The holes in the vetting system for Syrian refugees are not a popular topic in the Huffington Post or on former Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee’s new show.
The Huffington Post linked to Upworthy’s article about the second episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Monday in which Bee showcased her trip to Jordan where she interviewed Syrian refugees.
During her visit to a Syrian refugee camp to meet “the people we’re incoherently yelling about,” Bee asked them who they were.
“The Syrian people aren’t terrorists. We are simple people,” the subtitles on a refugee’s Arabic response read.
“I hate ISIS. The whole world must unite against them,” one male refugee told Bee.
“After talking to them it was clear they only wanted a peaceful place to raise their family,” Bee said.
Bee also interviewed Kate Dorsh of the International Organization for Migration in Jordan.
“The process of resettlement is very long. From the time they enter our pipeline it generally takes around 18 to 24 months,” Dorsh said. “We create a case file, and we enter all the information into a database with is shared with the FBI the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Department of Defense.”
However, Dorsh’s statement flies directly in the face of FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to Congress last October.
Comey warned that in spite of better vetting Syrian refugees will be more risky to approve since no data on the local population exists as it did when U.S. soldiers gathered information in Iraq.
“A number of people who were of serious concern” made it past the vetting of Iraq War refugees, two of whom were arrested on terrorism-related charges, Comey said. “There’s no doubt that was the product of a less than excellent vetting.”
“If we don’t know much about somebody, there won’t be anything in our data,” he said. “I can’t sit here and offer anybody an absolute assurance that there’s no risk associated with this.”
Unless the FBI director retracts his concerns about the Syrian refugee program, it remains to be proven that it poses no risks for the United States.
One might wonder whether a late night show host knows more about the refugee issue than the FBI Director.
