It is a question I have asked many times over the years!

Whenever I see a news story with some glowing report about how refugees financially benefit the communities in which they are placed, I suspect that all the costs to society are never calculated. 

For instance….

Costs like remittance dollars sent out of the US economy (a story for another day!)? Cost of interpreters for myriad obscure languages? Complete cost of educating the children? Costs associated with elderly and infirm refugees? And, the cost of crime, of courts, of prison time!

 

 

We have had a bunch of refugee crime stories lately including the Iraqi alleged terrorist found living in California, the Iraqi who shot a police officer in the head in Colorado, the Uzbek sentenced for trying to kill the prison warden, the Ethiopian alleged human rights abuser arrested in Virginia last week, and see today’s more detailed story about the Arizona Somalis who lied to get in to the US. (All those and 2,000 more stories are posted in my Crimes category.)

Someone with accounting and financial skills needs to put some time in to researching the costs to the US taxpayer of refugee criminals in America.

Thanks to reader ‘Thetinfoilhatsociety’ for sending us the annual average cost to taxpayers in each state for incarceration of convicted criminals.

The list, here, is a few years old, but it is very useful and I’ll be archiving it in my ‘Where to find information’ category for future reference.

State by state: How much does it cost to keep someone in prison?

Let’s talk about California and Fazliddin Kurbanov….

#6. California

Average Annual Cost Per Inmate: $47,421

Uzbek refugee, Kurbanov, has been sentenced to two consecutive sentences of 25 and 20 years (see my post Saturday).

It is possible that his cost of incarceration is higher than the average for California because I doubt he is kept in the general prison population. And, it is likely that federal prisons are even more costly.

If my math is correct (you better check it!) he will cost taxpayers at minimum over $2 million just for his prison time.  That doesn’t include the cost of his two trials.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to see a law which requires the US State Department to pay for the state costs of refugee criminals they placed in your towns and cities.  Of course, you, the taxpayers would still bear the tax burden, but it might make the feds more careful about who they are admitting to the US!

Do this….

So please, the next time your local paper runs a story from the likes of ‘Welcoming America‘ about the economic benefits refugees bring to your town, write a letter-to-the- editor and ask if all of the COSTS have been calculated!  You needn’t do any math, simply ask if remittances are in the study, education of kids, medical care costs to taxpayers, and the cost to the criminal justice system, to name a few, are included.