Politifact: There is no way to get at the true cost of resettling refugees in the US

This is a story I missed in September right after the President spoke at the UN General Assembly. Thanks to reader Brenda for sending it our way.

Trump at UN

We know this is true and it has been frustrating over the years when I’ve been unable to tell readers exactly what it does cost the US and state/local taxpayers per refugee placed (secretly!) in your towns and cities.

Recently you have seen a spate of reports about how refugees financially benefit America—the truth is they are deceiving the public because no one really knows the true cost of refugees’ admission to the US, their resettlement and their use of public services for which, unlike other categories of legal immigration, they are eligible upon arrival.

The best case was made by the Center for Immigration Studies in a study we reported and Politifact mentions below.

Before I tell you what Politifact says, see this post I wrote a month ago about researchers at the University of Utah troubled by this same fact—no one is keeping records on the cost of resettlement in any usable format.

To see what I mean locally, call your local Social Services agency, your school board, your court system or hospital (interpreter costs) and ask how much is it costing per year for each refugee in their system. This is the response you will likely find in most locations: we don’t have users of our system characterized by immigration status.

But, you know who does know—your local resettlement contractor.

However, I’ll bet a buck they won’t tell you how many students they have placed in your local school system or how many of their refugees are signed up at your local social service agency.

Here is what Politifact found:

They couldn’t get at the true cost of the US Refugee Admissions Program either! LOL and when I went to their whole list of meters for Trump, this story is missing from the list! No meter, so story is difficult to find!

Politifact opens with President Trump speaking at the UN and you know they were hoping to nail him with a “pants on fire’ meter. They failed.

Politfact doesn’t give Trump’s UN remarks a rating because even they realized the USRAP is so opaque, so lacking in transparency, that the numbers cannot be found.

“For the cost of resettling one refugee in the United States, we can assist more than 10 in their home region,” Trump said. “Out of the goodness of our hearts, we offer financial assistance to hosting countries in the region, and we support recent agreements of the G-20 nations that will seek to host refugees as close to their home countries as possible. This is the safe, responsible and humanitarian approach.”

We wondered about the accuracy of Trump’s claim that what’s spent on resettling one refugee in the United States could be used to help more than 10 refugees in their home region. We found the on-the-ground reality of aid to refugees to be so complex that it’s not possible to prove or disprove Trump’s statement.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS), for example, told us that many mainstream programs and federal departments offer aid to refugees, and that makes an overall per-capita cost estimate impossible to calculate. [No kidding! Use USA Spending.gov and you will find money going to the refugee program from the Dept. of Agriculture and the Justice Dept. just to name two that you might not have thought of!—ed]

[….]

Given the complexity of the calculations, we won’t put this claim on the Truth-O-Meter.

[….]

PROTESTER BURNS MONEY AT SEATTLE JAILHOUSE.

Where is Congress? Don’t you lazy lunks care how much this program is costing America? How about some standardized reporting practices on the costs.

As for costs, the State Department reported that in fiscal year 2016 it spent nearly $545 million on the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — that accounts for processing, transportation, reception and placement costs. (An expert told us refugees have to repay the full cost of their travel tickets, usually within two years.***)

About $1.6 billion in fiscal year 2016 went to Refugee and Entrant Assistance, administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement within HHS. Refugee and Entrant Assistance funds programs that help refugees, asylees, Cuban and Haitian entrants, survivors of torture, Special Immigrant Visa holders, trafficking victims as well as unaccompanied children who were apprehended by immigration officials and are waiting for a resolution of their immigration case.

About $697 million of Refugee and Entrant Assistance’s 2016 budget went to resettlement services, according to Refugee Council USA, a coalition of non-governmental organizations that help refugees. [Here they are using information from the recipients of the government largess, hardly an impartial source!—a source that hired the Podesta Group to get them more government money!—ed]

Politifact:

So how much is spent per refugee resettlement? That’s not clear.

Do you hear that Welcoming America, a community organizing group parading economic studies around the country! You don’t know either what it costs taxpayers for this program, so you can’t say there is a net benefit to the economy!

Politifact continues….

“The amount and type of federal assistance provided to a refugee during his or her period of eligibility can vary greatly,” said Victoria A. Palmer, HHS spokeswoman. “Additionally, cash and medical assistance are administered at the state level, and the state cost-sharing amounts vary significantly from state to state.” [It is our contention that this cost-shifting is illegal! Where are you Congress?—ed]

[….]

A November 2015 study from the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors low immigration levels, found a $64,370 cost to taxpayers per refugee from the Middle East over the course of the refugee’s first five years in the United States.

“For what it costs to resettle one Middle Eastern refugee in the United States for five years, about 12 refugees can be helped in the Middle East for five years, or 61 refugees can be helped for one year,” the study said.

The five-year resettlement estimate includes expenses incurred by offices within HHS and the State Department, plus welfare and education costs, the center reported. The estimates are based on 2013 figures.

“It should be clear that what drives these costs are the initial expenditures by (Office and Refugee Resettlement) and (Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration) and the very high use of welfare by Middle Eastern refugees,” the CIS report said.

More here.

*** This travel loan statement from an “expert” is bogus. Yes, some refugees pay back their travel loans and others don’t. There is no legal force applied. The VOLAGs (the contractors) just tell refugees that their credit rating will stink (yes, sure, someone who has lived in an African refugee camp understands that!) if not repaid.

The real truth is that the contractors listed below try to extract the travel loan repayment from the impoverished refugees and then keep a cut for themselves.

See that the USCCB wrung $3 million out of refugees in one year, see my previous post. This is your money, and if refugees pay back travel loans, all of it should return to the US Treasury. Where are you Congress?