To date, since the latest crisis, 815 Syrian refugees have been resettled in the United States, and of those, 92 percent are Muslim. Right now the United Nations have 10,000 additional Syrians in the pipeline ready to come to the U.S.

And if that’s not startling enough, former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, chief executive officer of the largest (in dollar terms) U.S. refugee resettlement agency, the International Rescue Committee, is demanding that President Barack Obama raise our refugee cap and bring in 65,000 Syrian refugees by the end of Obama’s term!

And how could we handle something like this? For one thing, you can’t really investigate these people’s background — that’s per the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. — and it’s only common sense. How do we know they aren’t terrorists or have terrorist ties? And who pays for their medical costs, their housing, the education of their children, etc.? And would they ever return home? I’m afraid we know the answers.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees has estimated that a day’s worth of funding to settle a single refugee in the U.S. would cover the daily needs of 500 refugees settled abroad — as in closer to where they came from. And how about that for an idea? Talk to your elected officials. Get Minnesota out of the Refugee Resettlement Program. We’ve done enough. To read more, see the website called “Refugee Resettlement Watch.”

 

Paul Westrum

Albert Lea