While bringing refugees to the US from certain parts of the world poses a security risk for America, often forgotten is the huge cost to US taxpayers (federal, state and local) of placing them in communities already loaded with poor people, a practice the mayor of Springfield, Mass. recently pointed out.
And, before the refugee industry starts shouting about the fact that some refugees ultimately pay taxes, in reality very few even reach the income threshhold to pay taxes and many who make small amounts of income can actually file to get money back from the government through earned income tax credits while not ever having paid in anything.
Here is Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart in an article entitled: ‘Refugees Will Cost Taxpayers an Estimated $4.1 Billion in FY 2017’ says:
American taxpayers will spend more than $4.1 billion in the 2017 budget to support the 519,018 refugees who have been resettled by the federal government in the United States since October 2009, according to a cost estimate by Breitbart News.
To put that very large number in context, $4.1 billion can buy 10,677 new homes for $384,000 each, which is the average price of a new home sold in the United States in December 2016. Or it could buy 170,124 new autos for $24,100 each, which is the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for a 2017 Chevrolet Malibu.
Even if the Trump administration were to entirely shut down the flow of refugees into the United States in FY 2018 and beyond, the refugees who have already arrived in the country will cost at least another $3.5 billion in 2018, and about $2 billion to $3 billion annually thereafter until FY 2022 and beyond.
Here is one of several useful charts prepared by Leahy. This summarizes the COST PER REFUGEE:
Donald Trump can cut the numbers arriving in the US while he is in office and can tinker with the regulations, but unless Congress grows a spine and reforms this out-of-control federal program, in 4 or 8 years we will go back to a wide open spigot! There is a limit to what can be done with a phone and a pen as Obama learned the hard way.
I’m going to be quick I hope. If you have been a longtime reader you know one of my complaints for the last nine years is that we are taking illegal aliens who landed on the EUROPEAN island nation of Malta to the US as refugees.
They are Malta’s and the EU’s problem not ours!
Here we learn that Malta has agreed to help with the ‘refugee’ burden-sharing as other European Union countries—Italy and Greece—-are getting the full brunt of the migrant invasion.
So check it out! Malta took a total of 80 migrants who arrived in Italy and Greece over a brief few month’s period.
From Malta’s Independent:
Malta is well on track to meeting its commitments regarding the relocation of refugees from Italy and Greece, according to the ninth progress report on the EU’s emergency relocation and resettlement schemes, assessing actions taken since 8 December 2016.
[….]
Malta is one of Seven countries who are “fully engaged in relocation from Italy,” and is also on track to meet its obligations. As at 7 February this year, Malta effectively relocated 46 refugees from Italy. Malta has also effectively relocated 34 refugees from Greece.
Because the EU has no will to stop the invasion, why does their problem become ours?
See here…..
In the first four months of this fiscal year, see that we took 210 of the economic migrants off Malta’s hands and brought them to the US as REFUGEES.
So, Malta takes 80 from Italy/Greece and gets praise for it, while they pass 210 on to us!
This is the definition of insanity! Where is Congress? Could be an easy legal fix if Trump’s US State Department doesn’t stop it soon!
From WrapsnetProcessing Center data:
Our huge Malta archive is here! Want to write a book, your research is nearly done!
If so, how low will he go!
Leo Hohmann at World Net Daily talked to several experts here:
If President Donald Trump wants to curtail migration into the U.S. from some of the world’s most dangerous hotspots of jihadism, he has options that would effectively navigate an end-run around the courts.
“We will keep our country safe. That’s what I’m here for… I will give it the best security, so it will happen very rapidly,” Trump said Friday.
His top policy aide, Stephen Miller, said essentially the same thing in appearing on all the major Sunday morning news shows.
One of the options is to simply lower the ceiling on refugee resettlement for fiscal 2017, which began four months ago on Oct. 1.
Trump has already partially exercised this option in his first executive order when he lowered the annual ceiling from 110,000 refugees set by Obama to 50,000. Interestingly, this was the one part of his executive order that was not struck down by the lawsuits filed in Washington state and Minnesota.
[….]
By cutting the ceiling to 35,000, Trump would effectively end refugee resettlement for the rest of the fiscal year extending over the next seven and a half months. That would allow his administration to decide on a better vetting system and determine how high to set the ceiling for fiscal 2018. [And, I would argue that such a moratorium would give Congress the impetus to begin to reform the program! First step would be to remove “church” contractors from federal payroll—ed]
Continue reading here.
See what the experts say. I am quoted too!
Don’t forget, even though there is a vocal minority, the majority of your fellow citizens think protecting America is the first priority, here.
Here is where the 2,305 refugees have been placed since the Executive Order was signed (up to this morning). I see we are still at the 34,430 level for the fiscal year, so there is still time to cap at 35,000! From Wrapsnet.
Most of what I write about here at Refugee Resettlement Watch is about the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program which was created when ol’ Ted (Kennedy) and Uncle Joe (Biden) created the program that was signed in to law in 1980 by Jimmy Carter. The main thrust of the program is that refugees are chosen abroad (the UN is picking most of our refugees) and we fly them here. The nine major resettlement contractorswe talk about all the time are then paid by the head to place them in your towns and cities. They, and the US State Department, choose the resettlement sites often secretively.
However, an originally small, but now growing part of that same law deals with asylum. To keep it simple, asylum seekers get here on their own steam—either they enter illegally across borders or they have a visa for some reason and overstay the visa (they are not screened abroad at all).
When those coming illegally hit the border, they know to apply for asylum claiming that if they are sent home they will be persecuted for their religious beliefs, political beliefs, race, sexual orientation (a booming category!) and a few other things. They are then referred to as asylum seekers. They go through one of two processes that I have found confusing and are either granted asylum or not. If they are turned down, they must leave the country.Yesterday we learnedthat the Obama Administration was releasing from detention failed asylum seekers who are high-tailing it to the Canadian border.
A successful asylum seeker is called an asylee or sometimes the broader term political refugee. The Boston Bomber brothers were part of a family that entered the US this way. As full-fledged refugees they then could (and did) avail themselves of all the same welfare goodies of refugees we flew in and they were free to work and to travel outside the country. They could also bring in more family members.
Here is a good report at the American Immigration Council.
On average we grant asylum to 24,000-25,000 of those who are here illegally, but can make a persuasive case that they will be harmed if they go home. Add that 25,000 or so to the number we discuss often here (Obama proposed 110,000 refugees for FY17 and to that add this 25,000). To Trump’s 50,000 cap add this additional 25,000. Those Africans we mentioned yesterday who are running to Canada right now are FAILED asylum seekers NOT refugees!
According to the American Immigration Council:
In FY 2015, USCIS found 33,988 individuals to have credible fear. These individuals, many of whom were detained during this screening process, will be afforded an opportunity to apply for asylum defensively and establish that they meet the refugee definition.
The number of credible fear cases has skyrocketed since the procedure was implemented—in FY 2009, USCIS completed 5,523 cases. In FY 2014, case completions reached an all-time high of 49,607.
The largest number of successful asylum seekers are Chinese!Do you know we have a policy (I believe it is still in effect) that allows Chinese men to use China’s one child policy as an argument about why they should be here—they want more than one kid—and will thus be persecuted if returned to China!
The countries of nationality for individuals granted asylum have largely remained the same in that 10-year period, with nationals of China and Egypt accounting for nearly half (46 percent) of grants each year since FY 2012. The rest of the asylum grants provided in that time period consistently went to nationals of Ethiopia, Venezuela, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Guatemala, Russia, Nepal, and Eritrea.
In FY 2014, the most recent year with available data, more individuals from Syria were granted asylum than in any previous year (4 percent of all grants). Individuals from China, Egypt, and Syria combined accounted for half of the nearly 24 thousand individuals granted asylum—either affirmatively or defensively—in FY 2014 (Figure 2). A total of 96 nationalities were represented among all individuals granted asylum in FY 2014.
So you can add another 1,000 Syrians getting in to the US through asylum each year (a large number could be the Christians that the UN is keeping out of our normal refugee flow). I digress, but didn’t Obama (with the UN) use a religious test when 98% of the Syrians admitted in the normal refugee program are Muslims? One last thing!
I was annoyed by a Drudge headline last night that read: “Refugees self-deport” about a story about the failed asylum seekersheading for Canada. They are NOT refugees! They failed to be designated as refugees. But, I see this morning that the headline has changed to the more accurate, “Illegals self-deport!”
The Open Borders Left has for years been working to control the language and they want you to think that anyone on the move anywhere in the world, for any reason, is a refugee. It is a big lie that the mainstream media helps to perpetuate!
Those migrants entering Europe by the hundreds of thousands are most likely economic migrants, but most will apply for asylum in Europe. They are not resettled refugees comparable to the ones we (with the UN) bring from around the world. They are in fact not refugees at all until they have successfully gained legal asylum although media around the world deceptively uses the word ‘refugee.’ Where is Congress? I said as early as 2011, that this asylum process must be thoroughly investigated by Congress because I suspect that someone or some groups are helping third worlders (possibly even paying them) to come across our borders and ask for asylum.
…..And, in September he can set the number for FY2018 at zero!
Just a reminder, the Refugee Act of 1980gave the President great latitude in setting over all refugee numbers for a 12 month period.
In September, for Fiscal year 2017, Obama set the cap (ceiling) for this year at 110,000 (way higher than normal).
In the 1980 law the ceiling was set at 50,000 (unless there was an emergency) and Congress must be consulted (which amounts to not very much) if the President wished to change (increase) the number during the year.
We showed you here in recent years that the ceiling proposed was often not met. (Not meeting the ceiling doesn’t require any consultation with Congress.) In fact, George Bush had 4 years under 50,000. Two of those years followed the dramatic slowdown after 9/11 when the government feared Islamic terrorists could get in to the program. In 2002 the number admitted was 45,896 and in 2003 it was 39,554 (from all the usual countries we took refugees from). Obama had a pretty relatively low year too in 2012 (58,238).
As I understand it, Trump’s new cap of 50,000 is not included in the Washington State court decision.
I’m arguing that 50,000 isn’t low enough and he could cap the level right now.
It would stop refugee admissions from all areas of the world, not just the seven terror hotspots identified in the so-called travel ban.
As of this morning Wrapsnet reports that (in a little over 4 months) we are at 32,968 admitted this fiscal year (not far off the level Bush admitted in 2003). The contractors are well-aware of the fact that they still have nearly 20,000 paying clients on the way, see here.
And here are the numbers of some of the groups of concern admitted in those 4 months:
Iraqis: 4,841
Somalis: 4,035
Syrians: 4,884
Congress must reform the Refugee Act of 1980 and a slowdown for a few months is not enough incentive for them to get to work!
(It is not just about security either, it is about the economic costs as well, see here.)
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