For any American who has contact with true refugees/immigrants, this is 'old news.' For those of us who only know what we've been told (by friends, fb posts, or shoddy news coverage), this may be something of an eye-opener. It gives a pretty detailed account of the US's current vetting process. I offer no opinions of my own at this time; I'm only dropping it here to allow other Dawgs to draw their own conclusions.
_____________________________ I Went Through America’s Extreme Vetting I’m a Syrian refugee. Trust me, it’s plenty tough. By MOSTAFA HASSOUN January 28, 2017
I'm a Syrian refugee living in the United States. My family, which fled to Turkey in 2011 as protests against the government grew, is Muslim. And on Friday, Donald Trump signed an executive order that would have made it difficult, if not impossible for me to find safety in America.
This executive order, which suspends visas for the citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries and calls for “extreme vetting,” isn’t just discriminatory and heartless – it doesn’t make any sense. Because in every conceivable way, the vetting process is already extremely thorough. I know this because I went through the process myself.
Over 15 months I was interviewed five times – in person, over the phone, by the United Nations and by the United States. They asked me about my family, my politics, my hobbies, my childhood, my opinions of the U.S., and even my love life. No less than four U.S. government agencies had the opportunity to screen me. By the time I received my offer to live in the United States, the U.S. officials in charge of my case file knew me better than my family and friends do.
In fact, there is probably nobody in the world that knows me better than the United States government. But that didn’t stop Trump from saying last December, “People are pouring in from regions of the Middle East. We have no idea who they are, where they come from.”
President Trump knows both who I am and where I’m from, and a whole lot more. If there is something else he’d like to know – anything short of my family renouncing its Syrian and Muslim identities – I can’t imagine what it might be.
Until the start of the civil war, I had never left Syria. But in 2011, my parents, my three sisters, my brother and I fled our coastal hometown of Latakia. We really didn’t have a choice – the regime knew that my father and I had participated in the protests, and government forces were on their way to occupy our city. If we stayed, we would have been killed.
When we arrived at the Turkish border, we camped there for two weeks, waiting for an international solution that would stop the fighting. None came, but with regime forces approaching, we asked the Turkish army for permission to cross the border. They took down our information, gave us refugee identification numbers, and brought us to camps.
By the time my family and I applied for resettlement in 2013, my family was living in Antakya, a city in southern Turkey. As a group, we walked into a refugee center run by the United Nations, gave them our basic information and formally applied. We got a call a week later, asking us to come for an interview in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, and two weeks after that we got on buses to take the nine-hour trip.
Riding on the bus that day, I had no idea that I was about to begin the longest application process of my life.
When we first arrived, the United Nations officials measured our height, our weight, took our fingerprints and our photos. Once every member of the family had been accounted for, they ushered us into our first interview. They asked what our religion was, what our politics were, where we went to school, what we were doing 10 years ago. I’m not religious, but my father answered for the family and said that we’re Muslim. After an hour, they split us up and interviewed individually. Then the questions got even more specific: “Why do you hate Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad?” “Why were you protesting?” “What’s your opinion of Barack Obama?” They asked about my friends, my relatives, who they are, where they are and what they do. When I told them that several of my friends had died in the uprising, they pressed for details. The interviewers checked for discrepancies in my story as they repeated to me the questions they had already asked my father. This went on for another two hours.
By the time our family headed home, we had divulged the majority of our life stories. But as it turns out, this was just an introductory interview. Two months later we were back on the bus, heading to Gaziantep, Turkey, for the next round. They asked us all of the same questions as before, but this time with follow-up questions and an aggressive attention to detail. “If Assad gives you freedom and democracy, why are you protesting him? What is it exactly that you want from him?” “Who were you protesting with? Were you involved with any groups?” My interviewer wanted to know all of my associations and connections, from before and during the revolution.
And this time, it was clear that the interviewer had done her research beforehand. She would follow up my answers with a pointed, “Are you sure?”, and she would ask questions that clearly had a right and a wrong answer. At one point, she asked me how long my family had camped on the border Turkish-Syrian border. I told her two weeks. She looked at me and inquired, “Two weeks, or more like 20 days?” I said yes, 20 days sounded about right.
Between the in-person interviews, I know that the officials handling my application were looking for anything, anything at all, that could disqualify me for resettlement. And when they thought they found something, they wouldn’t hesitate to follow up. A month after my second interview, I received a phone call out of the blue. The resettlement agency asked me about a field hospital I worked in for seven months, after we first arrived in Turkey. Did I know who owned it? Does he work with a jihadist group? Whose donations are funding this hospital? I told them I knew little – I was just working there, helping out. Their probing continued for half an hour.
By this point, my family had an online file. We could check the status of our application online, and we did check every day.
A few weeks after I received the phone call, our status was updated: The International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) had accepted our application for settlement in the United States. This did not mean the United States was accepting us as refugees; it just meant that the ICMC, which is a federally funded Resettlement Support Center, had accepted our application for consideration. There was no guarantee our application would succeed, and the American vetting process was just beginning.
Next we were on our way to Istanbul, a 15-hour bus ride from Antakya. The ICMC center we walked into felt like an embassy; beyond multiple security checkpoints was a flurry of activity, and the reception area was full of refugees from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, waiting for their chance at a new life.
As had happened during our first interview, the employees took our fingerprints and a variety of profile photos. This time, they even scanned our irises.
The interview went much the same way as before, repeating many of the same questions we had already heard. This time, there were more questions about the United States. If I lived in America, what would I want to do there? They wanted to know if I’d be interested in protesting in the United States, and what would I protest for? What are some good things and bad things about the United States? They even asked if I had a girlfriend, and if I did, would I want to bring her with me? During the entire two hours, cameras in the room were rolling.
My family grew accustomed to waiting – who knew when we would receive the next phone call? Maybe if we were rejected, we never would be told? I now know that as the months rolled by, I was being screened by any number of U.S. agencies, such as the State Department, the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center, to name a few. For cases of Syrian refugees specifically, the Department of Homeland Security conducts an enhanced review.
Finally the phone call came in and we headed back to Istanbul, this time for an interview with the State Department. We were made to swear that everything we had said in past interviews was true, and told that if we made it to the United States and the government later discovered we had been lying about something in our past, we would be in major trouble. The U.S. officials mostly asked questions we’ve been asked before – biographical history, political affiliations, our reasons for protesting Assad. The officers asking the questions had been specially trained for this moment, the final interview in what had become a 15-month process. In many ways, I’m lucky – the average wait for a refugee applicant is 18 to 24 months. Or, at least it was.
With the final interview completed, and a few more months of waiting after that, I only had one barrier left: the medical check. This wasn’t a check-your-temperature, hit-your-knee-with-a-hammer kind of doctor’s appointment; this was a top-to-bottom, full-scale health assessment. They took blood samples, X-rayed most of my body and stripped me of my clothing. My eyes, and then my ears, were tested as healthy. All told, the medical examination was an eight-hour day.
Finally, after nearly a year and a half of being poked and prodded, physically and figuratively, I had been given clearance to start a new life in the United States. The U.S. government by then had a complete picture of who I am and who I’ve been. Getting through the five interviews was truly an exercise of autobiography, and if you told me beforehand the depth and breadth of United States’ vetting process, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. It was definitely extreme.
But not everyone in my family was given the same offer to move to the U.S. Only my sister and I were granted the opportunity, and my sister decided she didn’t want to part with her parents and other siblings. As for my mom and the others, after the final interview, they never heard back from the American resettlement agency. Luckily, they eventually received offers from other countries; my mom, my brother and one of my sisters are in Sweden, I have another sister in Germany, and my father is still in Turkey but hopes to join my mom in Sweden soon.
It’s almost beyond belief to me that anyone could mischaracterize the U.S. government’s vetting process as weak and insufficient, when it’s clearly anything but, to justify shutting the gate to millions of Syrian refugees. There is no way to look at my experience and the experience of tens of thousands of other refugees living in America and conclude that the country’s vetting system is not exhaustive and thorough.
To me, the real rationale behind Friday’s executive order is obvious: The president and his supporters do not trust people like me. Being both Syrian and Muslim (though I'm not personally religious) makes me doubly suspicious. I’m happy to be in the United States, a country I love. But it saddens me deeply to see what is happening here.
People who are already here legally can't get into country from vacation.
Overall, That's up to 500k of green card holders if they decide to vacation out of country.
The world is blasting us. And I don't blame them. We look like a bunch of intolerant rednecks right now. Absolutely embarrassing.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
From what I am seeing, this will soon be over as Syria is once again made safe for the refugees to return to. They will be needed to rebuild their country after this terrible civil war.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
From what I am seeing, this will soon be over as Syria is once again made safe for the refugees to return to. They will be needed to rebuild their country after this terrible civil war.
Can't wait til stop and frisk happen. Hopefully I don't get shot during the process.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
From what I am seeing, this will soon be over as Syria is once again made safe for the refugees to return to. They will be needed to rebuild their country after this terrible civil war.
This:
...is what they'd get to come back to... under the very same dictator that did this to them in the first place.
Safe? Don't make me laugh.
Syrians will never be safe as long as someone like Bashar Al-Assad is running their country.
Shop owners, school teachers, electricians, plumbers, college students, doctors/nurses, (you get the picture) have been on the run ever since this man decided to commit genocide upon his own country's citizens. How (expletive)-ing crazy is that, 40?
These people weren't attacked by some maleficent invading force from outside- they were killed/terrorized by their own country's President.
They have no other choice but to flee. Most of them weren't even part of the 'Arab Spring' movement. They were simply John & Jane Q. Public who were living their lives in a town that became targeted for destruction by a strongman despot solely focused on stamping out social dissension by any means necessary.
Aleppo was once a shining example of the kind of Middle-East city that was moving to embrace the future. And because of a small-minded, dictatorial martinet who couldn't handle being challenged by a chorus of dissenting voices, this once beautiful, ancient city has been reduced to a hellscape of rubble and ruin. Broken buildings that lived for 1,000 years are now piles of destruction- with the blood of Assad's own citizens oozing out of their bases.
The malignancy that authorized the use of barrel bombs on their neighborhoods is still in power. He's still being propped up by Russia, and is determined to eradicate/silence any dissension that may occur while he is in power. He will continue to do this to his own people long after this chapter's ink has dried.
Safe to rebuild their lives? Please.
I ask you, as a fellow American: would you rush back to "re-build" your home, if Donald Trump, Barack Obama, GW Bush, Bill Clinton, GHWBush or Ronald Reagan did this to you and your family? A president who is still in power... and has already shown no hesitation to completely destroy the life you once had?
Refugees and immigrants are different from the get-go:
Immigrants choose to move to a new country, looking for new opportunities that their homeland can't/won't provide. Refugees are forced out... because they simply wish to survive another day.
_____________
The day America turns Her back on the weakest, most vulnerable of this world, is the day we should dismantle the Statue of Liberty, and send it back to France... because as a nation, we no longer stand for the words inscribed upon her base.
We already have the most detailed, 'extreme' vetting system of any first-world nation on the planet. Syrian refugees must pass muster with an incredibly complex and sophisticated process:
And this video only 'taps the surface of the iceberg' foreign refugees have to navigate, if they want to come to America.
______________
This is what I've been trying to tell Dawgs, ever since this issue popped up in our threads. We already have the most "extreme vetting" process in the world. It's what has kept us safe, relative to every other 1st world nation that even has a refugee policy. We actually DID learn from 9/11- and have been employing those lessons ever since the GW Bush years.
In other words.... the policy we have in place already works. My town is living proof, as are numerous towns across America.
We are doing what America has always done... and we're doing it, even while other American communities choose to shirk their sworn American duties, because of 'fear of someone new.'
These are Single household women & children. These are extreme medical cases. These are torture victims.
This post will fall upon deaf ears for many, because they've already decided that anything other than what they already believe to be true is coming from 'fake news.' I've read your posts... and think that you're a savvy, informed guy- who simply chooses to represent a specific POV to 'keep the conversation rolling.'
I have no problem with that, in most cases. You make our threads fun, entertaining, and (occasionally) thought-provoking. BUT:
This is some very serious [****] that requires America's best minds to solve. I'm making a good-faith effort here to ask you how you'd resolve this issue for America, as regards 'our refugee issue.'
Because you're obviously worlds smarter than the guy you voted for.
We don't need to accept refugees from HOSTILE countries period.
The harshest vetting? That why when Australia refused to accept refugee that deemed as TOO DANGEROUS Obama could not allow them entry fast enough.
It's utterly ridiculous. The Syrian people were dancing the ind streets for JOY on 9/11. Then because they don't hate us enough ISIS moves in and makes them even more radicalized. Then when the leader of their country say enough is enough now they want to flee to the US? That's freaking insane to welcome people like that with open arms.
This is why people are sick and tired of liberals because they don't put America first. They just put one self destructive agenda to the next because they view America as the dumping ground for the unwanted of the world instead of a place where people can EARN the right to be. The only thing the people of Syria have earned is to stew in the mess they created for themselves.
Allowing thousands upon thousands of our enemies' people to come and settle in our country is just asking for dead Americans and treasonous at the very least. Trump is doing what a responsible leader should in at least wanting to double check who we are letting into our country instead of an open door policy to our enemies like obama did.
I'm glad to have a leader that for once wants to put America first!
You can't fix stupid but you can destroy ignorance. When you destroy ignorance you remove the justifications for evil. If you want to destroy evil then educate our people. Hate is a tool of the stupid to deal with what they can't understand.
Lol and what database do they check? The imaginary one they don't keep in Syria? The stories that can't be checked out one way or another? It's worked out wonderfully for Europe hasn't it? Has there ever been a 2 month period where terrorist among the refugees have not been attacking someone in Europe? But by all means let's invite them to our country so they can integrate and build entire communities here. Brilliant!
You can't fix stupid but you can destroy ignorance. When you destroy ignorance you remove the justifications for evil. If you want to destroy evil then educate our people. Hate is a tool of the stupid to deal with what they can't understand.
"I ask you, as a fellow American: would you rush back to "re-build" your home, if Donald Trump, Barack Obama, GW Bush, Bill Clinton, GHWBush or Ronald Reagan did this to you and your family? A president who is still in power... and has already shown no hesitation to completely destroy the life you once had?"
If you asked me to tell you ONE thing that defines "American", something that is common to every single one of us no matter background or belief, it would be this:
We don't like to be told by other people what we can't do or how we are to think.
(Now we may have less of a problem telling others what they can't do or how to think, but... when we're on the receiving end..)
Regardless of your background, politics, faith(less), etc... the American DNA bristles when confronted by those things. We have a naturally Rebellious attitude. We all have displayed at one time or another.
We don't see that (at least from the outside) in these groups of people coming from the majority Muslim nations. We see Iraqi defense forces, units we've spent tons of money equipping and training, throw up the white flag almost immediately. I'm sure you've seen the memes of abled bodied men within those groups of Syrian refugees. When we see that kind of thing, and we see it through what we know, the question naturally occurs "Why aren't they fighting for their own homes, lands, and livelihoods?" It may be an ill informed or under informed answer, but given where we stand, I don't think the question is out line.
Now what would happen if our own gov't became as violent, oppressive, and murderous as Assad? I know the answer would be Armed Revolution.
But would that be the reality? Some believe that is already taking place. We've got 300 million+ guns in America. Would we see more people raising those guns in opposition? Or would we see more people fleeing and becoming refugees in Canada and Mexico?
(What would happen if either of those places refused to take us?)
I dunno, just some food for thought.
--------------------------
"Hey, I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things." -Jack Burton
-It looks like the Harvard Boys know what they are doing after all.
First off it is a very sad situation for the people of Syria as it is for any people who survive a Civil War. I think it all started when Syrian Rebels tried to take over Syria and throw Bashar Al-Assad out of power. They had US backing so they were heavily armed. Well, they lost. Assad was as brutal on the rebels just as Abraham Lincoln was on ours. Look up how the South was treated during and after our Civil War. Most of the people were just innocents caught in the middle. Civil War is terrible but it does not fall under the recognition of International law as a reason for permanent residency for the refugees of Syria. Most must return home as soon as their country of origin is deemed safe as they are considered to be Economic Refugees. The reason they are single household women and children is their men fled to Europe, leaving them alone to face men armed with machine guns.
Europe is already beginning plans to send them back.
Sympathy and empathy are nice while reality tends to suck.
We've got 300 million+ guns in America. Would we see more people raising those guns in opposition? Or would we see more people fleeing and becoming refugees in Canada and Mexico?
I think you'd see both... which is exactly what we've seen in Syria. Some fought (and died). Others fled, which is why we're having this conversation now. Those people who rose up in opposition to Assad weren't terrorists hell-bent on destroying America. They were fighting their own government for the exact same rights that we take for granted.
Those who weren't fighters were displaced by the violence that threatened their very existence. Ordinary people caught in an insane set of circumstances. Flight was their only reasonable option.
Quote:
(What would happen if either of those places refused to take us?)
We'd die at the hands of our own leadership... or seek refuge in some other country- just like Syrians. And Somalis. And Ukrainians.
And European Jews in 1938. Yeah... we turned them away, too.
Clem, you are only presenting one side of this topic, possibly because you have only ever been given one side of it. The 'moderate' rebels that we supported were responsible for daily bombings, kidnappings, torture, and all sorts of other nasty stuff that directly contributed to tearing that country apart.
You might not listen to me about this. However, you might listen to Tulsi Gabbard, one of the few respectable Democrats left. I know Rocket is a big fan of hers. What is a 'moderate' rebel anyway? I say it is just a label we put on extremists to make us feel better about supporting them. Her words are a little more diplomatic.
Just Back From Syria, Rep. Gabbard Brings Message: 'There Are No Moderate Rebels'
(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii Democrat, says she made a secret, four-day trip to Syria -- meeting with ordinary people and even President Bashar al-Assad -- because the suffering of the Syrian people "has been weighing heavily on my heart."
"I wanted to see if there was in some small way, a way that I could express the love and the aloha and the care that the American people have for the people of Syria, and to see firsthand what was happening there, to see that situation there," Gabbard told CNN's "The Lead" with Jake Tapper on Wednesday.
She returned with a message:
"I'll tell you what I heard from the Syrian people that I met with, Jake, walking down the street in Aleppo, in Damascus, hearing from them.
“They expressed happiness and joy at seeing an American walking through their streets. But they also asked why the U.S. and its allies are providing support and arms to terrorist groups like al-Nusra, al-Qaida or al-Sham, ISIS who are on the ground there, raping, kidnapping, torturing and killing the Syrian people.
"They asked me, why is the United States and its allies supporting these terrorist groups who are destroying Syria when it was al Qaida who attacked the United States on 9/11, not Syria. I didn't have an answer for them,” Gabbard said.
“The reality is... every place that I went, every person that I spoke to, I asked this question to them, and without hesitation, they said, there are no moderate rebels. Who are these moderate rebels that people keep speaking of?
Regardless of the name of these groups, the strongest fighting force on the ground in Syria is al Nusra, or al Qaida and ISIS. That is a fact,” Gabbard said.
“There is a number of different, other groups -- all of them essentially are fighting alongside, with, or under the command of the strongest group on the ground that's trying to overthrow Assad.
“The Syrian people recognize and they know that if President Assad is overthrown, then al Qaida -- or a group like al Qaida, that has been killing Christians, killing people simply because of their religion, or because they won’t support their terror activities, they will take charge of all of Syria.
“This is the reality that the people of Syria are facing on the ground, and why they are pleading with us here in the United States to stop supporting these terrorist groups. Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country.”
Gabbard said initially, she didn't plan to meet with President Assad: "When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so because I felt it's important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we could achieve peace, and that's exactly what we talked about."
Tapper noted that Assad is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of people being forced from their homes and even their country during the five-year civil war:
"Did you have any compunctions about meeting with somebody like that, giving him any sort of enhanced credibility because a member of the United States Congress would meet with someone like that?" Tapper asked.
"Whatever you think about President Assad, the fact is that he is the president of Syria,” Tulsi replied. “In order for any peace agreement, in order for any possibility of a viable peace agreement to occur, there has to be a conversation with him,” Gabbard said.
“The Syrian people will determine his outcome and what happens with their government and their future, but our focus, my focus, my commitment is on ending this war that has caused so much suffering to the Syrian people.”
In a speech on the House floor earlier this month, Gabbard criticized America’s “interventionist wars.”
“Our limited resources should go toward rebuilding our communities here at home, not fueling more counterproductive regime change wars abroad.”
She urged her fellow lawmakers to support her bill, the “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” legislation that would stop the U.S. government from using taxpayer dollars to directly or indirectly support groups allied with terrorist groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda in their war to overthrow the Syrian government.
“The fact that our resources are being used to strengthen the very terrorist groups we should be focused on defeating should alarm every American,” Gabbard said.
I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation and stop this madness.”
Gabbard supported Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, but after the election, she was one of many people invited to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York.
"President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face," Gabbard said about the meeting.
“I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeats of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government -- a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families.”
There's a video of her talking with CNN in the link. It's actually kind of shocking how much the CNN anchor was grilling her. The Bernie Bros and pro-Trumpers were accurately stating the 'Clinton News Network' moniker (The situation in Syria is largely a result of Hillary Clinton's blunders in supporting these 'moderate' rebels. If they have to throw Tulsi Gabbard under the bus to preserve Clinton's legacy, so be it.)
So what do we do about all of this now? Well it seems like Trump is on the right path in pushing for safe zones and providing military and possibly financial support in order to rebuild their country. It'll be a long and difficult process for sure. Perhaps other countries, such as Germany, will continue their self-defeating open door policy. We have to be smarter than that, no matter how much it pains us to watch from afar.
Sounds like we're going to back Assad with Putin now and fight the rebels no matter who they are. We never should have stuck our nose in there anyway.
I wish we could pull out altogether in the middle east but that would probably have really bad results.
Perhaps Trump negotiates with Putin to work together to eradicate ISIS, find someone to replace Assad, work with the Saudis to build a safe city for the returning refugees, and use the city as a home base for those folks to rebuild their nation. Perhaps.
Nah. Assad is Putins guy and he just backed him in a war. Russia claimed they were there to help eradicate ISIS but did very little about it while helping Assad fight the rebels.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
I know you believe that. But I think it's far too early in the game to consider that a fact. Government on a global scale doesn't work like business. I'm not going to predict that you'll be wrong in the end. But with only being two weeks in his presidency, it's far too early to say how this will end up.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
I didn't say how it would end, I said we finally have a President who is up to the task of negotiating such a deal.
Government on a Global Scale works exactly how Trump says it will! If foreign leaders don't know by now they won't be dealing with another American boot licker politician, well someone should have filled them in!
"The World" won't be brow beaten. For every void we leave behind by acting like a petulant child, places like Russia and China will be happy to fill the void.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
We are the ones who have been brow beaten and ripped off for decades, the world will be lucky if all they get is brow beaten by the greatest economy the world has ever known and its Trump!
Keep convincing yourself. So far he's PO'd Mexico and Australia by not having a clue about diplomacy.
You see, it's not what you say to someone but how you say it. He acts and talks to our allies like he's the dictator of the world. I'd say he'd have a lot more luck attaining the very things you mention if he quit acting like a jack ass to everyone. You can get the same message across without being a jerk. If you know how.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Mexico has been taking advantage of our weak leadership since NAFTA and Australia was more than happy to make a last minute deal with Obama to send us thousands of refugees rejected by the rest of the world.
Dearborn, Michigan, may be the closest thing America has to a Mollenbeek, the seething, Islamicized neighborhood of Brussels believed to have harbored the terrorists involved in both the metro and airport attacks this week and last fall’s slaughter in Paris. An ordinary Detroit suburb sometimes called the “Arab Capital of North America,” Dearborn has the nation’s largest mosque; it’s home to the Arab Museum, Middle Eastern cafes, and halal beef burgers at McDonald’s.
Ron Haddad is Dearborn’s chief of police, and he says he gets one question a lot when he travels around the country. “Someone will come up to me and put their finger in my face, and they’re already angry,” he says. “They say, ‘Will the people in your community report acts of terror to you?’“
What they mean is: Will Muslims turn in other Muslims?
Haddad has a ready answer. “Not only would they, they do,” he says. “They’ve done it.”
Dearborn and Mollenbeek, in fact, could not be more different, which says a lot about the very different ways that the United States and countries like Belgium and France have approached the problem of radicalization. In a city where nearly a third of the approximately 95,000 residents are Arab-American or of Arab descent, Haddad’s department has a deep network of contacts in the community and makes regular visits to Dearborn’s 38 schools and its many mosques. He sponsors a program called “Stepping Up,” which includes an annual awards ceremony (the next is April 12) for residents reporting crime. At least twice in the past several years, fearing influence from ISIL or online propaganda on their children, Haddad says, Muslim fathers have turned in their own sons. In another case, it was students at a largely Muslim high school calling about a troubled peer.
That’s partly because they have a place to call, and because they’re connected to the larger Dearborn, Michigan, and American community, says Haddad. The outreach-and-informant program he runs is considered a model by U.S. law enforcement and counterterrorism authorities. And it’s just one piece of a little-known but widespread effort nationwide to build networks within Muslim communities. The effort spans state and Washington agencies, and is about to get a boost with a new federal clearinghouse. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/fbi-muslim-outreach-terrorism-213765
Thanks for posting this. It's an extension of what I've been trying to tell folks all along.
Dearborn is 40 minutes up the road. I've been there countless times, for gigs, friends' weddings, get-togethers. I've never once felt that I was anywhere else but America. Dudes are Detroit Lions fans, fer Allah's sake!
I truly believe that much of the mistrust and outright hostility aimed at them is coming from a place of abject ignorance: it's easy to hate someone from afar. Get to know a person, and one's attitude begins to evolve.
I've felt very isolated on this message board for a very long time, as regards this subject. It's a relief to see someone else issue a report or two. Maybe they'll listen to you. Lord knows they haven't heard a single word I've said.
Thanks, 40.
p.s. If any Dawgs get the chance to go there, the Henry Ford Museum is not to be missed!
Out of ignorance, people often see me as a racist or bigot but the truth has always been that I judge a man's character by how he behaves in our Society.
Mulims watching out for the rest of us by reporting the bad seeds in their world is a Great thing and I am proud to call them fellow Americans. This has not necessarily been the case until recent times with them. I am happy when they become us and we become them cuz we sail this ship called Murica together!
BUT I still have a problem with risking national identity by bringing in too many people from any one group. When the Polish came to America we didn't become a Polish Nation.
In England last year the number one name for boys born that year was Mohammed.
It's funny watching people who claim to only judge people based on the individual, not skin tone and such, but then turn around and support a wide spread ban based of judging entire groups.
Again, reenforcing my observation that you guys have zero idea about what you actually want, or hell, what you actually think.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
It's funny watching people who claim to only judge people based on the individual, not skin tone and such, but then turn around and support a wide spread ban based of judging entire groups.
Again, reenforcing my observation that you guys have zero idea about what you actually want, or hell, what you actually think.
I don't blame anyone for that dude. In this age of non-critical thinking and information overload, snap decisions and group bias is common across the board. The best conversations are had when we take the time to actually think about the subject before we just vomit an answer that we've heard or read elsewhere.
The really sad part is that it's not like most people are not capable of critical thinking, educating themselves, and having very productive and useful conversation; they just choose not to as it seems like a waste of time in the dumbed down world.
Murica!