent extremists posing as refugees, though the administration says more than 180 localities have agreed to accept the migrants.


President Obama, responding to the Paris attacks at a news conference in Turkey on Monday, made an impassioned plea to calm the fears while insisting that he would keep the nation safe.

“My first priority is the safety of the American people. [ editorial comment] And that’s why, even as we accept more refugees — including Syrians — we do so only after subjecting them to rigorous screening and security checks,” Obama said. “Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values. Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both.” [of course Syria is not an ally and not likely to open up their databases to us]


Administration officials reinforced that message Tuesday during a background briefing for reporters, saying that the nation’s refugee resettlement program has been beefed up in recent years with intensified security checks. “I personally think of this program as a proud American tradition…. It enriches our country and our nation,” said one senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under the briefing’s ground rules. [you have to say this anonymously?]


Much of the attention has been focused on just what is the process for accepting refugees. Run primarily by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, it is an exhaustive deep dive through the refugees’ past that generally takes 18 to 24 months and costs $1.1 billion a year, according to documents and current and former U.S. officials.


In most cases, the process starts with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which determines if a prospective applicant meets the legal definition of a refugee: Someone fleeing their home country due to a well-founded fear of persecution.


If so, the United Nations agency refers the refugee to the United States, and the person is sent to what is known as a resettlement support center overseas. There, the layers of security checks begin by running the individual’s name through the State Department’s Consular Lookout and Support System database, which contains visa, passport and other information.


DHS’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) conducts an in-person interview with everyone seeking asylum, sending out cadres of specially trained officers known as the Refugee Corps. The officers, who operate in about 70 countries and are currently interviewing Syrians mostly in Jordan and Turkey, use mobile equipment to fingerprint the applicants and take their photographs.

[10,000 in-person interviews? Now that's comedy.]


The prints are then screened against a variety of databases, including the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which contains prints and criminal histories on more than 70 million people, and DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System, which shows any encounters with U.S. immigration authorities.

Several high-level administration officials have warned in recent months just how challenging this can be. While they say U.S. security measures are much better than in the past, vetting Syrian refugees poses a quandary: How do you screen people from a war-torn country that has few criminal and terrorist databases to check?[repeated for irony]


The prospective refugees are also given a medical screening, which includes a tuberculosis test, and a “cultural orientation” where they receive information about the United States. Once they reach U.S. soil, there is yet another layer of screening at the airport by DHS’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection.


The process has been tightened several times over the past decade, including in 2007 when DHS began also using a Department of Defense database that includes fingerprint and other records captured in Iraq. The following year, DHS launched another biographical check on applicants with the U.S. Counterterrorism Center.


And officials emphasized that Syrian refugees receive an additional level of screening, which includes an extra layer of review of each case at USCIS headquarters in Washington.


Once refugees are accepted and in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services works with groups that aid refugees to place them. Sometimes, officials said, the priority is reunifying them with family members. Other times, it may be finding a place with low unemployment so they can more easily find work.


Of the more than 2,100 Syrian refugees accepted by the United States since 2012, most of them in the past year, half are children, a quarter are adults over 60 and only 2 percent are young males at what officials called “combat age.”


Eskinder Negash, who oversaw the resettlement process in the United States from 2009 until last year for HHS, said the security checks are extremely thorough. “You’d be amazed at how time consuming the process is,” said Negash, who is now a senior vice president at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nonprofit that advocates for refugees.


But one of the senior administration officials at Tuesday’s briefing acknowledged the limitations inherent in screening refugees from Syria, where it’s very difficult to determine something as basic as an applicant’s criminal history.

“We do the best with what we have,” the official said. “We talk to people about what their criminal histories are, and we hear about that. That’s pretty much where we are.”

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Now you can call me a xenophobe or any other name that fits your common senseless agenda but this administration has shown no inclination to secure our porous southern border in any attempt to "keep America safe". They're as much admitting they can't properly vet these people and I'm supposed to believe this action is a good idea?

You just know the Mexicans are going to be screaming because some folks just found cheaper labor now

Apparently the Mayors Council wants them.

To be honest I know a bunch of people I wouldn't want in my neighborhood. There's no specific bogey man religion I would prefer or not prefer which I consider to be utterly and ridiculously terrified of.

All kinds of people get visas to enter daily.

Radicals are pushing for more opportunities to carry guns every where, in spite of all evidence that more guns equal more American deaths.

Americans are shooting up our schools on a regular basis.

Americans are predominately murdered by Americans.

Muslim terrorists predominately target Muslims.

The lives of Muslim women and children are being threatened and faux pro-lifers don't give a damn. The obvious reason for this bigotry is that they're Muslims.

These same faux pro-lifers, who insist they're being oppressed also recognize our constitution allows religious freedom, but apparently only certain religions.

Whacked out fundamentalist, radical Americans demand this president send young Americans to get their heads chopped off and their bodies drug through the streets while Europeans sit on their asses.

These radical, extremist, fundamentalists conservatives are pretty stupid.

i wouldn't have a problem if they moved to my neighborhood.

We already have.

I already tried to tell this board about it a month ago.... and the post was roundly ignored.

2 likes.
85 views.
NO responses.

Guess it was an inconvenient narrative. Or folks didn't even bother to click the link and listen for a measly 10 minutes.

So here... allow me to do all the legwork:

This is what was missed (benefit of the doubt) or ignored (par for the course):

__________________________________

#1019400 - 10/20/15 11:17 PM Proud of My Town Tonight

So I had just finished teaching my last private student of the day. Just enough time to bounce home, grab some dinner with My Better Half, and head back out for a Classics rehearsal. I turn the car on, fire up the radio, and hear yet another news story about the Syrian refugee crisis.

But this one was different. Very different.

It's only about a 10-minute commute, but by the time I pulled into the driveway, I was grinning ear-to-ear. 8 full minutes of 'good (national) press' about my friends and neighbors.

Click the link below... and hear why some of my posts regarding ethnicity, tolerance, and coexistence read the way they do. There is something really special going on near my home.

(Please pay particular attention to the clip at the 5:35 mark. It exemplifies what goes on in this town on a daily basis.)


Clem drops the mic.
_________________________

Mr. Tsarnaev Sr. applied for asylum after coming here with some of his family on a tourist visa, which doesn't require as stringent vetting as someone applying for refugee status and brought his sons here as minors, we all know how that went.

This isn't xenophobic bullshit. It's wisdom.

As I've stated before, there was a bomb plot on the mall where my wife and daughters shop here in Central Ohio.

I don't see how this is xenophobia.

Why on earth would I want people from a country that hates mine to be able to send 10,000 or some now want 100,000 people to immigrate and gain a foothold in this country they have held rallies to celebrate when misfortune strikes.

Are they going to change to our culture? No. They will smile to our faces then think of us as devils they must live with. They will wait patiently, breed, build a cultural neighborhood and in 20 years they will start to demand changes that suit their cultural heritage instead of going back home.

Its just taking advantage of your enemies generosity to destroy them from within. After all the muslim prophets all agree it's ok to lie, cheat, steal, and rape anyone who is not muslim so whatever they do to non-muslims is forgivable in their eyes. I flat out don't want Syrians in my country PERIOD. Maybe they should thought twice about holding celebrations in the streets of Syria after 9-11. They them all rot in their own filth in Syria.

I see absolutely zero reasons to help them out. Take that aid money and put some inner city kids through college instead and do something that is good for our country instead of wasting its resources aiding the enemy.

Glad somebody is showing compassion, because people on this board lack a lot of it.

religious leaders make forceful appeal to admit refugees

http://news.yahoo.com/us-religious-leaders-forceful-appeal-admit-refugees-173908562.html

In rare agreement across faith and ideological lines, leaders of major American religious groups have condemned proposed bans on Syrian refugees, contending a legitimate debate over security has been overtaken by irrational fear and prejudice.

Top organizations representing evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Jews and liberal Protestants say close vetting of asylum seekers is a critical part of forming policy on refugees. But these religious leaders say such concerns, heightened after the Paris attacks a week ago, do not warrant blocking those fleeing violence in the Middle East.

"The problem is not the Syrian refugees," said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who noted how his state has welcomed a large number of Cuban refugees over the years. "This is falling into the trap of what the terrorists wanted us to become. We shouldn't allow them to change who we are as a people."

About 70 percent of all refugees admitted to the U.S. are resettled by faith groups, according to the U.S. State Department office for refugees. The bulk of the work is done by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Church World Service, representing Protestant and Orthodox groups, are each responsible for about 10 percent. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Episcopal Migrant Ministries also handle several thousand cases.

The Rev. Russell Moore, head of the public policy agency for the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant group, said screening is crucial and "we should insist on it," but he said evangelicals should not "demagogue the issue as many politicians are doing right now."

"Evangelicals should be the ones calling the rest of the world to remember human dignity and the image of God, especially for those fleeing murderous Islamic radical jihadis," Moore said.

View galleryFILE - In this June 10, 2015 file photo, Archbishop …
FILE - In this June 10, 2015 file photo, Archbishop Thomas Wenski, of Miami, participates in a news …
Lawmakers and more than half of U.S. governors, mostly Republicans, have said they were worried Islamic extremists may try to take advantage of the U.S. refugee process. Some governors are refusing Syrian refugee settlement in their states for now. They point to a passport found near the body of one of the Paris suicide bombers that had been registered along the route asylum seekers are taking through Europe. It's not clear how the passport ended up near the attacker.

On Thursday, the U.S. House voted by a veto-proof majority to pass legislation which in effect would suspend admissions of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Stephan Bauman, president of World Relief, called the bill "without rational basis" and "a huge disservice."

"Differential treatment, with no clear justification, amounts to discrimination on the basis of nationality," Bauman said.

Reform Judaism, the largest American Jewish movement, joined the American Jewish Committee, an influential policy group, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights organization, and the Orthodox Union, in opposing any halt in resettlement.

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, said, "we will not let the nightmare" of terrorism "keep us from carrying out the words of Jesus who told us to be a neighbor to those in need."

View galleryIn this photo provided by Great Plains Conference of …
In this photo provided by Great Plains Conference of the United Methodist Church, Bishop Scott J. Jo …
Bishop Scott Jones, head of the United Methodist Great Plains Conference, said 35 Methodist congregations in Kansas and Nebraska have offered to sponsor Syrian refugees. "We need to stand by them against the jihadist movement," Jones said Friday.

Some of the faithful are more openly struggling to find the right balance between national security and compassion.

Refugees already go through a comprehensive vetting process that can take as much as three years, including biometric screening, fingerprinting and additional classified controls. Some lawmakers are now demanding even tougher assessments. Still, a Pew Research Center survey last September, conducted soon after President Barack Obama announced an increase in the number of Syrian refugees the U.S. would accept, found just 31 percent of white evangelicals favored the increase, compared to 51 percent of the general public, in the lowest approval level for any Christian group.

The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, said new immigration policies are needed because "Islam is not a peaceful religion" and "our nation's security is at stake."

"We cannot allow Muslim immigrants to come across our borders unchecked while we are fighting this war on terror," Graham said in a Facebook post.

Still many, faith leaders who share those security concerns are condemning the tone of the current discussion.

The Orthodox Union said "we encourage a sensible process of reviewing and enhancing security," with the goal of "getting to yes" on admitting asylum seekers. But the group said, "Neither partisan politics nor xenophobia can have a place in that debate."

The Arizona Muslim Community, which helps resettle Syrian refugees in suburban Phoenix, planned a public picnic Sunday in Scottsdale for more than a dozen refugees, hoping to improve understanding of the families' plight.

Catholic Charities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has reported threats against a Syrian refugee family the agency assisted. Sister Donna Markham, president of Catholic Charities USA, said her office has received "very disturbing mail coming to us from people who are very angry that we are trying to extend help to these people."

"It's tragic," she said

It's too late.
They're already here. Some have been here for at least 2 generations... and you're still alive.

These are facts.
What you are spouting.... isn't.

It's a stream of generalizations about an entire population that's been ASSUMED... because of a small number of folks who actually killed Syrian citizens (along with their despotic leader).

"Not my problem. Send them elsewhere."

Once again:




Does anything NOT terrify you?

TSA let a man on plane with a loaded gun last week. Hopefully you can understand why people have little faith in government screening.

Not to mention, this little JV group that has sent millions seeking asylum elsewhere have promised to put their people among them. I've heard countless people on this board give reasons for their distrust in this government. I wonder why they trust them now.

I'm guessing the conversation for rationalizing internment camps went quite similar to many discussions happening on our board right now.

Well, if there wasn't a Pearl Harbor there wouldn't have been the suspicion of the need for the internment camps.

Not like they rounded them up for no apparent reason.

People seem to forget that was a cowardly sneak attack before war was declared complete, with Japanese spies.

Now we're defending internment camps?

Come on now.

Jc

Government screening of refugees is kind of a joke, all they will do is compare their name to a terrorist watch list. Beyond that there is nothing they can do.

No, we're not defending Internment Camps. We're presenting the evidence that lead to the reasons for their use.

I'm sure that if the refugees suffer the suspicion that their presence brings with the dignity that the Japanese (and to a smaller degree the Italians) did back then all will be well.

You need to stop trying to make it sound like those of us on this side of the argument don't have a good reason to be concerned.

My father was in that war. My only view of that war and what happened is from that standpoint.

The Japanese always get brought up as this "model minority". It irks me. Why? They're brought up as the model minority due to the subservience, willingness to blend in, and that was brought upon due to all the unfounded hysteria after WWII.

You get a culture over here who is a bit more vocal? Well, many view them as "look at those (insert racial group here). They need to go back to (insert country here) if they want to act like that. This is America where we speak American, act American, and be American!" I despise the melting pot analogy when it comes to our country. What happens in the melting pot? Everything melts down to a homogenous mixture. That isn't the America I know.

I like to think of us as a salad bowl. Many different ingredients, all differents tastes, colors, and consistencies. All the ingredients mix together, but remain as a whole.

Allowing in a minute amount of refugees, while taking a chance to just trust government agencies, won't hurt us. The Native Americans trusted refugees, and then said refugees went to ruin it all.

Edit:

Tulsa, but none of those in the internment camps caused your father to get called into the pacific. It was proven none of the individuals rounded up were connected to the attack on Pearl Harbor in any meaningful way.

Only a few were refugees, or asylum seekers. Most came over to find the opportunity to get rich, and make a way of life for themselves.

Concern is natural, and totally understandable.

The debate (at least to me) is what to do about those concerns. For some, the answer is to keep everyone out. That may help to make us FEEL safer, but it doesn't guarantee a thing. At the same time, we've turned our backs on some of the neediest people on the planet. So much for being a 'Christian nation.'

For others, they can acknowledge that risk comes with everything... but are willing to extend that so-called 'Christian charity' despite the chance that some could infiltrate.

There must be some middle ground between absolute sequester and issuing an open invitation to calamity... and I feel it's too soon for us to have found that solution. "All or nothing" rhetoric (from either side) will never get us to that place.


.02

Rocket, information wasn't as available or as quickly disseminated as it is today. It's easy to look back and second guess people's decisions 70 plus years later but my father made it through the war, twice decorated with purple hearts and one bronze star. One of those purple hearts was in the pacific theatre. When I compare that to someone in a camp where they were not hurt, I could really care less.

If the concerns are understandable, then why the accusations of xenophobia?

The house didn't vote to block all refugees permanently. They voted to slow the process in order to make sure that those who are coming are safe to allow in.

Remember, Jesus also said 'be wise as serpents'.

The same people yelling Xenophobia on this issue are the same ones yelling Homophobia when they made the sin of homosexual sex equal to Heterosexual sex in our Nation.

Now they want to remind us to be Christian.

No common sense with these folks.

what are you talking about?

i just posted a link where christians are trying to remind you to be, well, christian.

but hey, ignore the stuff that doesn't fit your agenda.

What has the government done to earn your unconditional trust? Take a look around, the government has track record of being wrong. But instead of being proactive for a change, you want to let everybody in and not doing anything until buildings start blowing up.