This morning I want to make a statement to our readers. First, to our national and international readers, sorry that we have been focused recently on the issues surrounding Refugee Resettlement in Washington County, MD. Tonight we have a public forum which includes representatives from the US State Dept., Maryland Office for New Americans, and federal contractor Church World Services and its subcontractor Virginia Council of Churches. We hope that much of what we have been bringing, although local in nature, may help you understand the issue better and help you put some ideas to work. We will get back to covering more on broader issues shortly.
Since one of our goals at RRW is to “encourage reform of Refugee Resettlement policy at a national level”, we plan to have some suggestions for reform in the coming days.
For our readers who are here today to see what we are up to, I am making one thing very clear. This is a serious debate about public policy. In fact, in my opinion, the subject of immigration, legal and illegal, is the most important issue facing our country. I have not interjected anything about anyone’s personal lives into the debate, but apparently my personal life is fair game. All I can say is, it is easy for people to be charitable with taxpayers’ money. It’s a lot harder to give out of your own pocket to help make the lives of people from the third world a little better. Our contributions this evening will be based on policy, not how many points we can rack up on the “I’m so compassionate” scale.