HOW MANY ILLEGALS, REFUGEES AND ADDICTS CAN WE AFFORD?
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02/14/2017 12:49 PM
02/14/2017 12:49 PM
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HOW MANY ILLEGALS, REFUGEES AND ADDICTS CAN WE AFFORD?
By Ron Ewart February 8, 2017 NewsWithViews.com
According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than 68,000 American bridges are structurally deficient. They estimate the cost to repair and maintain those bridges at $71 Billion. The Transportation.gov website has determined that most of America's roads are in poor condition, ranging from 19% in Georgia to 73% in Illinois.
Any good engineer will tell you that "deferred maintenance" (putting off repairs and maintenance) leads to higher costs ..... much higher costs. "Deferred maintenance" is what America has done to her roads, bridges, train tracks, tunnels, airports, water and sewer lines, natural gas and oil pipelines and electrical generation and power distribution facilities.
Most maintenance and repairs for infrastructure are put off because of the lack of money. But how can such a rich country allow its infrastructure to decay so badly. It puts American lives at risk and raises the cost of property damage, auto and truck repairs and insurance, astronomically? How can a country that boasts the highest standard of living on the planet be out of money and so deep in debt? The answer lies directly at the foot of "100+ Years of Progressive Rule."
Like many pundits often say, "follow the money".
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:
The most reliable estimates state that illegal immigrants cost the American taxpayer around $113 Billion per year, $84 Billion of which is shouldered by the states. These estimates are over and above any contributions made to the economy by illegal immigrants.
Obviously, these estimates do not include the huge costs of the Border Patrol ($12 Billion in 2013, currently over 20,000 agents), Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ($5.8 Billion in FY 2011- 20,000 employees), or the cost of detainment. As an example, the federal government paid GEO Group $32,000,000 to build a containment center at the border, or $52,632 per bed. The government pays GEO Group $15,000,000 a year to operate the facility.
But the illegal immigrants detained at this one facility stay for an average of only 12 hours before most of them are released into the general population with a bond to make a court appearance. In 2010 it was reported that 715,000 of these illegal immigrants released on bond, failed to appear at the court hearings and are now living in the shadows and costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year. That number has probably doubled since 2010. Apparently, the Trump administration has stopped Obama's "catch and release" policy and illegal immigrants will be ushered back across the border to whence they came, that is if some Democrat State Attorney general doesn't convince some federal judge to overturn Trump's order.
The hard truth is, Border Patrol and ICE spend the lion's share of their time controlling border security and enforcing immigration law because of illegal immigrants. On top of that, the Border Patrol and ICE are up against open defiance from hundreds of "Sanctuary Cities." Thus, the real cost of illegal immigration is in the billions of dollars above the $113 Billion estimate.
We are told that the compassionate thing to do is to absorb as many legal and illegal immigrants that we can. Just how many illegal immigrants, that are now costing the American taxpayer $113 Billion per year or more, can America afford? It only takes $71 Billion to fix America's bridges.
But one of the other nagging questions is, how many non-assimilating illegal immigrants does it take to irreversibly alter the culture of a nation in the name of compassion? It is a fact! Too much multi-culturalism, with irreconcilable differences, destroys a free nation. It is destroying ours.
REFUGEES:
Very seldom do you see press reports on the cost to the American taxpayer for refugee resettlement programs. Since 1983 when the Office of Refugee Resettlements (ORR) was established pursuant to "The Refugee Act of 1980 (Section 413(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act", well over 2,500,000 refugees, from many parts of the globe, have been admitted to the U. S. The five-year cost for each refugee has been calculated at $64,370, or over $257,000 per household. The total annual cost is well over $3 Billion but increases every year as more refugees get on the program ..... and never get off. This does not include State Department, Health and Human Services, or Department of Homeland Security costs involved in the refugee program. Further, welfare use is staggering among refugees. Officials never count refugee welfare usage as part of the cost of the program. Yet, when it is included, some estimates put the total cost of the refugee program to as much as $20 billion a year. But worse, most refugees seldom assimilate into American culture, especially Muslim refugees.
According to the "2009 HUD Report to Congress on Refugee Resettlement", only 57.7% of refugees become self-sufficient after 5 years. Obviously then, 42.3% remain on resettlement programs, or welfare, or both. However, the definition of “self-sufficiency” has been steadily defined downward. A refugee can be considered “self-sufficient” while using all of the welfare programs available to legal Americans.
Until Trump's recent Executive Order, the program gradually shifted towards the resettlement of refugees from Muslim countries. Yes, there are some Christians or other minorities, but most are Muslims. In the early 90’s the percentage of Muslim refugees was near zero. By 2000 the program was 44% Muslim. The Muslim component decreased after 911, but today is back up to about 40% and is likely to rise. Strangely, membership in a U.S.-registered Islamic terrorist group is not a bar to entry on the program as long as the refugee was not a “direct participant” in “terrorist” activity.
More often than not, the United Nations dictates the refugees that America must take. Even worse, thanks to Obama, America is now being forced to absorb 1,250 Muslim refugees that Australia refused entry.
To many, the refugee resettlement program is a self-perpetuating global enterprise. Staff and management of the hundreds of taxpayer supported U.S. contractors are largely refugees or immigrants themselves that want to add their extended families or friends to the refugee program. Like so many government programs, the refugee resettlement program has become an ever-expanding cash cow for charitable organizations. There is so much federal money available to charitable organizations for refugee resettlement, private capital has been driven out.
Here again, we are told that the compassionate thing to do is to absorb as many refugees as we can. But how many refugees at some $20 Billion per year, can America afford? It doesn't seem like much in the general scheme of things, but the costs never go down. They just keep rising, year, after year, after year.
Once again, how many non-assimilating refugees does it take to permanently alter the culture of a nation in the name of compassion? Even compatible people can't get along very well. In-compatible people start fights and wars. Too much multi-culturalism, with irreconcilable differences, destroys a free nation. It is destroying ours as it is destroying Europe.
ADDICTION AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE:
In this category we are talking about REAL money. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the total annual cost for Tobacco abuse is $295 Billion with $130 Billion going to health care. The total cost of Alcohol abuse is $224 Billion with $25 Billion going to health care. The total cost of illicit drug abuse is $193 Billion with $11 Billion going to health care. This comes to a staggering $712 Billion per year and doesn't include the cost that addiction inflicts on human lives.
"A study funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that 77.4 percent of treatment in 2003 was paid for by Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal, state and local sources, up from 50.4 percent in 1986. Meanwhile, the private sector's share of the treatment cost burden slipped from 49.6 percent in 1986 to 22.6 percent in 2003."
If these numbers are even remotely correct and if the taxpayer is really picking up 77.4% of the cost of addiction and substance abuse, the taxpayer is footing $551 Billion of the total annual cost. You can repair a lot of roads and fix a lot of bridges for $551 Billion. America is indeed a sick, decadent and weak nation because of rampant substance abuse. Our drug addiction also feeds the brutal drug cartels and makes them powerful billionaires that kill for sport.
MEANS-TESTED WELFARE:
According to the Heritage Foundation, "The American welfare system is very complex. It involves six major federal departments that include Health and Human Services, Department of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, the Labor Department, Department of Treasury and Department of Education. The total estimated annual cost for state and federal welfare is $927 Billion from 79 welfare, interrelated, overlapping agencies and programs that distribute means-tested welfare. It is not unusual for a poor family to receive benefits from four different departments through as many as six or seven overlapping programs."
The opportunities to abuse all of these programs are immense. The "Federal Safety Net" website has published statistics for welfare fraud. For fiscal year 2015, $711.4 Billion was spent on 14 welfare categories. Of that $711.4 Billion, $71.5 Billion (10.1%) was due to fraud.
How much of that $711.4 Billion goes to welfare cheats and freeloaders is almost impossible to quantify. But if all of the fraud were assigned to welfare cheats and freeloaders, that amount would repair and maintain all of America's bridges.
The Center for Immigration Studies calculated that illegal immigrant households cost an average of $5,692 per year, using at least one or more welfare programs. At 11,000,000 estimated illegal immigrants in America, (it is probably much higher than that) the cost to the American taxpayer for illegal immigrants using welfare programs comes to over $1.57 Billion per year.
IRRATIONAL COMPASSION:
Yes, America is a rich and prosperous nation with a deep culture of compassion for those less fortunate. But when compassion for refugees, illegal immigrants, addicts, the disabled and the poor becomes irrational, without regard to the resources necessary to sustain that compassion; when compassion starts eating into the very resources necessary to defend the nation and maintain its standard of living; when compassion becomes government-enforced charity at the point of a gun and destroys our cherished individual liberties; when compassion starts irrevocably altering the long-accepted culture of a nation; when compassion becomes a threat to our national security; when compassion is used as a tool by one party to buy votes to gain perpetual power as the Progressives have done for over 100 years; when compassion creates a debt that can never be repaid, then compassion becomes a mindless obsession for its own sake and is, in fact, the very definition of insanity. We will have become a poisonous spider stinging itself to death.
Everyone wants to come to America and share the freedoms we observe and millions don't mind breaking our laws to get here, or overstaying their visas. Millions of Americans and non-Americans want to "partake" in America's generosity, even if they have no right to "partake." Many want to come here to kill us.
Seven billion people live on this planet and at least 80% of that seven Billion are living in war or poverty, or under brutal dictators. America can only absorb a tiny fraction of that 80% without drowning. If we don't control our compassion for refugees and illegal immigrants, we will significantly reduce or eliminate our freedoms, change our culture to a point that it will be unrecognizable, get so far in debt there is no recovery and put our national security in grave peril.
Our roads, bridges, tunnels, train tracks, airports and utilities will never be repaired or properly maintained. This insane, Progressive-driven, "let 'em all in" mentality on the guise of compassion, or votes, will SWAMP our own lifeboat.
We predict that by the year 2040, nothing will remain of the Founder's dream of liberty for all men under a Constitutional Republic, if America continues on its current path of irrational compassion.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: HOW MANY ILLEGALS, REFUGEES AND ADDICTS CAN WE AFFORD?
#160172
02/20/2017 04:17 AM
02/20/2017 04:17 AM
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ConSigCor
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Panic button: Refugee arrivals to 'dry up' in March
Resettlement agencies scrambling to cut staff or close entire offices
Leo Hohmann
Refugee-resettlement agencies are scrambling to cut staff and, in some cases, close entire offices as they prepare for a reduction in refugee arrivals to the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s unfolding policy.
A pro-refugee group leaked an “official guidance” from the U.S. State Department to NPR Wednesday that said refugee arrivals will begin to dry up after March 3.
As WND reported last week, the one part of Trump’s embattled executive order that was not blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court, was his reduction of the fiscal-2017 cap on refugees from 110,000 set by Barack Obama to 50,000. The fiscal year ends Oct. 1.
Since 35,000 refugees have already arrived, that would mean another 15,000 would be allowed in by Oct. 1. The fact that the State Department is now saying new arrivals will end by March 3 means Trump could be planning to lower the ceiling further since it would be nearly impossible to hit the 50,000 cap in a little over two weeks.
“I guess it could be done, but they would have to ramp up from about 300 or 400 a day to 2,000 a day, and that’s a monumental task,” noted Ann Corcoran, who runs the watchdog website Refugee Resettlement Watch.
The court also did not rule on a provision of Trump’s executive order that would make it easier for states and cities to veto refugee placements.
After the jihadist attack on Paris in November 2015, more than 24 U.S. governors, most of them Republicans, notified the Obama administration that they did not want to receive any refugees from Syria, since two refugees from that country were implicated in the coordinated attacks that killed 130 and wounded more than 300.
But Secretary of State John Kerry quickly informed the governors that they had no authority under the Refugee Act of 1980 to block the placements of refugees in their states. Trump wants to give them that authority, which would mean the refugees would continue to arrive at “welcoming cities” but not those putting up barriers.
Of the 85,000 refugees resettled in U.S cities and towns last year, a record 40,000, or nearly half, were Muslims.
260,000 Muslims per year entering U.S.
Of course, the refugee program is not the only avenue through which Muslims migrate to the U.S.
Muslims also come to the U.S. on various other visa and green-card programs. According to Center for Immigration Studies, about 130,000 Muslims come to the United States every year on green cards, which offers them permanent lawful status. At least that many more come on temporary visas, including student visas, work visas, entrepreneurial visas, religious visas for imams, fiancé visas, the diversity visa lottery and family related visas. That makes for a grand total of about 260,000 foreign nationals entering the U.S. from Muslim-majority nations every year.
So refugee resettlement is a fairly modest but still important slice of the overall pie, especially for people from Somalia, Afghanistan and Sudan who come from illiterate backgrounds and have no job skills, meaning they can’t get to the U.S. on a student or work-related visa.
The average annual number of refugees entering the U.S. has been around 60,000, so the 50,000 target set by Trump is not far from the historic norm. Corcoran has suggested he cut it further, down to 35,000 this year, and even lower for fiscal 2018, which starts Oct. 1.
Closing offices, cutting staff
Meanwhile, the nine volunteer agencies, or VOLAGs, which get paid by the State Department to resettle refugees in more than 300 U.S. cities and towns, often without the knowledge of local officials, are scrambling to downsize before the funds run dry.
World Relief, a division of the National Association of Evangelicals and one of the nine primary resettlement agencies that contract with the U.S. State Department, announced it is closing five offices, including the one in Columbus, Ohio; Boise, Idaho; Baltimore, Miami and Nashville. Columbus has been a hotbed of Somali refugee resettlement for years, building up the second-largest enclave of Somali refugees after Minneapolis.
World Relief said the offices being closed in the above cities have resettled more than 25,000 refugees over the last 40 years. The closures will eliminate 140 staff positions.
The private resettlement agencies told NPR they can’t absorb such a drastic decrease in federal funding, even if the numbers were to go back up again next year after new vetting procedures are put into place.
“It’s crushing,” Kay Lipovsky, office director of World Relief Columbus, told the Columbus Dispatch. “I fear the entire refugee program is at risk.”
World Relief was expecting to resettle 250 refugees in Idaho alone this year. It has already resettled 71 in the rural state.
Catholic Charities USA, an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the single largest government-funded resettlement agency serving about 25 percent of the total refugees brought to the U.S. every year, is also rushing to fill the funding gaps. The agency’s refugee budget was funded 97 percent by the federal government, according to its IRS form 990 for 2014, the latest year available.
But last week, Catholic Charities started an $8-million fundraising campaign to bridge any gap created by the refugee program’s uncertain future, the Dispatch reports. The agency said an estimated 700 of its 54,000 jobs nationwide “might be at risk because of Trump’s executive order.”
Another government contractor, the International Rescue Committee, hopes to raise $5 million in what it called its “first-ever emergency appeal” to help its 29 offices nationwide “continue to support refugees” already in the United States.
Letting cities, states veto refugee placements
Trump has also directed the Homeland Security secretary to “devise a proposal” to give state and local governments “great involvement in the process of determining the placement of refugees in their jurisdictions.”
Mark Hetfield, CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, another of the nine primary resettlement contractors, told NPR he worries that giving governors the power to veto arrivals, one of the things Trump wants to do that the 9th Circuit ruling did not address, could unravel the resettlement program.
“The contractors are scared to death that state and local elected officials will play a greater role in the future, thus possibly messing up their cozy relationship with the feds,” Corcoran says. “They say they do extensive coordination with local officials but that’s only for the friendly ones.”
Mayors like Paul Harpole of Amarillo, Texas, and Ted Gatsas of Manchester, New Hampshire, have literally begged the federal government to slow down the influx of refugees into their cities, but to no avail.
‘Fake charity’ used to transform communities
All but three of the nine resettlement contractors are faith-based groups. “Together, they form a nationwide bureaucracy for resettlement,” NPR reports.
But Corcoran calls them “faux religious charities.”
“True religious charities would be sacrificing their own private money to help the stranger, not reaching in to taxpayers’ wallets,” she said.
Last week, WND reported that a longtime State Department insider, Mary Doetsch, penned an open letter in the Chicago Tribune blowing whistle on a refugee resettlement bureaucracy that is “laden with fraud and abuse.”
Doetsch, who recently retired, confirmed earlier reports by WND that it is not uncommon to have refugees approved for entry into the U.S. based simply on their personal testimony. She said illegal African asylum seekers land on the European island of Malta, where they are given refugee status by the United Nations and shipped to the U.S. on humanitarian grounds, when, in fact, the identities of these migrants often cannot be verified.
But for now, it appears the resettlement offices will have to do something they never had to do under Obama – start downsizing their infrastructure. The State Department funds these agencies based on the number of refugees each organization resettles, a fact that Corcoran and others have long cited as the reason they are continuously lobbying for more refugees, which allows them to expand the nationwide resettlement bureaucracy.
Hetfield, in his comments to NPR, confirmed that such criticisms – tying federal dollars to refugee resettlement numbers – are justified.
“We have people that are hired specifically as refugee case workers,” said Hetfield. “If no refugees are arriving and if we are not getting funding to employ them, then we have to let them go and we lose our infrastructure to resettle refugees. That’s a huge issue.”
Corcoran told WND there is no incentive to slow the influx of refugees to any overburdened resettlement city – places like Amarillo and Manchester – because the resettlement agencies get paid by the head for every refugee they bring in.
“I have no sympathy for them because they should have long ago been doing this with private funds for their religious charitable work,” Corcoran said. “If they had, this would not be happening to them. It’s like a Ponzi scheme. The whole house of cards is now falling in.”
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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