US refugee program permeated by fraud and abuse says recent US State Dept. employee in Letter to the Editor of Chicago Tribune, 2/7/17. Supports Pres. Trump temporary halt to refugee program, but doesn't think it goes far enough, has personally seen hundreds admitted to US merely on 'rehearsed and fabricated testimony'

"Indeed, the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was promoted...precisely in furtherance of the notion that...“national culture” would become meaningless as a result of immigrant cultural dilution."...
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2/7/17, "Letter: I have seen first-hand the abuse and fraud in the U.S. refugee program," Chicago Tribune, Letter to the Editor, Mary Doetsch, Wheeling

"I fully support President Donald Trump's executive order that temporarily halts admissions from the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and bans travel from nationals of countries that potentially pose a security risk to the United States; however, I don’t think the action goes far enough. Further, I believe there are many people throughout the country who feel the same way. 

As a recently retired 25-year veteran of the U.S. Department of State who served almost eight years as a refugee coordinator throughout the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Cuba, I have seen first-hand the abuses and fraud that permeate the refugee program and know about the entrenched interests that fight every effort to implement much-needed reform.  

Despite claims of enhanced vetting, the reality is that it is virtually impossible to vet an individual who has no type of an official record, particularly in countries compromised by terrorism. U.S. immigration officials simply rely on the person’s often rehearsed and fabricated “testimony.” I have personally seen this on hundreds of occasions
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As a refugee coordinator, I saw the exploitations, inconsistencies and security lapses in the program, and I advocated strongly for change. Nonetheless, during the past decade and specifically under the Obama administration, the Refugee Admissions Program continued to expand blindly, seemingly without concern for security or whether it served the best interests of its own citizens. 

For instance, the legally questionable resettlement of refugees from Malta to the United States grew substantially, despite the fact that as a European country with a functioning asylum system, “refugees” should have remained there under the internationally accepted concept of “the country of first asylum.” Similarly, the “special” in-country refugee programs in Cuba and Russia continue, although they are laden with fraud and far too often simply admit economic migrants rather than actual refugees.

As an insider who understands its operations, politics and weaknesses, I believe the refugee program must change dramatically and the courts must allow the president to fully implement the order."

-"Mary Doetsch, Wheeling"


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Added: The point has always been about diluting American culture--not about saving refugees: 

"Indeed, the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was promoted by this intellectual group precisely in furtherance of the notion that concepts such as “national culture” would become meaningless as a result of immigrant cultural dilution. By the 1970s and 1980s, the objective had evolved to implant the idea that there was really no politics to modernity (Fukuyama’s End of History) since all governance somehow had boiled down to technocracy: ensuring effective liberal market functioning — a matter best left to experts. 

In political terms, the “clearing” of the mind’s inherited cultural clutter was to be achieved by cultural wars of political correctness."... 

11/12/2016, "Trump’s Win—A Rebuke to the Elites," Consortium News, Alastair Crooke. "Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy."... 

"Donald Trump’s unlikely election is a Brexit-like blow to the global elites who espoused an arrogant mix of neocon foreign policy and neoliberal economics that has hurt many common citizens, says ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke."
 

— Mary Doetsch, Wheeling"

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