Dear Editor:
Who will pay for Syrian refugees? Over 100,000 unaccompanied children have entered illegally through our southern border over the past two years. In addition, another 100,000 "family units" have also illegally entered our nation, and also turned themselves in to border patrol agents. We are currently borrowing billions to support "refugees" who have entered through our southern border, I can't support borrowing more to support Syrian refugees.
Canada's government has estimated the cost of resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees to be $1.2 billion over the next six years ($48,000 per refugee).
The Center for Immigration Studies says it will cost American taxpayers $64,370 per refugee, $247,481 per household, to support them for the first five years they are here. Our Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) estimated the cost of care for the first year is $9,230 per refugee. ORR also says that "most refugees" are self-sufficient after the first five years. ORR considers them "self-sufficient" even if they are still be getting food stamps, public housing, Medicaid assistance, etc.
The UN says it can support a refugee, in camps in the Middle East, for $1,057 annually. If we bring them here it will cost over nine times that amount and they will never go home.
The UN High commissioner for Refugees stated that over 62 percent of all Syrian "refugees" are military age males. If hundreds of thousands of male refugees won't fight to save their own nations why would we want them here? (A few hundred determined ISIS fighters with old pickup trucks routed the American equipped Iraqi army. How hard can it be?)
I don't want another dollar borrowed, nor do I want to pay higher taxes, to support Syrian refugees. In 2015 interest on the national debt cost us over $750,000 per minute. It is unconscionable that we continue to heap more debt on our children, and all future generations.
For those in favor of bringing them here please get out your checkbook and contact one of the organizations that assist those who want to sponsor refugees. You can start with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and/or the Heartland Alliance. If just 12 people who really want to bring a refugee here would shut down their cable/satellite TV and drop the data plan on their phones, they could band together to sponsor a refugee.