WAKE UP AMERICA! “Muslim terrorists,” “refugees hand-selected by UN” or “foreign citizens who are unwilling to assimilate with American culture, laws and values” doesn’t appear anywhere in the quote by Emma Lazarus that is mounted on our Statue of Liberty:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
After the Hayride broke the exclusive story on 10,000 Syrian refugees possibly resettling in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Metairie, it has now come to light that refugees are already coming into the New Orleans area.
Catholic Charities, which receive federal grants from U.S. Department of State/Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, have apparently taken in two Syrian refugee families already and are expecting many more.
There are approximately 180 cities in the country that are eligible to accept the 10,000 Syrian refugees. Here is the full list of those cities, which includes Baton Rouge, Matairie and Lafayette:
US Refugee Public Affiliate Directory
The 10,000 Syrian refugees are first flown to the United States, according to the French news wire Agence France-Presse, with the State Department paying the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for the airfare.
Then, once the refugees arrive in the country, they could be dispersed across the 180 cities listed above, where they are to aided within the first 30 to 90 days in settling and finding employment in the area.
After approximately 90 days, refugees are no longer eligible for the State Department-funded support that they were receiving through migrant and refugee services. However, they are able to join support programs through the Department of Health and Human Services.
Additionally, it is unclear how much the screening process for the 10,000 Syrian refugees will cost American taxpayers.
WIDESPREAD WELFARE
However, the narrative by the national media tends to be one where immigrants and migrants are portrayed as coming to America and not taking any sort of federal government help. In our research, we found that to be the biggest fallacy of all when it comes to the immigration and migrant issue.
In a report by the Congressional Office of Refugee Resettlement, nearly 92 percent of refugees in the country were on food stamps between 2008-2013. Additionally, 73 percent of refugees were on Medicaid, 68 percent were receiving some kind of cash welfare almost 20 percent were in public housing.
As Americans continue to debate what to do about the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East, this analysis attempts to estimate the costs of resettling refugees from that region in the United States. Although we do not consider all costs, our best estimate is that in their first five years in the United States each refugee from the Middle East costs taxpayers $64,370 — 12 times what the UN estimates it costs to care for one refugee in neighboring Middle Eastern countries.
The cost of resettlement includes heavy welfare use by Middle Eastern refugees; 91 percent receive food stamps and 68 percent receive cash assistance. Costs also include processing refugees, assistance given to new refugees, and aid to refugee-receiving communities. Given the high costs of resettling refugees in the United States, providing for them in neighboring countries in the Middle East may be a more cost-effective way to help them. Via: The Hayride
Among the findings of this analysis:
On average, each Middle Eastern refugee resettled in the United States costs an estimated $64,370 in the first five years, or $257,481 per household.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has requested $1,057 to care for each Syrian refugee annually in most countries neighboring Syria.
For what it costs to resettle one Middle Eastern refugee in the United States for five years, about 12 refugees can be helped in the Middle East for five years, or 61 refugees can be helped for one year.
UNHCR reports a gap of $2.5 billion in funding that it needs to care for approximately four million Syrians in neighboring countries.
The five-year cost of resettling about 39,000 Syrian refugees in the United States is enough to erase the current UNHCR funding gap.
The five-year costs of resettlement in the United States include $9,230 spent by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within HHS and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) within the State Department in the first year, as well as $55,139 in expenditures on welfare and education.
Very heavy use of welfare programs by Middle Eastern refugees, and the fact that they have only 10.5 years of education on average, makes it likely that it will be many years, if ever, before this population will cease to be a net fiscal drain on public coffers — using more in public services than they pay in taxes.
It is worth adding that ORR often reports that most refugees are self-sufficient within five years. However, ORR defines “self-sufficiency” as not receiving cash welfare. A household is still considered “self-sufficient” even if it is using any number of non-cash programs such as food stamps, public housing, or Medicaid.
Refugees are admitted for humanitarian reasons, not because they are supposed to be self-sufficient, so the drain on public coffers that Middle Eastern refugees create is expected. However, given limited resources, the high cost of resettlement in the United States means careful consideration should be given to alternatives to resettlement if the goal is the help as many people possible.
