President Donald J. Trump spoke at the UN General Assembly for the first time today, and while he spoke on a great number of subjects, including North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the Iran nuclear deal, the president took time to speak in support of strong borders to control mass immigration and in support of housing refugees close to their countries of origin. On borders and immigration, President Trump said:
We have learned that over the long term, uncontrolled migration is deeply unfair to both the sending and the receiving countries. For the sending countries, it reduces domestic pressure to pursue needed political and economic reform and drains them of the human capital necessary to motivate and implement those reforms. For the receiving countries, the substantial costs of uncontrolled migration are born overwhelmingly by low-income citizens whose concerns are often ignored by both media and government.
Prior to this, the president spoke on the need to house Syrian refugees in neighboring countires such as Turkey and Jordan, instead of resettling them in thousands of miles away:
We appreciate the efforts of the United Nations' agencies that are providing vital humanitarian assistance in areas liberated from ISIS, and we especially thank Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon for their role in hosting refugees from the Syrian conflict. The United States is a compassionate nation and has spent billions and billions of dollars in helping to support this effort. We seek an approach to refugee resettlement that is designed to help these horribly treated people and which enables their eventual return to their home countries to be part of the rebuilding process. For the cost of resettling one refugee in the United States, we can assist more than 10 in their home region.
Out of the goodness of our hearts, we offer financial assistance to hosting countries in the region and we support recent agreements of the G20 nations that will seek to host refugees as close to their home countries as possible. This is the safe, responsible, and humanitarian approach. For decades the United States has dealt with migration challenges here in the Western Hemisphere.
President Trump quoted a CIS study that shows that it is far more efficient and cost-effective to house refugees near their home country. As the president noted, the United States is able to help far more Syrian refugees in Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon than it would be able to if they were moved to the U.S. NumbersUSA wrote about the study when it was published and you can read our take here.
The 72nd UN General Assembly continues through September 25th. You can watch President Trump's speech in full here.
