Texas plans to withdraw from refugee program, and then what?

Thanks to all who sent this news.  I saw it earlier.  How many of you remember that Kansas and New Jersey dropped out a few months ago? A handful of you? Did it have any effect other than a little bureaucratic reshuffling.

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Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee Michael McCaul is from Texas, so what is he doing in the House to protect his home state. Anything?

There was a story the other day that NJ has gotten over 200 Syrian Muslims since Gov. Christie withdrew NJ from the program.  The slack is just being picked up by a non-profit federal contractor.  Those states effectively became Wilson-Fish states. (Search Wilson-Fish here at RRW if you don’t know what that is.)
Now don’t get me wrong, there is an impact if the Governor goes through with it. But, unless he then follows up with a 10th Amendment lawsuit like Tennessee is planning to do (who knows when?), getting out will only temporarily slow the flow to Texas.
Sorry to sound so cynical, but I am today! I was optimistic this morning, but all that changed when I saw the useless language (page 8) the Republicans are now proposing for the Continuing Budget Resolution.
I am so disgusted at most of the spineless Republicans in Congress who have no courage to begin to roll back the program that is frankly dangerous to our communities and economically UNSUSTAINABLE!
And, they are dumb besides, because once the immigrant (Muslim) population reaches a certain level they will vote the Republicans out of office!
Fox is one of many outlets talking about Texas withdrawing:

The state of Texas on Wednesday announced that it is withdrawing from the Obama administration’s refugee resettlement program due to the administration’s inability to ensure that refugees resettled in the state do not pose terror threats, according to an announcement by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Texas informed the Office of Refugee Resettlement in a letter that it will be withdrawing from the program on Jan. 31, 2017. The letter comes on the heels of several weekend terror attacks across the United States

The administration has refused to approve a security plan by the state of Texas aimed at ensuring that refugees are only resettled following in-depth security checks.

Texas officials drafted a plan that would require federal national security officials to provide assurances that none of the individuals being resettled pose a terror threat. The administration has declined to approve this plan.

And, come to think of it, how did Texas become the number one resettlement state in the nation? Because certain Republicans have been running that state forever and they have been derelict in protecting their citizens.   (Remember this name—Bush?)

Refugee funding could be major budget battle this year between Republican Congress and Obama

Update: Just hold on! S.O.S. Looks like the Rs are going to try the same old scam they pulled last year. See my post from September 9th.  I  think we are headed down the same path. They must think that we are really really stupid. More tomorrow.
It is not just Rep. Brian Babin’s brave 36 members of Congress talking about amending the Continuing Budget Resolution in the House, but other Republican members are stepping up to question the wisdom of spending millions to bring in more migrants like Dahir Adan in Minnesota and Ahmad Khan Rahami in New Jersey.

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As usual Mitch McConnell does not want to have a fight with Obama!

Here is what the Daily Signal is reporting.  I will admit this budget process is confusing to me so I’m not presenting this as an expert. But, when you get to the end of the lengthy discussion, one thing I am taking away is that the House could attach something to withhold funding, but some Republicans in the House are pointing a finger at Senate Dems who they say have no will to protect us.
However!

What about Senate Republicans, does MAJORITY LEADER Mitch McConnell have the will to protect us or is it his BIG business interests (cheap labor/Chamber types) he is protecting? 

I know you are probably sick of hearing it, but this refugee program is more about cheap migrant labor than about humanitarianism!
Here is the Daily Signal (hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum).  This first part we know, but to recap:

As President Barack Obama used his final address before the United Nations General Assembly to urge world leaders to help protect refugees, Republicans in Congress threatened to use their budget powers to restrict who is admitted into the U.S.

While refugee resettlement has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress historically, some Republicans want confirmation from U.S. intelligence leaders that screening procedures are strong enough to warrant a major American commitment to accepting more refugees during a time of heightened terrorism fears.

Thirty-seven Republican House members wrote a letter to House leadership this week asking them to use a must-pass spending bill as a vehicle for language that would block federal funding to refugees from Syria, the Middle East, and North Africa until national security officials can guarantee that terrorists cannot infiltrate the screening process.

“This is a clear and present danger to the U.S.,” said Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, who has sponsored legislation pausing refugee resettlement from “terrorism hot-spots” to the U.S., and who signed onto the letter.

Setting the stage (Daily Signal continues):

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Rep Mark Meadows takes a stand to protect you!

With Congress in control of the funding for refugee resettlement, Republicans say their concerns over vetting procedures for admitting refugees to the U.S. outweigh other concerns, and that they need more assurances the program cannot be infiltrated by Islamic extremists.

In calling for stronger vetting, these critics have pointed to testimony last year to Congress from FBI Director James Comey, in which he said there are challenges to how the U.S. screens refugees, specifically with the limitations in gathering intelligence in war-torn Syria.

Republicans also note recent terrorist attacks in Europe where some of the terrorists involved had posed as refugees.

“We have a new dimension on the national security front that we never faced before,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“Where in the past refugees have come to the U.S. as a place of rescue and safety, now we have credible evidence that suggests that ISIS and other terror groups are trying to take advantage of our generosity and compassion. So that does necessitate a change in not only our priorities, but also the funding we allocate to this particular issue.”

We didn’t know this, that the Freedom Caucus has a strategy as the refugee issue might be used as a negotiating chip in determining whether the budget resolution will be revisited in the lame duck session (between the election and the end of the year) or extended in to the new year.
By the way, if Trump is elected and the budget must be debated in December it could be one helluva battle over refugees at that point in time (and this is why we must keep pushing this now!).

Meadows is among members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who have said they would support a government spending bill that expires in December, rather than later in the new year, if the legislation contains language pausing refugee resettlement.

The Freedom Caucus prefers the spending bill to run past the lame-duck session of Congress, but Meadows and other members say they’d abandon that position if their concerns over refugee resettlement were addressed.

Then here is another Republican group with a concern about funding refugees from terrorist regions of the world and raising the specter of a government shutdown over refugee funding. (Again, the Daily Signal continues)

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Maryland’s Andy Harris ‘gets it’ and deserves praise for his leadership on this issue!

A larger House conservative group, the Republican Study Committee, is also pushing congressional leadership to include a policy rider to the spending bill related to the refugee issue.

“A lot of us agree with the vast majority of Americans that we should be certain we can vet these refugees before we give them free access to the U.S.,” said Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., a Freedom Caucus member who is running to become chairman of the Republican Study Committee. [Harris is also on the all-important Appropriations Committee—ed]

“I believe a CR [continuing resolution to fund the government] should have a refugee component as part of it,” Harris told The Daily Signal in an interview, adding:

If the president wants to threaten to shut down the government because he wants to take in refugees who are not vetted, especially given what happened in New York and New Jersey, I’d like to see that argument against it.

In the Senate, Senators Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz are expected to speak up about refugee funding, but there doesn’t seem to be the will there in the leadership to cut any funds!

The offices of House leadership—Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.; and Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky.—would not confirm to The Daily Signal that they would attach a refugee-related measure to the spending bill, citing the privacy of ongoing negotiations.

The Senate is widely expected to release its version of the spending bill before the House does. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., are among senators to speak out against Obama’s plan to take in more refugees this year.

But here at the end, we see the usual Republican (RINO) ploy—blame it on the Dems! This Congressman, whoever he is!, is shilling for the elite Republican establishment.

He is letting not only Paul Ryan off the hook, but the Senate MAJORITY LEADER  as well by saying if there is no Democratic support there is no sense doing anything. This is BS! The Republicans control Congress, not the Dems!

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If Charlie Dent is your Congressman, time to unload on him!

We know too much now, they can’t pull this c*** on us!
The Republicans are responsible for refugee funding! Maybe it is time for the Republicans to stand up for the principle (and the Constitution!) and if the Dems want to bring in potentially more terrorists let them be responsible!

The Daily Signal wraps up with this from an apparent establishment mouth piece!

Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., who leads House Republicans’ more centrist Tuesday Group, said he is doubtful party leaders would attach language related to refugees unless they know more Senate Democrats would vote for it.

“I believe any proposals that should go into the CR are ones that can attract the votes to pass, and I don’t know if this refugee rider can get the votes in the Senate,” Dent told The Daily Signal in an interview, referring to the continuing resolution to fund the government.

So, Dent is one of those Republicans who aren’t willing to fight or stand on principle. He thinks we will just blame one more loss on the Democrats!  Won’t work anymore!
Keep calling! It is working!

Guest opinion: I made my calls!

Editor:  From time to time we post guest columns and other comments which we think are important to highlight. And, as you know if you’ve been following RRW for the last few weeks, we have been nagging you to call your members of Congress, Senators too, and tell them to defund the Refugee Admissions Program in the on-going budget battle.
This is from one of our readers, Merrill McCarthy, who did call and has reported here (below) what she learned in the process.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., listens as Treasury Secretary Jack Lew defends President Barack Obama's new budget proposals, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015. Rep. Ryan, who agrees with Obama on extending the earned income tax credit to more workers without children, says he hopes that lawmakers and the administration could agree on ways to finance expanding the EITC. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker Ryan holds the future of your towns in his hands! He is the decider. He will decide if the Babin initiative is placed into the Continuing Budget Resolution or not. He will be responsible for the demographic make-up of your towns for generations to come. Tell him politely, but firmly, what you think by going here: http://www.speaker.gov/contact

It is not too late, both ACT for America and NumbersUSA are urging calls to cut the funding for refugees from terror-producing parts of the world. 
One of our readers reminds us to NOT miss letting Speaker Ryan’s office know what you think as well.

Here is what one caller learned (and suggests):

I made my calls today to Speaker Ryan and others in the House to encourage them to follow the lead of Babin and Brat.

I have been making calls on various issues since the early days of the Tea Party and today was different. With the exception of Speaker Ryan there was most often a staffer on the other end of the line instead of voicemail or the dreaded message the mailbox was full.

The staffers seemed to be receptive and they listened. Nobody tried to hurry me off the phone. At first I felt sad that having such an easy time getting through meant there were not a lot of other people calling, but then the thought occurred to me that they were actively taking the pulse of the callers. Most everyone would agree that the attacks on our soil in the last couple of days are an ominous sign of how quickly we are moving toward the new normal of European style chaos.

I told the staffers that we must halt refugees from areas that are hotbeds of terrorism or from areas that are so disrupted that there is no way to vet their people. It is irresponsible to open the door that allows even one terrorist to slip through the cracks.

We also need leadership to develop sound public policy on the refugee question. For too long vested interests of the UN and the VOLAGs have been running the show. The time has long since arrived to put our citizens first. That does not mean we abandon the refugees. There is a solution that helps both US citizens and refugees by working to establish safe zones so people are able to stay in their home countries to ride out the storm.

This helps the US by eliminating the burgeoning costs of a program spending money by the billions to bring refugees here and provide them with all types of ancillary services and accommodations, including ongoing welfare and entitlement programs. And for what? Many seem to resist assimilation and more and more we are seeing homegrown jihadis. Let’s stop importing and growing terrorists.

At the cost for every refugee we help here, we could help 12 in the home country. Isn’t that a far more compassionate approach? Is it not better policy to help people stay and rebuild their own country, rather than leaving things so unstable that an ongoing vacuum is created? It seems rather cruel to pull people out of their culture, traditions, climate, and kinship and allow the UN to disperse them to the four corners of the wind.

And we have a responsibility to take care of our own first. We have veterans, the elderly, the poor and the disabled. We hear of children in this country going to bed hungry. These are the people we should be helping first. Instead we have refugees squeezing our own people out of jobs and affordable housing and draining taxpayer dollars with ongoing entitlements.

This is the time for leadership and a new paradigm in refugee policy. More and more people are waking up to the detrimental nature of what has been going on in the dark for decades. Once examined, the only thing that makes sense is helping the refugees in their own regions. It is better for them and it is better for the US citizen.

Now is the time to call Congress and stress there is an alternative to business as usual on the refugee question. Let’s reframe the argument. Help 1 or help 12? It seems like an easy argument to make.

Keep calling! They are listening!
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