Because I am getting e-mails from the press looking for comment. Here are some bullet points that anyone is free to use.
For those many reporters who don’t know who the heck I am or what RRW is, just briefly:
This year, in July, I will celebrate the tenth anniversary of blogging about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). I have written 8,235 posts to date and have no interest in spending long periods of time on the phone with reporters. Use RRW’s search function. Maybe start with Frequently asked questions, here.
I write this blog mostly because citizens have a right to know what plans Washington has for their towns and cities. I am a firm believer in the idea that knowledge is power.
Over the years I have concluded that the program is out of control and is desperately in need of reform.
I am paid by no one to write RRW, this has been a charitable effort on my part. I have no office, no staff, no interns!
I fully support President Trump’s EO on a moratorium on the US Refugee Admissions Program and have no comment on other aspects of the so-called ‘ban’ because many issues raised are outside of my area of expertise.
That said, although I support the short moratorium, it does not go far enough. It is an insufficient amount of time to fully investigate how the program has been administered since it was signed in to law by Jimmy Carter in 1980.
The USRAP has operated in virtual secrecy for the ten years I have followed it where local communities are kept in the dark until refugees start arriving. Largely driven by nine major federal contractors*** who along with the US State Department collude to keep citizens from knowing what is planned for their communities.
When citizens learn what is happening and start asking questions about costs, security, cultural upheaval they are unfairly labeled racists and haters.
The USRAP as a multi-billion dollar a year industry is unsustainable and it is time Congress performed a much needed review.
Trump’s ceiling of 50,000 refugees for FY2017 is still too high, see my explanation, here.
The USRAP is not first and foremost driven by humanitarianism (that is the cover!), it is an effort to diversify communities, to add left-leaning voters, to change America by changing the people, to satisfy Chambers of Commerce, and to supply cheap LEGAL immigrant labor to large corporations.
President Trump should undertake the studies directed in the EO, like this one, but he must pressure Congress to review and rewrite the Refugee Act. And, the only way to pressure the chickens in Congress is to continue the moratorium until they understand that they must reform it.
As Barack Obama learned the hard way, a phone and a pen is not sufficient for the long term. To really change a policy, a President must go through the laborious and intensive battle to change the law as the Constitution envisioned—Congress passes the bills and the President signs them into law (or not). If that doesn’t happen, in 4-8 years we go back to square one!
That is all for now…..
*** For all the reporters who have no clue about how refugee resettlement works in America, these are the nine major federal contractors being paid with taxpayer dollars to place refugees in American towns and cities in every state but Wyoming!
- Church World Service (CWS)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
- World Relief Corporation (WR)