Advocates: U.S. ready to try private refugee program again

“There is a political climate right now that some Republicans think that resettlement is dangerous,” said Matthew La Corte of the Libertarian Niskanen Center think tank, which is advocating for the Obama administration to resurrect a Reagan-era program that allowed private groups, such as churches, to fund and sponsor refugees in the U.S.

“And we have to be honest about the political climate right now,” La Corte said. “Donald Trump has used Syrian refugees as scapegoats. But I think come Nov. 9, refugee resettlement will return back to where it has been throughout American history,” he said about the Republican presidential nominee.

“We are the United States of America,” La Corte continued. “We need to be open. We need to accept people. It’s part of our tradition; it’s part of who we are.”

The State Department is considering a pilot program akin to Canada’s that has allowed groups as small as five people to “adopt” refugees since 1978. The agency has reached out to refugee groups this summer and hopes to launch a pilot program next year. Although still in the planning stages, some Republican lawmakers are already critical of the plan.

“The creation of a private citizen-sponsorship program — without any consultation with Congress — will further undermine the safety of the American people by expanding an already broken and reckless U.N.-led refugee program,” said Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas.

Officials from the FBI and Homeland Security Department “both testified before Congress that they have no reliable law enforcement data from Syria to use in background checks, yet 90 percent of refugee applicants from Syria are approved by the U.S. government,” continued Babin who tried to include a resettlement moratorium on refugees from Syria and certain other countries in the funding package Congress passed last month to keep the government open until Dec. 9.

“We need greater — not less — scrutiny of refugees from hotbeds of terrorism. This Obama plan is nothing more than a creative way to bypass a more thorough screening of Syrian refugees in their effort to meet some arbitrary number set by the United Nations,” he said.

“Our first priority has to be to the safety of our citizens,” stated Rep. John Fleming, R-La. “I am firmly against the Obama administration’s increases in the refugee program without more stringent vetting. Any new programs should go through Congress and not be created by executive fiat,” the House Freedom Caucus co-founder concluded.

In response to Europe’s refugee crisis and in the wake of a three-year-old Syrian boy’s body washing up on Turkey’s shores, Obama pledged last September to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. this year, a goal the State Department recently met.

Humanitarian organizations, foreign governments and many lawmakers applauded the move. But in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Paris, in which at least one of the perpetrators had slipped into France by posing as a refugee, support plummeted.

The House voted last fall to halt admittance of Syrian and Iraqi refugees but the Senate refused to sign off on the legislation.

Despite the resistance, last week Obama upped overall refugee admissions to 110,000 in 2017. The additional slots for Syrians only boosted the overall global allotment from 75,000 to 85,000 this year.

“These are the most stringently vetted people,” La Corte said, echoing the administration’s point that refugee security concerns are overblown. “This is the hardest way to enter the United States.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated this week that the 30 percent increase in refugee admittances Obama approved for next year will not compromise background checks.

Obama has ensured “that we’re not going to cut corners when it comes to the safety and security of the American people,” Earnest said on Tuesday. “And over this last fiscal year, we were able to make a significant increase in the number of refugees that were admitted to the United States, and we were able to do that without cutting any corners on the vetting process.”

Republicans have bashed Obama for increasing the refugee ceiling so dramatically and want to give Congress the authority to set the number, instead of the president.

“President Obama unilaterally increases the number of refugees resettled in the United States each year and gives little thought as to how it will impact local communities,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., after Obama set the new goal on Sept. 28. “The president also continues to ignore warnings from his own national security officials and plans to bring in even more Syrian refugees over the next year.”

Despite the negative environment, some Republicans are interested in Canada’s private-sponsorship model.

“I would certainly be open to considering a program partnering refugees with U.S. sponsors — especially if it would cut down on the financial burden for American taxpayers,” Sen. David Vitter, R-La., told Bloomberg this week.

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., held a hearing on the subject back in February.

“To me that seems like a common-sense program,” Johnson said then. “I think it would work a whole lot better, whether it’s a religious organization or relatives who are sponsoring them.”

To La Corte’s point that electoral considerations are undermining support for the idea, Johnson has gone quiet on the subject.

Johnson, who is locked in a tough election grudge match with the man he unseated six years ago, former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, was unavailable for comment for this story. His Senate spokeswoman also never mentioned his previous positive comments when asked the senator’s position on the matter.

“Trump is trying to make Syrian refugees the ultimate scapegoat for all the United States’ problems,” La Corte said. Once officeholders and candidates no longer feel they have to score “political points on the backs of Syrian refugees, I think things will go back to normal,” he said, noting refugee resettlement is not usually a hot-button topic.

A private-sponsorship program would allow the American public to show their support for refugees, he said.

The goal of any private program will be helping more refugees, not replacing the government-backed system, advocates insist.

An American plan should “increase the number of refugees admitted while maintaining and strengthening U.S. government commitments to resettle refugees,” Refugee Council USA states on its website. It is a coalition of 22 organizations and the State Department’s lead partner on the idea.

The U.S. has admitted more than 3 million refugees since the State Department began keeping statistics in 1975.