Obama Admin. Covering Up Immigration Histories of Suspected Terrorists

Here are 41 more reasons to distrust the administration when they tell us our screening process for refugees will protect us.

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting that 41 additional foreign-born individuals have been implicated in terrorist activities. That brings the total number of suspected terrorists who have entered the country legally to 113 since 2014.

But the congressional source who gave the information to WFB said that the Obama administration is dragging its heels on supplying lawmakers with immigration histories of these suspected terrorists. Yesterday, the American Thinker reported on two Iraqi refugees who had been indicted on terror-related charges. But the number of legal immigrants and refugees who passed our vetting procedures only to be discovered later to be terrorists may be much, much higher.

This calls into question our entire vetting process as the administration works feverishly to bring tens of thousands of more refugees to America.

Since August, however, the Obama administration has stonewalled Congressional efforts to obtain more detailed immigration histories of these individuals, prompting frustration on Capitol Hill and accusation that the administration is covering up these histories to avoid exposing flaws in the U.S. screening process.

The disclosure of these additional 41 individuals linked to terror operations—many already identified as immigrants, others’ immigration histories shrouded in secrecy—has stoked further concerns about flaws in the U.S. screening process and is likely to prompt further congressional inquiry into Obama administration efforts to withhold details about these suspects, sources said.

As the number of legal immigrants connected to terrorism continues to grow, the Obama administration has sought to quash congressional inquiries and rally its allies behind an effort to fund efforts to boost the number of immigrants and refugees from the Middle East.

Many of these immigrants have been caught by authorities planning terrorist attacks on American soil, while others were found to be involved in efforts to provide funding and material to ISIS, according to an internal list of migrant terrorists codified by congressional sources and viewed by the Free Beacon.

“A growing number of foreign-born terrorists are being identified operating within the United States, and yet the Administration will not provide any information about their immigrant histories,” said one senior congressional source apprised of the issue. “And one can only imagine that for every identified terrorist, there are many more individuals around them who are radicalized, extreme or otherwise detracting from American society in ways beyond the threat of terrorism alone.”

As congressional calls for increased screening methods go mostly ignored, local authorities are dealing with an uptick in terror-related crimes committed by legal immigrants.

Republicans share blame for this situation, having voted for a budget bill in December that included full funding for refugee resettlement. What exactly are we buying with these funds?

With incidents and indictments of this nature continuing to rise, critics of the Obama administration’s immigration policy are expressing concern about a last-minute funding effort in 2015 to fully fund refugee resettlement and visa programs.

These priorities, which were granted full funding as part of a yearly spending bill approved by Congress last year, will permit around 170,000 new migrants from Muslim-majority countries to enter the United States in 2016, according to the Senate’s immigration subcommittee.

“The omnibus gave the green light for the administration to continue this failed immigration policy over the objections of the electorate,” the senior Congressional source quoted above said.

The Senate continues to uncover dozens of cases in which individuals accused of terrorism entered the country legally.

“Preventing and responding to these acts is an effort encompassing thousands of federal agents and attorneys and billions of dollars: In effect, we are voluntarily admitting individuals at risk for terrorism and then, on the back end, trying to stop them from carrying out their violent designs,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) warned last year as Congress considered the spending bill.

Sessions nailed it. This is absolute, incomprehensible madness. The political elites want to use Americans as cannon fodder in the war against “intolerance” and “Islamophobia. We’re not going to keep out every single terrorist who wants to come here as a refugee. But there is no doubt we can do a better job of screening. And if we can’t improve our vetting procedures, then serious consideration should be given to halting the flow of refugees from countries where terrorism is rampant.