I’m asked all the time: What can I do?  What can I do?
This is an excellent example of the kind of thing you can do.  This is a list of talking points thoughtfully prepared by Brenda Arthur of the Charleston, WV Act for America chapter.  As a citizen activist, she put some serious time into preparing this point/counterpoint and made it available for all of you!

PROPONENTS OF REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT

WILL SAY :

1. Your town is losing population. Bringing refugees will revitalize your city.

+ Truth: Saying that Importing third world poverty into our city or state revitalizes it just defies logic and commonsense.

+The educational level of many refugees is low. They will only qualify for minimum or low wage jobs. Therefore, they will continue to qualify for some form of government assistance such as Medicaid and/or Food Stamps aka SNAP.

+ Big Business uses refugees for cheap labor thereby depressing wages for Americans with low education levels.

+ The cost of educating a refugee child is apprx $10,000+ per year not to mention the additional cost of English language assistance/interpreters and additional tutoring due to a lack of previous education.

+ Refugees often send some of their money out of the country to family left behind. Those remittances that leave the country are dollars unavailable to the local economy. This is never factored in.

+ As the refugee population grows more languages will be required to be provided by the school system. This erodes the quality of the schools and reduces teaching time for American kids whose parents are paying the bill.

+ In towns where the refugee population has grown, parents are finding 17-20 year-olds in class with their children.

+ Some school districts across the country have as many as 81 languages for which they must provide ESL teachers and interpreters.

2. Another selling point by the proponents is that “It is our moral obligation. That’s who we are as a country.”

+ Our tax dollars were never meant to be someone else’s charity .

+ We should aid refugees where they are. For every one brought here we can help 12 people there. The administration of mercy belongs to each of us individually—-not to the government.

+ Our first moral obligation is to our own people.

3. OVER 800,000 REFUGEES (since 9/11) HAVE BEEN ADMITTED TO THE U.S. AND NO TERRORIST PROBLEMS:

+ Proponents will present the picture that everything is “sweetness and light “. Not true. Many problems are occurring with refugee populations in towns all across America: Gangs, increased drug trafficking, sex slave trade, domestic violence, crime, drug resistant strains of TB, female genital mutilation, and more.

+ Cultural differences are often great and cannot be bridged. Some refugee cultures believe that “honor killing” and rape of non-muslim women is acceptable.

+ In addition, there have been terrorist acts committed by refugees as well as many crimes. Taxpayers pay for expensive trials, and for those who are sentenced we must bear the cost of imprisonment for many years.

4. NO STATE MONEY IS INVOLVED.

+ Yet another selling point of the proponents is that THERE IS NO STATE MONEY INVOLVED. IT’S ALL FEDERAL MONEY. WELL, FIRST OF ALL, FEDERAL MONEY IS OUR MONEY.  SECONDLY, LET’S DISCUSS THE STATE COSTS: MEDICAID , STATE EMPLOYEES, EDUCATION, INTERPRETERS, AND LIKELY CASH WELFARE PAYMENTS.

DON’T TELL ME OR ANYONE ELSE THERE IS NO STATE MONEY INVOLVED WITH THIS PROGRAM. It’s a matter of how much.

TO RECAP:

+ Medicaid–Unreimbursed cost to the state
+ TANF–Cash Welfare payments –Unreimbursed costs to the state
+ Interpreters–Provided to students and other refugees as needed
+ Education–Cost for educating children K-12
+ State Employees’ salaries and benefits who work w/refugees

5. The vetting is very, very rigorous.

+ Former FBI Director, James Comey, Obama’s Special Envoy to the Middle East to fight ISIS, General John Allen, Former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, Mike McCaul, Chairman of Homeland Security in the Congress , and now we know from the leaked Wikileaks documents that even Hillary Clinton herself said at a private meeting in 2013 that the refugees cannot possibly be vetted.

+ Further, Leon Rodriguez, former Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, reluctantly told former Senator Jeff Sessions’ Senate Committee in September 2016 that some of the refugees get in based solely on their testimony alone.

+ Fraud is rampant in the refugee program. Many refugees come from failed states. They have no documentation. We are supposed to believe the lie that everyone is who they say they are.

+ ISIS has sworn to infiltrate the refugee population. They already have.

6. The refugees become self-sufficient within 5 years.

+ The fact is that the Office Of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) defines self-sufficiency in a way that is contrary to the common understanding of the word. A household is considered self-sufficient if it is not receiving “a cash assistance grant”. But other welfare programs do not count under the ORR definition. Thus, ORR considers and reports them as self-sufficient even if they are receiving other forms of government assistance such as: Food Stamps (SNAP), Housing subsidies, or Medicaid .

Don’t be fooled. Make them define their terms.

7. Refugees pay taxes.

+ Consider that the average educational level of a Middle Eastern refugee is 10.5 years. That is not even a high school diploma. This means that the likelihood of them earning more than $9-$12 /hour is pretty unlikely. Having a low wage job is most likely. Further, even if they work and pay taxes the fact that the earnings level is low will often make them eligible for continuing government subsidies. There are other points to consider:

+ Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is available to people whose income is low. Many, if not most, refugees would likely qualify for this.

+ Child Tax Credit up to $1000 per child would apply based on income guidelines. This credit is IN ADDITION to deductions for dependent children.

+ Once the Tax Credits are applied it is possible that they are getting back all or most of the taxes that were paid and potentially more than they paid.

So, there we have it for those of you looking for something to do.  Use Arthur’s points for letters to the editor, arguing with ‘friends’ on facebook, or when corresponding with your elected officials.
This post is filed in two categories here at RRW:  ‘Comments worth noting’ (here) and in my new category ‘What you can do’ (here).
And, for all of you interested in Arthur’s home state of West Virginia, go here for my archive on the state.