Trump dumps UN as protector of persecuted Christian refugees
Vice President Mike Pence said the U.S. will quit funding ineffective refugee programs carried out by the United Nations, given its failure to protect Christian minorities.
"We will no longer rely on the United Nations alone to assist persecuted Christians and minorities in the wake of genocide and the atrocities of terrorist groups," Pence said.
This is according to the Washington Free Beacon. Instead, the aid will be directed through USAID or through private Christian groups.
It's something Christian and Jewish groups have been talking about for years. The American Freedom Alliance presented a superb conference about the matter in 2013. I went to it, and the takeaway from that event was "why are only Jewish leaders speaking out about the systemic extermination of the Middle East's ancient Christian communities," noting the soporific response of Christian leaders and the Obama administration. With the rise of ISIS, persecuted Christian refugees now face double-discrimination: the garden variety of persecution of terrorists and that of the United Nations, which has gotten involved and seems to be carrying on the same systemic discrimination against Syria's Christian minority (the country is about 10% Christian and one of the biggest targets of Islamic State terror), given who populates its camps.
Camps are but one element of the U.N.'s refugee operation but an important one, given that many refugees end up as migrants to the West.
According to Elliott Abrams, writing in 2016:
The United States has accepted 10,801 Syrian refugees, of whom 56 are Christian. Not 56 percent; 56 total, out of 10,801. That is to say, one half of one percent. The BBC says that ten percent of all Syrians are Christian, which would mean 2.2 million Christians. It is quite obvious, and President Obama and Secretary Kerry have acknowledged it, that Middle Eastern Christians are an especially persecuted group.
Abrams (as well as others) points out that conditions are so hellish for Christians in United Nations camps, which Christians fear have ISIS infiltrators, that they refuse to go into them. So the U.N. sends virtually no Christian refugees to the U.S. or wherever it ships refugees after its "strong vetting," despite Christian refugees experiencing the worst persecution.
Abrams notes:
Experts say another reason for the lack of Christians in the make-up of the refugees is the make-up of the camps. Christians in the main United Nations refugee camp in Jordan are subject to persecution, they say, and so flee the camps, meaning they are not included in the refugees referred to the U.S. by the U.N.
"The Christians don't reside in those camps because it is too dangerous," Shea said. "They are preyed upon by other residents from the Sunni community and there is infiltration by ISIS and criminal gangs."
"They are raped, abducted into slavery and they are abducted for ransom. It is extremely dangerous, there is not a single Christian in the Jordanian camps for Syrian refugees," Shea said.
Incredibly, the United Nations professes to be baffled by the refusal of Christians to use their camp facilities, claiming that Christians have fled to Lebanon, Christians like Syrian president Bashar Assad, Christians have already gotten work-study visas to the U.S., and so on.
But officially, according to The Hill in 2015, it's "We don't know[.] ... We don't want to speculate."
With that kind of ignorance, is it any wonder terrorists can pretty well have their way in the U.N. camps? Is it any wonder that this sort of thing is going on in U.N. refugee camps, in this instance, in Sudan?
Commonsensically, Abrams says the best solution would be for the U.S. to start picking its refugees directly, rather than relying on the U.N. That is what the Trump administration seems to be pursuing.
Pence was right to shut the whole money-eating boondoggle down for good. The thing to watch for, now, according to Crux, is speed.