After my assignment at the US Embassy – Baghdad was completed, I was offered the position of Recruiting Manager for the entire project.
I arranged flight to Bosnia to start recruiting there, but upon arrival in France, I was re-routed to Romania as the Bosnian government wanted too big a bribe to offer qualified candidates to us. You see, they tried to tell us what recruiters to use, how to background these people, and also would not give local access to law enforcement records. So our hands were tied and we cancelled the operation immediately and decided upon Romania.

Once in Romania, I had my first taste of US Embassies outside of Baghdad, and the way they conduct business.
First and foremost is the continuous feeling of apathy by many State Department staff to do anything outside of their internal departmental interests.

We were placed on a low priority status to the point that they would get around to doing backgrounds on the candidates anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks – not nearly quick enough to get an entire embassy up and running.

Couple that with a corrupt governmental system in Romania and you have now created a chaos soufflé.

The Romanians were taking bribes of $5k per applicant to get them pushed through as passable on the background checks. This money would be shared with the local police department records divisions, as well as the Romanian government.

Our state department knew about it and looked the other way, stating, “It is in their culture to take payola” – pay-to-play.

The only reason we stopped that operation was due to the fact we could not wait 16 weeks to get a recruit on the plane for Baghdad.

Next stop – Kenya.

When I landed, there was no plan in place, no office, no staff, no anything to sink our teeth into; basically going in expeditionary style to stand up the operation by ourselves.

I say ourselves as it was myself and one other person who would only stay there for about two weeks to help me get thing rolling.

We had to rent an office, hire a recruiting agency, set up meetings with the US Embassy in Nairobi for the US side of the background checks, set up medical appointments for physicals, bank accounts, transportation (local and international flights, busing to the embassy), and many more finer details.

Now,

Here is where the entire thing pulls together regarding the ‘refugees’ and the immigration desires of Obama.

I do not think anybody could argue that the screening process for a Third Country National (TCN) to work at a US Embassy in an active war zone was far more invasive than the backgrounds being done on any immigrant coming to the US from anywhere.

Here is what happens:

The local employment agency puts an ad in the local paper for overseas jobs (Administrative, IT, construction trades, janitors, gardeners, everything).

The recruiting firm takes the first bribe to get them in front of me to do a technical interview where I would verbally test them on their skillsets and knowledge of the position they were applying for, including an English test – both written and verbal, to assure they could communicate in a rudimentary manner with anyone at the embassy.

In conjunction with the US State Department – Nairobi, we then pushed their identity to the local police department of their home town to get any records of criminal activity.

Later, I was told by several TCN’s that they paid $60 to the local police to lose their records or give them a clean background. $60 to a

Kenyan working in records at a local PD is a ton of money, compounded by the amount of recruits we pushed through.

Next stop: US Embassy – Nairobi

I would rent City Hoppa buses out for a day on Fridays, as that was the day the embassy only worked a half a day, and the ambassador approved the overtime for their personnel to do oral interviews. We were given priority 1 status.

(Sidebar: the State department gets a lot of time off – every US holiday, every holiday of the country they are working in, and their annualleave of a month. I won’t even tell you the money they make and the benefits, that is for another article. Nice life.)

The state department would fingerprint the candidates and do an oral interview for at most about 20 minutes per candidate.

No lie detector test.

Next, we would take the candidates for a medical screening to assure they did not have any communicable diseases or irregularities that would disqualify them from employment.

For the next 2 weeks, the RSO (Regional Security Office – like the FBI, only for the State Department) would take over the background checks.

This is very important:
If they could not find any records with the US criminal records, the Kenyan local or National records, or Interpol, they were approved.

No Lie detector tests
No interviews with neighbors or family
Nothing else

So, if a criminal had never been caught, or an AL-Qaeda associate who is not on the radar (as many were not due to them not having computers to communicate) they were thought of as acceptable applicants.

Having spent a year and a half in Africa, I can attest to the fact that almost none of the bad guys use cell phones or computers, nor do they get caught, as it is a third world nation.

How does this relate to the current situation??

We had many that came to apply for jobs who only wanted to get to the embassy to do damage, steal information, or hurt people.

In the interviews, they would pie and put on a sad face about how they are broke and only want to feed their family.

In other words, they just said what people wanted to hear and played on the interviewer’s emotions.

As a pretty logical and some might think a cold-hearted SOB, I could see through most of it, but I had to play by their rules, no matter my gut instinct.

Our failure rate of bad guys getting through was at probably 5%, and many were caught after they had arrived and done something wrong at the Embassy.

Luckily, they could not get their hands on explosives over there as they were locked inside the embassy 24/7.

All this with a much harder screening than these refugees would get.

It deserves repeating for all those who make choices based solely on emotion and pictures in the news;
THEY SAY WHATEVER IT IS TO PLAY ON YOUR EMOTIONS, EVEN GETTING COACHED ON WHAT TO SAY.

Now are you getting it??

Save your emotional decision for your family.

Next thought concerns the jobs, medical, schooling, food, and housing they will have to receive.
Do they even want to work?
Are they qualified?
Can they speak English?
Should the taxpayer take a job a US citizen should have?
Should the taxpayer pay for all those benefits?
What happens when they get disillusioned with their status in the US living at poverty level?

Studies have pointed to many turning hard to extremism and crime.

Add this to the proven fact that many if not most are not refugees at all but able bodied men who want a better lifestyle in Europe and the US. Many are not even Syrian.

Anyone who still thinks ISIS and AL-Qaeda are not going to infiltrate are nuts and should go on drinking the Kool-Aid put forth by the politicians.

Drink this and forget everything. Close your eyes, take a sip..,

The Real Problem with Refugee Immigration

(Part 2 – Personal Background)

After listening for several months about the refugee immigrant dilemma, I cannot sit back and listen to it any more without commenting.
I have a very strong background that can offer great truth and insight to this topic.

Background:

Back in 2007, I was working in the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, under a Chief-of-Mission program. There were ten of us who were contracted to oversee this program, which was to organize the opening of the New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Baghdad’s Green-Zone. The current embassy at the time was working out of Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace.

The NEC was recently finished and almost ready for occupancy. Our mission was as follows:

1. Design and construct the man-camps for the support staff to live in as only the US State department personnel were allowed to live   in the apartment complex. Man-camps were built of flat-packs (a basic shipping container [8’ x 20’] that was collapsible for shipment. The support staff alone was well over 500 personnel.
   These living containers were a far lower quality of life than the state department staff in regards to size, amenities, private showers [none], etc.
2. Design and construct the giant warehouse that held every supply one could imagine to keep a miniature city alive and running at 100% efficiency; all in a very limited footprint, as well as maintaining an orderly traffic flow into and out of said structure –
   (This was my design – quite proud of it)
3. Formulate a procurement list of every conceivable tool and material (bench stock and more) that this small self-sustaining city would need at a moment’s notice.
   You see, in a war zone, getting supplies was a very big deal and sometimes took months to achieve. Add that to the immense paperwork the government requires, and it becomes a huge project that took four of us thousands of hours to complete, vet, and submit
4. Develop a staffing requirement to maintain the Embassy to include recruiting operations in 5 countries, trade and occupational staffing breakdowns, support and admin staff, operations, and overlap to cover R+R’s
5. Develop a detailed logistical plan for a smooth transition to new embassy to include office breakdown and set-ups, communications and internet set-up, hardware and office furniture, etc.., all while not interrupting the operations in any significant way
6. Develop a recruiting operation in several European and African countries to staff the Baghdad Embassy

Just at with my previous 2+ years in Baghdad, we were always under heavy fire from Al-Qaida and local militants. We had rocket propelled grenades, mortars, car bombs, and sniper fire on a daily basis. These were the conditions we had to operate under at all times. There were many times we could not go anywhere without wearing our full PPE (Personal Protective Equipment – Helmet, Vest), even a walk to the latrine or shower.

So what does this have to do with the current situation of refugees?

Well, until you have seen the after-effect and massive carnage of a car bomb or the like, one has no idea of the catastrophic destruction it causes, not just in body count, but the mental and emotional effects it has on the survivors and the ancillary support persons (first responders, quick reaction forces, and cleanup crews).

99.999% of Americans have not been subject to this horror, and it certainly gives one a unique and QUALIFIED perspective.

Just the actions of one single terrorist is enough to warrant the strongest objections to this current desire to bring in persons who may or may not be terrorists.

Part 2 discusses my background as a recruiter and the background checks the US Government did for the staff I hired.
(To be added later today – 22 Nov 15)