TEL AVIV – Hacked documents from George Soros’s Open Society Institute state that the billionaire and his foundation helped to successfully press the Obama administration into increasing to 100,000 the total number of refugees taken in by the U.S. annually, Breitbart Jerusalem has found.
The documents reveal that the billionaire personally sent President Obama a letter on the issue of accepting refugees.
The hacked memo also shows that the billionaire’s foundation pressed the U.S. government to enact two other major policy objectives regarding the intake of Syrian refugees. A timeline demonstrates that at last one of those policies – providing more financing to overseas refugee efforts – was indeed implemented by the Obama administration, while it isn’t clear whether the administration was reacting directly to the Soros group’s campaign in that case.
The information was contained in a detailed 69-page Open Society report on the agenda of an Open Society U.S. Programs board meeting held in New York from October 1 to October 2, 2015.
Regarding the increase in the total number of refugees accepted annually by the U.S., the board meeting memo states that, before the meeting, Soros himself, as well as the Open Society Foundation and a coalition of groups supported by Soros, had already helped to successfully lobby the Obama administration to take in 100,000 refugees starting in 2017 as opposed to the earlier quota of 70,000.
“In the face of this pressure, the Obama administration announced Sept. 20 that by 2017, it would raise to 100,000 the total number of refugees the U.S. takes worldwide each year,” the document states.
The memo describes the successful lobbying efforts:
Over the course of several weeks, we, along with our colleagues in the Washington office led by Stephen Rickard, combined to undertake very active efforts to support a request to the Administration to provide a special allocation of an additional 100,000 refugee slots for Syrians and significantly expanded resources for international aid efforts. George Soros made such a request to President Obama in a recent letter, and 18 mayors across America are committed to welcoming refugees to their cities in numbers surpassing the administration’s proposal.
We used the extensive networks we have developed to help engage an array of actors, most of whom were sympathetic to the cause but had not focused on the issue. In part, our active role reflects our observation that the refugee advocacy community, while long-standing and sophisticated in the inner workings of refugee policy, does not have a strong advocacy capacity or deep grassroots ties. In the course of our work, we were able to generate engagement by a group of mayors through Emma Lazarus II Fund grantee Cities United for Immigration Action; the civil rights and immigrant rights community, through long-time grantee the Leadership Council for Civil and Human Rights; liberal and conservative former national security and state department officials with the help of grantee Human Rights First; and some conservative voices, such as evangelical Christians and Southern Baptists through grantee National Immigration Forum. In the face of this pressure, the Obama administration announced Sept. 20 that by 2017, it would raise to 100,000 the total number of refugees the U.S. takes worldwide each year. While we applaud this development, it falls short of the proposed special allocation. We and allied advocates believe the U.S. can and should do more.
Secretary of State John Kerry announced last September that the U.S. would increase from 70,000 to 100,000 the number of worldwide refugees that it accepts.
A section of the Open Society document relates that Soros and the foundation “pushed for three specific policy objectives” from the Obama administration:
As George Soros and the parts of the foundation that focus on the Middle East, Africa, and Europe direct major resources and attention to that crisis, we have moved to press the United States government to respond at a level consistent with the global crisis.
Working in close coordination with our colleagues in the DC Advocacy office, we (in support of George Soros) have pushed for three specific policy objectives: (1) an increase in the worldwide refugee authorization from the pre-existing 70,000 to one commensurate with the need, (2) an increase in resources to the relevant government agencies to expand their ability to process individuals under the existing numbers (noting that the United States has only processed 1,500 Syrians since 2011 even though existing authority allows 10,000 as of now), and (3) an increase in the financing for efforts overseas, recognizing that the United States is and remains the largest funder of support for these efforts. George Soros’ letter to President Obama is included here.
In the document itself, the text that states “George Soros’ letter to President Obama is included here” is hyperlinked and brings readers to an internal Open Society Foundation’s box.com account that requires users to first log in.
Regarding the third policy objective of an increase in financing to overseas refugee efforts, the Obama administration announced in September 2015, one month before the Open Society’s board meeting of that year, that it would inject $419 million more in humanitarian aid to, as the Washington Post reported, “assist Syrian refugees and the countries that are hosting them.”
(Note: Bold emphasis added by this reporter in citation of the document).
With research by Joshua Klein.