I have been convinced from the early days of writing this blog that there are some states that receive only tiny numbers of refugees, or none at all, for political reasons—some political machine assures that refugees are not resettled in their borders. The three states receiving the least numbers of refugees are Wyoming, West Virginia and Delaware. Arkansas is pretty low too.
Sometime back I called an office dealing with immigrants in Delaware and asked why Delaware’s numbers were so low since Senator Joe is such a big Senate supporter of more refugees. I got some answer along the lines of “we don’t know, no volags bring them here.” Seems to me that a state whose senior Senator is arguing for more refugees coming into the US (and was an original sponsor of the Refugee Act of 1980) would be deemed a “welcoming” state.
Just now I checked some numbers of resettled refugees. I’ve chosen Maryland because I live here and it’s nextdoor to Delaware; and Rhode Island because someone will argue that ‘well Delaware is such a little state’. By the way, Delaware is not a poor state as someone will surely argue West Virginia and Arkansas are.
Maryland has resettled 32,089 refugees from 1983 to 2007 (1323 in 2006 and 2007).
Rhode Island has resettled 7412 refugees from 1983-2007 (271 in 2006 and 2007).
Delaware had a grand total of 771 refugees in all those years (24 came in 2006 and 2007). That number for 2006 and 2007 is actually down from the average number of refugees resettled in Delaware prior to 2006. The average per year was 34 refugees. The average for Rhode Island prior to 2006 was 325. Of course, nextdoor neighbor Maryland resettled a whopping 1398 on average for those years up to 2006.
Go to databases here and see how your state compared to Delaware. And, here is our archive on Joe Biden and refugees. And see how Biden lies here.