It is really amazing to see how blatantly the mainstream media spins the facts!
Before I even get to the story, once again, here (below) is the data for the last ten plus years (from the Refugee Processing Center). FY2007 and FY2008 are Bush years. FY2009-2016 are Obama years. And, like it or not, FY2017 is Trump (even though the FY began on October 1, 2016).
First look at the ceilings set over the years. Did Obama ever set one near 110,000 (set in Sept. 2016) for any of his years prior to his final months in office?
Until Obama’s last years, he didn’t come close to the CEILING in his first 4 years, see especially FY11 and 12 (it is a ceiling not a TARGET)! Obama had two years under 60,000! Did the resettlement contractors complain and moan about Obama—NO!
Much is being made in the media about Trump’s March number (2,070) but who had lower months—both Bush AND Obama. See Obama’s October 2014. It is 1,810! March 2011 is lower too!
Is Trump’s April that far out of line from some of Obama’s months? NO! Obama had some months lower than 3,316!
Now have a look at the first 4 months for the last eleven years. Until Obama’s last months in office, have you ever seen the numbers so high in the first 4 months for all of the years? The Obama State Department began pouring refugees in at record numbers (in anticipation of a Trump slowdown?) and I bet they also skipped a lot of screening to get the flow going at that incredible rate.
Again look at the numbers! Trump is on target for a just below an average year of about 60,000 admissions, but much to my shock the AP is reporting that Congress has granted enough funds for 75,000 this year! 75,000 would put the admission number ABOVE any year from FY2007 to FY2015!
So who is AP trying to kid?
Here are some snips from the AP story by Meredith Hoffmann which begins with a Somali sob story. Why does no one ever ask how it came to be that this Somali man abandoned his family for seven years, got in to the US without them and left them to deal with poverty and war in Africa?
Besides the effort to make it look like numbers are “plummeting,” Hoffmann actually helps make the case why this program needs to be dumped or reformed. The first thing that Congress must do is stop the per head payment to NON-PROFIT resettlement agencies who then whine and moan whenever numbers drop (like Kekic here!). She also points out the many states that are trying to get out of the program. So where is Congress?
The family’s case illustrates how Trump’s travel bans have caused the number of refugees coming into the U.S. to plummet in the last two months, despite his executive orders largely being blocked in the courts. The number of refugees arriving in the U.S. dipped to 2,070 in March, which was a six-year low except for a period in 2013 when the federal government was shut down. The figure was slightly higher in April, 3,200, but it was still much lower than the months preceding Trump’s order. [Note that we pointed out above that Obama had a couple of months below 2,070! I don’t recall any crying and moaning then!—ed]
[….]
“This program simply can’t be turned on and off like a faucet,” said Erol Kekic, executive director of the Immigration and Refugee Program for Church World Service, one of the world’s largest resettlement organizations.
[….]
Conservatives praise the decrease but insist a total halt in admissions is necessary. Refugee groups say the drop has forced them to lay off employees while trapping thousands of people in war-torn nations, overflowing refugee camps and dangerous living conditions amid the world’s largest refugee crisis in modern history.
At the same time, Republican-controlled [state—ed] legislatures have been doing their part to limit the flow of refugees into their states.
[….]
The legal challenges returned the refugee cap number to 110,000, [No, see the chart above, it is in legal limbo—ed] but the slowdown from January to March and actions in Congress mean the U.S. will likely come nowhere close to reaching that number by the end of the fiscal year in October.
The U.S. is currently on pace for about 60,000, but a State Department spokesman said the agency was “not in a position to speculate as to the final number of refugees that will be admitted by the end of Fiscal Year 2017.” [Obama had two years under 60,000!—ed]
“Tickets were canceled, exit permits were canceled,” said Kay Bellor, vice president of programs for the resettlement agency Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. “You can’t just turn around and say, ‘everybody get back on the plane.'”
Congress has approved a budget for only 75,000 for this fiscal year. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the country is now resettling 900 refugee arrivals weekly, to remain within that budget.
On this next point, this for me is the Trump test!
Trump has the legal right to set the arrival number for FY2018 at zero if he wants to. What number will he propose in September? The other part of my personal Trump test is this: Will the Trump administration tell Congress (or lead Congress) to dump the law or do a complete legal re-write of the program? If he does not do it this year, it will never happen!
AP continues….
And Trump can set his preferred limit for fiscal year 2018 — likely a steep drop from former President Obama’s 110,000, said Anna Greene, senior director of policy for U.S. programs with the resettlement agency International Rescue Committee. [It is maddening how this 110,000, nothing more that a wish from a departing president, becomes the number the program is expected to submit!—ed]
Resettlement agencies get paid per refugee, causing them to cut back once the flow slowed down. Church World Service cut about 600 of its 640 employees in Sub-Saharan Africa but later rehired some of them, said Kekic.
You can read the rest of the AP story by clicking here.