But Hawaii isn't immune to irrational bigotry towards people they're not familiar with!
Earlier this week, Hawaii's governor David Ige said that he is willing to accept having some Syrian refugees coming to Hawaii!
People went ballistic over that!
And not your stereotypical Anglo-Americans who recite the conspiracy nonsense of Ann Coulter and Donald Trump!
We're talking about Hawaiians, Filipinos, Samoans, Japanese,Portuguese and other minorities objecting to having some Syrian refugees coming in!
That's right, minorities who have been stigmatized a century ago are now doing the stigmatizing!
That's right, groups that were once stigmatized and stereotyped for being criminals are now stigmatizing potential Syrian immigrants for being "dangerous"
And the other excuses are even more mind-blowing.
They say "we can't take in more people, we have homeless people here to take care of"
Oh yeah?
Here's my response to that on facebook!
The hypocrisy doesn't end there!
Much of the online hatred is expressed using tools like Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Safari, all of which are produced by Apple, a technology company started by a son of a Syrian immigrant!
That's right, Steve Jobs is a son of a Syrian immigrant. Don't let his last name fool you, he was adopted by an Anglo family!
So I mentioned this on facebook
The hypocrisy doesn't end there!
Many of those objecting to Syrian refugees call themselves "Christians"! But Mary was pregnant with Jesus Christ when she was looking for shelter while traveling. She and Joseph were rejected several times.
And guess where that happened? In the Middle East, not far from Syria
facebook.com/beingliberal.org
The hypocrisy doesn't end there!
Cuban refugees benefitted from an extremely lenient immigration policy, mostly due to US being in opposition to the communist dictator Fidel Castro! The same was true for the Vietnamese/Laotian/Hmong/Cambodians escaping the communists after the US military failed to stabilize their homelands!
But Marco Rubio, whose family benefitted from the very lenient immigration policy, doesn't want to expand those benefits to other people who need the same type of help he got! Severe hypocrite!
Occupy Democrats
Same is also true about Ted Cruz, another son of a Cuban refugee that wants to ban Syrian refugees. Cruz says "why, we don't know who might be terrorists hiding among refugees".
But Ted Cruz also admitted his father was fighting on Fidel Castro's side before switching sides and running for his life!
You can learn more from this clip from Seth Myers
----
And of course, as Ted Cruz............................................... how can we make sure these Syrian refugees are being screened so that we don't let in terrorists.
The Syrian refugees are going through a very tedious screening process that most of us can't even handle!
"Refugee Screenings Are More Intensive Than Some Politicians Would Have You Think"
The officials, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said they think people may be unaware of how the screening system works -- already an 18- to 24-month process on average that includes biometric and biographic tests, interviews and other vetting procedures by a number of U.S. security agencies.
(and more)
"The U.N. is doing the vetting," Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) told reporters on Tuesday. "That's insufficient."That's not the case. It's true that UNHCR is often involved -- although not always -- in referring refugees to the U.S. Before doing so, UNHCR goes through its own vetting process, which determines whether an individual should be classified as a refugee under the 1951 Refugee Convention., the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts in-person interviews with applicants, most often in Amman, Jordan, or Istanbul, Turkey. The USCIS interviewers go through eight weeks of training, or more if they're going to work with Iraqi or Syrian refugee applicants, according to a second administration official.
Once they're referred to the U.S., the government begins its own vetting process. Though there's discussion, even among Democrats, on whether it can be improved, it is still extensive. And officials said they're continually working to strengthen it. Here's how it works:Information-gatheringOverseas Resettlement Support Centers managed by the State Department start to gather information. They collect biographical information from applicants and take their fingerprints. This information is used later to check their identities, whether their stories are consistent and whether they pose a security threat.
InterviewsNext, the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services conducts in-person interviews with applicants, most often in Amman, Jordan, or Istanbul, Turkey. The USCIS interviewers go through eight weeks of training, or more if they're going to work with Iraqi or Syrian refugee applicants, according to a second administration official.Medical testsRefugee applicants go through a health screening to ensure they don't have a contagious medical condition, such as tuberculosis, or other health problems that require follow-up screening once they arrived in the U.S.Checking informationThis is a challenging part. The Departments of State and Homeland Security work with the FBI, the Department of Defense and other security agencies to check whether the information provided by applicants is true.The government compares their stories and information with the file from UNHCR, to see if they've been consistent. Some cases are flagged for USCIS's Fraud Detection and National Security Unit for individualized screening, such as looking at whether their stories correlate with what was happening on the ground at the time, the second official said. They similarly investigate the explanations people provide if they do not have identification.Syrians also go through an enhanced review with USCIS refugee specialists in the U.S., the second official said.
Another article about the screening process that Syrian refugees have to go through before being allowed into the US.
" Banning Syrian Refugees Won't Make America Safer, Only More Ashamed of Itself
If ISIS victims are banned from America, only ISIS will get in."
https://reason.com/blog/2015/11/17/denying-syrian-refugees-wont-make-americontrary to asylum seekers who show up at America’s doorstep like the Latin American minors fleeing violence, refugees need a referring agency — generally the UN High Commissioner for Refugees but sometimes the U.S. embassy or an NGO — to refer them to America. This agency has to perform its own screening before recommending someone. Just this stage takes four to 10 months and the UNHCR usually refers less than 1 percent of the applications it receives.After that, even refugees from non-terrorist countries are lucky if they can get a clearance from American officials in a year.But because Syrians are coming from ISIS land they are subjected to a special third-degree that can take another two to three years. As Vox’s Dara Lind points out, they have to prove a negative and show that they are not affiliated with any terrorist group. Until recently, if they had any contact whatsoever with a jihadi no matter how unknowing or innocuous — which is virtually unavoidable if your hometown has been overrun by terrorists — they were denied admissions. There have been cases when folks have been rejected because they might have served a jihadi who showed up at their sandwich shop.Setting that aside, after a UN referral, a refugee still has a dozen or so other hurdles to cross. These include, as per USCIS website:
- A Security Clearance Process that involves the State Department running the names of all the refugees referred through a standard CLASS (Consular Lookout and Support System) name check. In addition, enhanced interagency security checks were phased in beginning in 2008 and applied to all refugee applicants by 2010.
- Certain refugees undergo an additional security review called a Security Advisory Opinion (SAO). These cases require a positive SAO clearance from a number of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies in order to continue the resettlement process.
- Refugees who meet the minimum age requirement have their fingerprints and photograph taken by a trained U.S. government employee. The fingerprints are then checked against various U.S. government databases and information on any matches is reviewed by DHS.
- All refugee applicants are interviewed by an officer from DHS’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) who may travel to the country of asylum to conduct a detailed, face-to- face interview with each refugee applicant. Based on the information in the refugee’s case file and on the interview, the DHS officer will determine if the individual qualifies as a refugee and is admissible under U.S. law.
- If the USCIS officer finds that the individual qualifies as a refugee and meets other U.S. admission criteria, the officer will conditionally approve the refugee’s application for resettlement and submit it to the U.S. Department of State for final processing.
- If approved, the refugee will be required to undergo medical screening conducted by the International Organization for Migration or a physician designated by the U.S. Embassy.
- Prior to departure to the U.S., a second interagency check is conducted for most refugees to check for any new information.
- Upon arrival at one of five U.S. airports designated as ports of entry for refugee admissions, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer will review the refugee documentation and conduct additional security check.
As all of this shows, the process ain’t no stroll in the park and at the end of it lies rejection for the vast majority of applicants. To think that ISIS agents will subject themselves to it only to face either rejection or detection or both is patently absurd.
That's at least 8 steps Syrian refugees have to go through! You think you can handle any of them?
So.. you'll going to tell me that the Syrian refugees aren't being screened?
Or are you just a racist fool who only think in stereotypes?
---
My 2 YouTube speeches on this issue
Defending Syrian refugees who might come to Hawaii (part 1)
Defending Syrian refugees who might come to Hawaii (part 2)
