Politics

GOP Rep Wants To Block Obama’s Refugee Plan: ‘It’s An Open Invitation’ To America’s Enemies

Scott Greer Contributor
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Texas Republican Rep. Brian Babin has introduced a bill into Congress that would halt the resettlement of refugees in the country until a thorough assessment of the costs and dangers of the process is conducted.

Babin drafted the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act in response to the Obama administration’s desire to expand America’s refugee program — a program the lawmaker believes is fundamentally flawed.

“What we’re trying to do here is to put a temporary halt to the refugee program until the general accounting office can do an assessment of just exactly how much this is costing the taxpayer,” Babin told The Daily Caller. “It’s something that needs to be addressed and needs to be addressed quickly because what it amounts to is an open invitation. To import the problems of the Middle East, of terrorism, oppression of women and all the things that go along with it, into the United States of America.”

Secretary of State John Kerry announced over the weekend that the government plans to gradually increase the number of refugees it takes in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. (RELATED: State Department Lifts Refugee Cap In Response To Europe Crisis)

However, according to the conservative congressman, the majority of refugees already residing in the U.S. are on government assistance and present security issues to both their local communities and the nation in general.(RELATED: America Already Has A Refugee Problem On Its Hands)

“We already know that over 90 percent of them are already on some sort of entitlement program when they come in,” he said. “91 percent of refugees accepted to the United States between 2008 and 2013 were on food stamps; 73 percent on Medicaid refugee medical assistant; 68 percent receive cash welfare payments. This does not even account for the cost to state and local communities.”

Babin is concerned that American communities that take in the new influx of refugees could begin to resemble the unassimilated “no-go zones” typical of many European cities and that “crime and terrorism follow some of these folks.” (RELATED: Swedish Police Release Extensive Report Detailing Control Of 55 ‘No-Go Zones’ By Muslim Criminal Gangs)

“It doesn’t take a genius to see what is happening in Western Europe and has happened over the last few years where they have no-go zones in Liverpool and Paris and London and Amsterdam and Copenhagen,” he explained. “These folks just don’t assimilate… You have unassimilated refugees that basically just create small, microcosms of the countries from which they came. Whether it be Somalia or whether it be Iraq or Syria, this is what you wind up with.”

The Texan takes particular issues with the fact that the towns which are selected for refugee resettlement have virtually say in the matter of who comes into their community — even though these communities foot the refugees’ bill.

“What I’m hearing, and what my office is hearing — from state representatives and mayors, county judges all across states like Idaho and Minnesota — it’s just incredible, and they have very little say of where and when these people, and if they’re gonna come in. They can’t stop it,” Babin told TheDC.

“And now all of a sudden, schools, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, and all the local amenities are suddenly flooded with refugees and the federal benefit packages that these people, these entitlement programs, some of these will want out and then they’re loaded on to the local and state entitlement programs become a huge burden on the local taxpayers.”

Instead of local communities choosing who gets to come, Babin says the United Nations and private contractors are the ones in control of the process. The U.N. recommends the refugees to the U.S. and contractors select the locations where the U.N.-selected refugees will be placed.

With all of these issues in mind, the Texas representative hopes his refugee moratorium bill — which is co-sponsored by fellow Texas Republican and House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul — will pass so that the potential dangers of the Syrian exodus can be thoroughly assessed before accepting anymore refugees.

“I think you would be very, very foolish to be an advocate of allowing tens to hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and import their problems into the United States,” Babin reiterated to TheDC. “I am a grandfather of 12, and I do not want my grandkids to have a country where we have radical jihad going on that we’ve imported into the nation.”

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