On refugee numbers permitted entry, Trump is on
firm ground, he can stop resettlement now for this fiscal year and in September he can set the number for
FY2018 at zero! by Ann Corcoran 2/6/17
Just a reminder, the Refugee Act of 1980 gave
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).
Senators Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden
were behind the bill that became the Refugee Act of 1980 signed in to law by
Jimmy Carter. In over 3 decades Congress has never gone back to review it. It
is time! And, nothing will get the chickens in Congress moving unless the
number of refugee arrivals drop to zero.
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!
If you haven’t already, tell Donald Trump what you
think by clicking here. And, if you’ve done it
once, do it again! Then go here and see what else you can do with
that comment!
Comments
Democrats
have added lots of land-mines buried in bad US law and Republicans always
forget to fix them.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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