Please take a few minutes sometime in the next three days to send comments on what you think should be the “size and scope” of the US refugee resettlement program for FY2015.
Go here for instructions! You have until 5 p.m. on May 29th!
It is really simple, you don’t have to write a book or be an expert (none of us on the outside are experts!), just tell the State Department calmly and politely how many refugees they should take and from where in FY2015 which begins on October first of this year.
I’ll be telling them there should be a complete moratorium on the program until Congress holds hearings to review the whole thing and abolishes or reforms it.
And, here are the most important things for you to do!
*Tell the State Department you want a copy of everyone’s testimony (including the advocates’ testimony). They can do it electronically by making a link available, or the old fashioned way—they can send you a hard copy of the entire stack.
*Send your testimony to your elected officials in Washington and ask them for a response to you on their position on the program. (You can do this part after you get your testimony in to the State Department by Thursday of this week! 5 p.m on the 29th).
Frankly, it is shameful that several major religious groups and some secular ones are paid millions of tax dollars each to bring more poverty to America and basically leave the responsibility for the refugees’ care on your local community. For an average of 70,000 or so refugees annually, the program costs federal taxpayers over a billion dollars a year NOT including education, housing, food stamps and healthcare etc. some of which is carried on the backs of local and state taxpayers. (See our most visited post, our fact sheet!)
If churches and synagogues want to adopt a refugee family for a year or two (until they assimilate and can get on their own financial feet) then they should do that with PRIVATE charity—that is what Jesus would do! Jesus wouldn’t steal from others in the name of Christian charity!
In fact, those Lutherans in Baltimore who are planning their big lobbying push for June sure better be using private funds for lobbying Congress and not your tax dollars! Remember they get about $30 million from you and only about an additional $1 million from private giving—they would fold if it weren’t for their permanent attachment to the government teat.
For new readers, to see some testimony from last year, click here, and then scroll back through the posts. There are 21 posts archived there about last year’s testimony. Those opposed last year sent more testimony than the ‘human rights’ advocacy gang.
Also, if you would like us to publish your testimony for this year, please send it to us! The simplest format for me to convert to a blog post is for it to arrive in the body of an e-mail. Use the Yahoo address in right hand side bar and I promise to check it more often during this week. Put the word ‘testimony’ in the subject line so it jumps out from among the junk e-mails!
Please help spread this post to everyone you know on facebook, twitter etc.