Refugee Resettlement . His most recent Backgrounder was “A New Era of Refugee Resettlement.” Mr. Barnett’s e- mail address is dabarnett@bellsouth. One has to be careful when trying to explain the U. S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). Too much truth and in too much detail leaves those unfamiliar with the program looking at you like you are crazy. Among those unfamiliar with the topic — and therefore unable to completely process and act on information about it — are most of the political elite, especially Congress. A wide- ranging review is needed of this costly and out- of- control system. It has failed refugees, both by diverting limited resources from overseas assistance and by the sheer neglect of those resettled in the United States by their “sponsors.” The program is rife with fraud, profitable for hundreds of “non- profit” organizations, and is a potential channel for terrorism into American communities. Summary. Loss of U. S. Policy about who is admitted as a refugee to the United States has been surrendered to the U. N. In recent years, up to 9. United States were referred by the U. N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or were putative relatives of U. N.- selected refugees. Given the impact that refugee resettlement has on all other forms of immigration — both legal and illegal — the U. N. Meaningful background checks are difficult to obtain for refugees admitted from countries without reliable government records. Common criminals, war criminals, international fugitives, and terrorists have all used the USRAP and its related asylum provisions for entry into the United States. After a brief post 9- 1. Refugee Act. At 8. United States will admit nearly three times the number of refugees as the rest of the developed world combined. U. S. Taxpayers Without Borders. The use of welfare, subsidized housing, Medicaid, and other programs is staggering. Including the cost of ongoing welfare — which is permanent for many refugees — easily raises the cost of the domestic resettlement program to 1. Exploitation for Profit. Refugee resettlement is very profitable for some non- profits. Religious organizations and NGOs involved in the program consistently refuse to commit any of their own resources for the resettlement effort. Instead, these organizations have turned to the refugee program to generate an income stream, abandoning traditional charitable works that do not pay. Most of the second- and third- tier refugee organizations receiving contracts and grants today are run by former refugees themselves, which has put the program on a perpetual growth trajectory. American Community Impact. USCCB Migration and Refugee Services Releases Refugee Report Ahead of U.N. Refugee resettlement is profitable to the organizations involved in it. They receive money from the federal government for each refugee they bring over. Refugee Resettlement Screening Process. The United States screens and vets refugees more stringently than any other group allowed to enter the country. The Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), originally founded at the Harvard School of Public Health, is a multi-disciplinary program that has been pioneering the. Some American towns have been overwhelmed by the arrival of refugees. At no point are these communities consulted. The closed loop of the U. N., the State Department, and NGOs leaves citizens with no voice in events that affect their communities. Non- Assimilation. The USRAP is increasingly bringing in groups that have stated openly they do not intend to assimilate into American culture. Even those groups with good intentions are coming from cultures so diverse that often little progress is made in assimilation after many years. With the news that one of the Paris attackers may have entered Europe posing as a refugee from Syria, more than half of American governors are now. The Process for Interviewing, Vetting, and Resettling Syrian Refugees in America Is Incredibly Long and Thorough « The Screening Process for Refugee Entry Into the United States Recurrent vetting: Throughout this process, pending applications continue to be checked. House Republicans Seek to Cut Off Funding for Syrian Resettlement Program « Chain Immigration. Official refugee admission numbers do not present the full picture. The initial admission leads to exploitation of the chain immigration system. Recent DNA testing revealed false claims of “family connections” as high as 9. Refugee groups that were originally small and supposedly self- contained have set off significant inflows of legal and illegal immigration. Abandonment upon Arrival. Despite PR about supporting refugees, NGOs routinely abandon their charges after four months or less, moving on to the next, more profitable, cycle of recent admissions. NGOs expect the welfare system to take care of refugees. Globalized Disease. Refugees and those arriving on various “following- to- join” programs are bringing in HIV, hepatitis, TB, malaria, and other diseases. Refugees are no longer tested for many diseases such as HIV before admission. Key Recommendations. Congress must mandate a fixed ceiling for annual admissions. Currently Congress defers to the administration for determination of the annual refugee quota, a number that has gone up sharply since 9- 1. Today the administration can set whatever number it wants for refugee admissions each year. An annual ceiling of 2. United States the leading resettlement country in the developed world. Consider an agreement with UNHCR whereby UNHCR refugees or asylum seekers to the United States who commit certain crimes may be returned to UNHCR camps. The United States is the most important funder of the UNHCR and the International Organization of Migration (IOM), the main international organizations dealing with refugees. In recent years, the United States has provided 2. UNHCR’s $3. 3 billion budget and about 3. IOM’s $1. 3 billion budget. Congress must clarify (again) that resettlement to the United States is a last option for individuals in extreme danger only after the failure of all efforts to return home or settle in the region where the refugee currently resides. Local and state entities should have the right to refuse resettlement. Review all “special categories” that confer advantages on certain groups applying for asylum and refugee status, such as Lautenberg Amendment refugees, asylum- seekers who claim to be fleeing China’s “one- child” policy, Cuban Adjustment Act beneficiaries, etc. Repeal those categories not in the spirit of the original Refugee Act of 1. Refugee NGOs and their umbrella and spin- off organizations should be barred from lobbying Congress on refugee policy. They should have no role in selecting individuals for inclusion on the refugee program. Currently the rate of background checks provided for refugees from certain countries and the denial rate based on those background checks is classified information. This data should be made public. Restore the public/private partnership. Extremely “gray accounting,” if not outright fraud, is rampant in all aspects of the program. The NGO “match” must be increased. Implement a four- month waiting period before allowing eligibility for welfare programs. This would guarantee that NGOs shoulder some financial responsibility — still a small fraction of the taxpayer’s cost — and actually improve prospects for assimilation. Discourage “secondary migration,” which occurs when refugees move to a different location immediately after being resettled. This causes unplanned and unfunded demands on social services at the “secondary migration” destination and can be largely prevented by allowing access to social services only in the original state for some period of time after arrival. Include the cost of ongoing social services and medical care in all official estimates of program costs. These costs — by far the largest component of the program — are left out of all cost estimates today. Do not eliminate the one- year waiting period before refugees can apply for legal permanent residency, as called for by the Refugee Protection Act, introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D- Vt.) in 2. This bill will likely be considered again in 2. The Current System. In arguing for a grant of asylum, the New York Times opined in 2. In an enlightened world, no society would force women to wear burkas against their will, or threaten them with death for daring to talk to a man. Ashcroft and the Department of Homeland Security should make certain that such persecuted women who flee to the United States have a chance to stay.”1. The president’s “Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2. U. S.- bound refugees to each geographic region, is troubled by conditions in Muslim Central Asia because, “In some countries, there are legal prohibitions against wearing the hijab in certain public contexts, such as universities. In others, wearing the hijab or wearing beards marks one as an observant Muslim and leads to frequent requests for identification documents by the authorities. Muslims in some cities are subject to harassment and societal violence.”2. It is no exaggeration to say that for many in the human rights establishment you have an automatic invitation to any country as a bona fide asylum seeker if you are forbidden to cover up or if you are required to cover up — take your pick. Of course, migration in search of more personal freedom is as old as human society itself. This is not about mere migration. This is about a refugee and asylum program set up originally for extreme and exceptional cases — historically, where life itself was threatened by the state. This is a program that brings extraordinary privileges and entitlements, such as immediate access to all social services and welfare on the same basis as a U. S. Granted, during the Cold War, the program also failed the test of a true refugee program on many counts, but at least Cold War concerns and national interest limited the potential for endless expansion of the program. No such controls exist today. Least of all do program costs count for anything, covered as they are by the welfare state and with “sponsors” abandoning the true sacrifice of charity for profitable federal contracts. Expansion of the definition of a refugee, allowing the U. N. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, describing the U. K.’s asylum program in his autobiography, A Journey: My Political Life, offered a synopsis that applies to a large part of our current refugee/asylum program: “The presumption was that someone who claimed asylum was persecuted and should be taken in, not cast out . The presumption was plainly false; most asylum claims were not genuine. Disproving them, however, was almost impossible. The combination of the courts, with their liberal instinct; the European Convention on Human Rights, with its absolutist attitude to the prospect of returning someone to an unsafe community; and the U. N. Convention of Refugees, with its context firmly that of 1.
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