And the numbers I’m about to give you don’t account for the millions of needy migrants you are still supporting through some welfare/medicaid program or another from previous years!
Thanks to Joanne for pouring over the FY2017 Budget document for the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services. And, this is only half of the story since the US State Department is also shelling out millions for the same group of refugees. The US State Department budget likely adds another $2 billion to the $2 billion price tag below.
And remember! Much of this expenditure to care for these refugees/asylees/assorted other migrants (legal and illegal) flows through federal contractor middle men (for salaries, offices etc.)
Go here for the full report.
Now check out these numbers on page 240! 195,231 arrived in FY 2015 for us to take care of (it’s not just the resettled refugee numbers, 70,000-85,000, being bandied about).
If you can’t read the numbers here they are for 2015:
Refugees: 69,933
Special Immigrant Visas: 8,709
Cuban/Haitian Immigrants 61,000 (look at that column and see the massive expansion of Cubans you are caring for!)
Asylees: 21,000
Trafficking victims: 863
Unaccompanied Children: 33,726
You will see in the text that Obama is going to up the number in FY2017 to “213,000 humanitarian arrivals.”
This post is archived in our ‘where to find information’ and ‘refugee statistics’ categories.