Go here to see what the LA Times is reporting about the stunning reversal on Thursday by the Trump State Department on refugee admissions where we learned that by September 30th we could see 70,000 refugees admitted to the US, in a year Trump initially said we would see a MORATORIUM. 70,000 is a number higher than five of Obama’s eight years!
Be sure to take note that it is Congress that is shoving money (your money) for refugees down the throats of the Administration. I contend that the Administration has the power (but no will!) to reject it and tell Congress to rescind it (but that is a story for another day).
This is the bit of the LA Times story I wanted you to see. The refugee resettlement contractors are complaining that the “pipeline” abroad has been so severely interrupted that they might not get even 50,000 in FY18. Only urgent cases are being interviewed! Isn’t that what should be done? Why are US taxpayers responsible for non-urgent cases?
“I worry the damage has been done internationally,” said Erol Kekic, executive director of the immigration and refugee program at Church World Service. “Agencies that do refugee processing have been so severely cut [including] staff laid off that even if the money is made available, it will take time.”
[….]
Experts are also concerned about the near-complete halt in interviews and screenings by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which is required for refugees to complete the application process.
“Only people with urgent cases are being screened and interviewed,” Kekic said. “Unless we continue to add people to the pipeline, we aren’t certain if we will be able to even meet the level of 50,000 refugees entering the U.S. for fiscal year 2018.”
There is more here.
This entire system of refugee resettlement set up by the Refugee Act of 1980 should be scrapped. Contractors like Kekic’s Church World Service are worried because they are paid by the head and must build their entire budgets (since it is largely funded by you) around the number of refugee clients in a “pipeline” to America.
There is never any incentive to moderate the flow when nine contractors are ‘bidding for bodies!’
My disappointment at the news, that Trump’s State Department has apparently caved to pressure and is opening the spigot wide for the remainder of the fiscal year, is primarily because this move signals that the Administration has no plans to lead a reform of the program in Congress.
Congress is never going to review, in any serious way, the program and change it significantly without leadership from the White House.
What can the White House do? The White House could have continued on its earlier course. A MORATORIUM placed on the program would be a strong incentive for Congress to finally, after 35 years, review the original law and scrap or re-write it.
And, remember this in the first EO, see here?
It is Section 5 (g):
(g) It is the policy of the executive branch that, to the extent permitted by law and as practicable, State and local jurisdictions be granted a role in the process of determining the placement or settlement in their jurisdictions of aliens eligible to be admitted to the United States as refugees. To that end, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall examine existing law to determine the extent to which, consistent with applicable law, State and local jurisdictions may have greater involvement in the process of determining the placement or resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions, and shall devise a proposal to lawfully promote such involvement.
There is no longer any mention of impact on communities, states rights, cost to taxpayers, public health concerns, crime, security concerns, transparency, nothing!—nothing that motivated voters to work their butts off for Trump.
Sadly, we have been dragged into a debate framed solely on numbers. Will it be 50,000, 60,000, 75,000, 100,000, more?
