Don Barnett writing at the Center for Immigration Studies today explained in detail how states are forced to accept and pay for third world refugees admitted through the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) to the US and sent to 49 states.
Read this (these are the opening points in the ‘backgrounder’) and then ask: Where is Congress?
(Emphasis below is mine):
The State of Tennessee filed a lawsuit against the federal government in March 2017 claiming that the refugee resettlement program was an imposition by Washington over which the state had no control.1 The lawsuit is pending, but it highlights a deep problem with how the refugee resettlement program has evolved since the passage of the Refugee Act in 1980.
This Backgrounder traces the history of the federal-state relationship regarding refugees, identifies flaws, and proposes solutions. Among the findings:
~Repealing regulation 45 CFR 400.301 could have the immediate effect of allowing states to withdraw from the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and end initial resettlement activities in the state.2
~Today, states that withdraw from the program find the program continues in the state with the potential to operate on a larger scale than before withdrawal and with no state participation.
~As implemented, states have a limited and ill-defined role in the federal USRAP.
~Congress has shirked its responsibility to fully fund the refugee resettlement program.
~The federal government has shifted much of the fiscal burden of refugee resettlement to states. Three years of reimbursement for the state portion of welfare programs used by refugees in the state, such as Medicaid, TANF and SSI, was authorized by the 1980 Refugee Act. This support was ended entirely.
~The Act authorized Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) and Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) for three years for refugees who do not qualify for cash welfare and Medicaid. This support was gradually scaled back; today RCA and RMA are available for only eight months.
~This cost shift to the states means the federal government is, in effect, using state funds to operate a federal program. In cases where a state asks to withdraw from the program, continuation of the program means the state has lost its ability to control its own budget and is deprived of its sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.
~Consultation among “stakeholders” about where refugees are to be settled is ill-defined in the USRAP. At times there is no meaningful consultation with state authorities.
~The federal government uses a legally questionable regulation (45 CFR 400.301) rather than statutory law to allow private non-profits to operate in a state where the state has asked to withdraw from the program.
~By one reading of the law, prior to 45 CFR 400.301, there was no authority to resettle refugees in states that chose to withdraw from the program. In other words, prior to 1994 when 45 CFR 400.301 was introduced, the states were — knowingly or not — participating in and paying for a voluntary program from which they had every right to withdraw at any time with the expectation that no refugees would be resettled in the state.
Serious students of the USRAP, continue reading here.
And, I repeat! If there is no reform of the entire US Refugee Admissions Program in the next three years, simply reducing the numbers as the Trump Administration is doing is meaningless in the long run.
The President can and must, as part of any immigration reform, issue regulations in keeping with the original law wherever possible, and, or, tell Congress to rewrite the law if it is in our national interest to continue it at all.
If no permanent fix….
…..when President Trump’s term ends, refugee agencies and advocates will push for even larger numbers of refugees to make up for what they will dub the lost Trump years.
Looking for something to do? Get this information into the hands of your state governors and legislators!