You might call it refugee ‘cap wrangling season’ as the players in the refugee resettlement circles in Washington jockey for position for the coming fiscal year.
A lot rides on the ceiling, or cap, the President, by law, sets for the coming fiscal year—how many refugees could be admitted and where they might come from. It is a power assigned to the President by then Senator Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter as they pushed through, and Carter ultimately signed, the Refugee Act of 1980.
Besides the push from the Leftwing Open Borders gang for more diversity for America, and Dems for more voters, a lot of federal money for nine federal resettlement contractors*** is at stake.
I hope not to be talking about it every day (see yesterday’s post), but when I saw this Politico story I figured it included a little nugget that you should know about, namely that the President threw out the number 5,000 in last years ‘cap wrangling season.’
Just a reminder, whatever number the President sets, it is a cap, a ceiling! He could set the cap at 50,000 and still only admit 5,000! This year the cap is 45,000, but the total admitted likely won’t pass 23,000.
‘Miller is not deterred’: Top immigration aide pushing cuts in refugee numbers
The president suggested going as low as just 5,000, according to a former administration official.
President Donald Trump last year advocated dropping the refugee cap as low as 5,000 people, down from 50,000, according to a former administration official – a cut far more drastic than even his most hawkish adviser, Stephen Miller, proposed at the time.
Ultimately, the administration restricted to 45,000 the flow of refugees into the U.S. this fiscal year – the lowest since the program began in 1980, and less than half the target of 110,000 that President Barack Obama set in his last planning cycle.
By the way, they love to trot out Obama’s last ridiculously high (unattainable!) cap of 110,000 set two months before the November 2016 Presidential election. In all of his earlier years Obama set caps of tens of thousands lower. The 110,000 was all part of election year maneuvering.
Politico continues….
But the discussion set the terms of the administration’s refugee policymaking. Now Miller and a group of like-minded aides are pressing to reduce drastically the number of people entering the U.S., both legally and illegally.
The immigration hawks are moving forward….
[….]
One Republican close to the White House and a former White House official familiar with the discussions predicted the cap could fall as low as 15,000 in 2019, continuing a contraction of overall immigration, both legal and illegal.
A tiny group of key administration officials led by the National Security Council’s Mira Ricardel were planning to meet Friday to debate the coming year’s refugee cap. Late Thursday, however, a White House official said the meeting about refugees had been postponed. It is not yet determined when it will be rescheduled.
“Inside the Washington beltway, this is a numbers game that’s being carried out by people who don’t care about refugees and are orienting this to their base,” said Anne Richard, who was assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration in the Obama administration.
[….]
Behind the scenes, Miller, 32, has been contacting every relevant Cabinet secretary to convey his interpretation of the president’s thoughts on the refugee cap in an effort to sway the decision, said a former White House official familiar with the discussions.
LOL! Note that they don’t put the ages in for Anne Richard or anyone else quoted in this article. It drives the Left insane to know that Miller is young.
The wild card is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. No one is quite sure where he stands on the matter.
More here at Politico.
*** These (below) are the nine federal resettlement contractors which are largely paid for their ‘humanitarian’ work by you, the US taxpayer.
As the numbers of incoming refugees decline so too does their income (they are paid by the refugee head!). A continued reduction in the number of incoming refugees could cause one or more of these supposed non-profits to go under due to poor budgetary management—they never planned for a rainy day when federal bucks might dry up!
Another low year, perhaps lower than this year’s 20,000 plus year, could completely blow to smithereens the budget of one or more of these federal contractors which are demanding a cap of 75,000.
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)!
From most recent accounting, here.
- Church World Service (CWS) (71%)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)(93%)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) (99.5%)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) (57%)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular) (66.5%)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular) (98%)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) (97%)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) (97%)
- World Relief Corporation (WR) (72.8%)