Sen. Jeff Sessions says the Obama administration’s goal to resettle nearly 200,000 refugees in the U.S. over the next two years will have serious fiscal and national security consequences.
When they arrive in the U.S. refugees are immediately eligible for welfare benefits including food stamps, free healthcare, and cash welfare.
“All of the nearly 200,000 refugees the Administration is planning to bring over the next two years would be entitled to these same benefits the moment they arrive. Since we are running huge deficits, every penny of these billions in costs will have to be borrowed and added to the debt,” Sessions said.
“Our schools, job markets and public resources are already stretched too thin. And, even at current rates, we have no capacity to screen for extremist ideology, as we have seen with the surge of ISIS recruitment in Minnesota’s Somali refugee community,” he added.
Sessions’ comments come after Secretary of State, John Kerry, recently announced that the Obama administration plans to increase the number of worldwide refugees admitted into the U.S. from 70,000 to 85,000 next year, this increase will include at least 10,000 from Syria. The administration then plans on raising the cap to 100,000 by year 2017. These refugees will be admitted in addition to the already 1 million green cards the U.S. hands out annually.
Sessions suggests that the Middle East countries in the region should take in more of the Syrian refugees that are displaced by the Syrian civil war so that the refugees remain close and can return home when the situation stabilizes.
“Absorbing the region’s migrants is not a long-term strategy for stabilizing the region; instead, we should look soberly at our most recent actions in Libya, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere while encouraging migrant populations to remain in the region where they can contribute to social and political reforms,” Sessions stated.
As Chairman of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, Sen. Sessions, has called a hearing on the cost of the administration’s plans titled “Oversight of the Administration’s FY 2016 Refugee Resettlement Program: Fiscal and Security Implications” at the beginning of October.
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