What’s the Purpose of Refugee Resettlement?
By Mark Krikorian
September 27, 2019 2:55 PM
Almost lost amid the latest Eastern European hoopla was the administration’s announcement of the refugee-resettlement ceiling for the coming fiscal year, which starts next week. The current year’s ceiling is 30,000, down from 45,000 in 2018, and the newly announced 2020 ceiling will be lower still at 18,000. This is the lowest ceiling since the current resettlement system was set up by the Refugee Act of 1980.
While the number of refugees to be resettled from abroad is the lowest in 40 years, the number of people showing up at our borders demanding refugee status (via asylum applications) has ballooned, with the administration estimating a record-high number of 350,000 asylum claims in the coming fiscal year. The only difference between refugees and asylees is that we affirmatively choose and relocate the former, while the latter show up unbidden and demand to be admitted. DHS has been arguing for some time now that the burden of an increasing number of asylum claims be offset by reductions in refugee admissions; in fact, if and when the legislature decides to get around to legislating, we might consider systemically linking the two elements of humanitarian immigration such that when asylum claims rise, refugee resettlement numbers drop, and vice versa.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/refugee-policy-must-serve-us-foreign-policy-interests/
