After coming under withering criticism from their far-left, open-borders base, Old Joe Biden’s handlers announced Friday that next month, they will increase the number of “refugees” that the United States will take in. Some of that criticism came from the Catholic Church, of which Old Joe claims to be a devout adherent, and which has a vested interest in making sure the “refugee” flow stays high.
Just before Biden’s handlers announced that the refugee cap would be increased, Bishop Mario Dorsonville, head of the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, complained: “The number of refugees who will be welcomed this year is far short of what we can do as a country and is not an adequate response to the immense resettlement need.”
The bishops harshly criticized Donald Trump for reducing the number of “refugees” who were admitted to the U.S. After all, it’s a Christian duty to welcome the stranger, and for the bishops, that means that the United States has a moral obligation to admit any and all people who want to come, regardless of any risk that may be involved.
Business Insider, however, revealed that the bishops’ interest in this may not be entirely moral and principled when it pointed out that “the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services is one of nine nonprofit organizations that partner with the US government to meet the needs of refugees who arrive in the country. Those seeking protection from war and repression deserve compassion and assistance, it teaches, citing the ‘mercy of Christ, who himself was a [sic] immigrant and child of refugees.’”
It is highly profitable to partner with the U.S. government. Behind their high-minded rhetoric, the U.S. Catholic bishops have 534 million reasons to call for more “refugees” and disregard the safety and security of the American people. LifeSite News reported in 2017: “In the Fiscal Year 2016, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) received more than $91 million in government funding for refugee resettlement.” The USCCB received $79,590,512 in 2014 for the same purpose. LifeSite News concludes: “Over the past nine years, the USCCB has received a total of $534,788,660 in taxpayer dollars for refugee resettlement programs.”
With that kind of money involved, is it any surprise that the bishops want more “refugees,” and show no concern whatsoever for the possibility that they might be facilitating the entry of criminals and jihad terrorists?
The U.S. Catholic bishops appear to be absolutely unconcerned about the following facts: Adnan Fazeli, a Muslim refugee brought to Maine in 2009 by Catholic Charities, died waging jihad for the Islamic State. And on June 5, 2014, a teenage Somali named Abdul Razak Ali Artan arrived in Dallas, along with his mother and six siblings. Catholic Charities CEO Dave Woodyard explained: “We gave them aid and comfort and some shelter as part of the government resettlement program.” According to NBC-DFW, “Catholic Charities says someone from the organization likely picked the family up from the airport when they arrived. According to Catholic Charities of Dallas records, the family was in temporary housing in Dallas for 23 days, leaving June 28, 2014. “Then,” said Woodyard, “they emigrated. Left, and moved onto Columbus, Ohio. And that’s when we closed our file.” They closed it too soon: in November 2016, Artan injured nine people in car and knife jihad attacks at Ohio State University.
Did anyone at Catholic Charities make any effort to determine whether young Artan or his family had jihadist sentiments? Did they do any serious vetting at all? Or would that have been “Islamophobic,” or more to the point, would it have interfered too much with the bottom line?
Abdul Razak Ali Artan is by no means the only “refugee” jihadi. Somali Muslim migrant Mohammad Barry in February 2016 stabbed multiple patrons at a restaurant owned by an Israeli Arab Christian; Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghan Muslim migrant, in September 2016 set off bombs in New York City and New Jersey; Arcan Cetin, a Turkish Muslim migrant, in September 2016 murdered five people in a mall in Burlington, Washington; Dahir Adan, another Somali Muslim migrant, in October 2016 stabbed mall shoppers in St. Cloud while screaming “Allahu akbar”; and 72 jihad terrorists have come to the U.S. from the countries listed in Trump’s initial immigration ban.
There is another consideration that the bishops are ignoring as well. What about one’s obligations to one’s own community, to try to preserve their freedom and the stability of one’s society? Could “refugee” intake be limited on that basis? That would be selfish, Mario Dorsonville would likely say. And so with jihadis crossing the border recently, do the U.S. Catholic bishops feel any obligation to support measures that would protect Americans from jihad attacks? Apparently not. The message that the bishops are sending to Americans is simple: drop dead.
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