Syrian refugees vs. New Jersey’s hungry and homeless

By Joe Sinagra | The Save Jersey Blog

We can’t take care of our own, Save Jerseyans, and we wonder why we pay higher taxes, go deeper in debt, continue to fund what we can’t afford, and have no money left to fund our own humanitarian problems.

Let’s look at the numbers behind Syrian refugee resettlement.

You may not know that the U.S. government has an Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) account is funded at a ceiling of $100 million, set up to fund the initial 30-90 days of refugee resettlement in the United States.

The U.S. takes more than twice as many refugees as all countries from the rest of the industrialized world combined.

10,000 additional Syrian refugees would cost U.S. taxpayers $130 million per year. Over the next 50 years, the costs associated with these additional refugees would add up to $6.5 billion for American taxpayers.

new jersey state budget speech christieThis $6.5 billion expense to provide these refugees with community services, health, education, welfare and retirement benefits would be in addition to to the almost $13.5 billion in foreign aid that U.S. taxpayers have already sent to the Middle Eastern nations to help with the Syrian civil war conflict.

Of the major refugee resettlement organizations in the U.S.; many are run by former refugees. Staff and management of the hundreds of taxpayer supported U.S. contractors are largely refugees or immigrants whose purpose is to gain entry for more refugees.

Refugee agencies refuse to use their own resources to maintain the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Public money has thoroughly driven out private money.

Welfare use is staggering among refugees and is never counted by officials as part of the cost of the program. Yet, when it is included, the total cost of the refugee program soars to at least 10-20 billion a year.

Refugees are not tested for many diseases, such as HIV. Refugees are a major contributing factor to TB rates among the foreign-born. TB among the foreign-born now accounts for about half of the TB in America.

The money the U.S. spends bringing one refugee to the U.S. could have helped 500 individuals overseas in countries where they currently reside.

In the U.S., 47% of loans made to refugees for transportation to the U.S. are unpaid leaving an unpaid balance of $450 million, and does not include interest or an unknown amount that has been written off.

Refugee resettlement is profitable to the organizations involved in it. They receive money from the federal government for each refugee they bring over. They have almost no real responsibilities for these refugees. After four months, the “sponsoring” organization is not even required to know where the refugee lives.

A refugee legally resides in the country of resettlement and is eligible for federally funded cash assistance for up to eight (8) months.

Refugees arriving in the United States will receive $900 when they first arrive.

Syrian refugee camp on the Turkish border
Syrian refugee camp on the Turkish border

Refugees who are able to quickly enter the job market can elect to participate in the Match program, a federal program for refugees geared towards employment and self-sufficiency. The Match program provides families with money for rent and basic living expenses for three months. Adults are provided $325 each/month for the three month program, and children are provided $200 each/month for the three months.

The refugee program has a significant impact on U.S. foreign policy. It also affects internal and foreign policies of other nations by allowing them to rid themselves of unwanted minorities or close their borders to asylum seekers in the knowledge that the U.S. will take them in.

More than 500,000 people, a quarter of them children, were homeless in the United States this year. Approximately 15.3 million children are starving in US households.

New Jersey is now one of the hardest hit states relative to our wealth.

As of 2012, 1,151,890 people live in food-insecure households in New Jersey alone. In 2014, 77 percent of food-insecure households in New Jersey reported having to choose between paying for food, paying for utilities or heating fuel.

The state of New Jersey had the biggest increase in the number of residents participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—up 19 percent since June 2010.

The homeless during 2013, according to the Corporation for Supportive Housing. estimated a total of 25,612 people to be homeless in New Jersey.

New Jersey’s homeless population increased 16 percent in 2014.

Let’s take care of them first before we worry about taking care of someone else?

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Joe Sinagra
About Joe Sinagra 73 Articles
Joe is a U.S. Air Force veteran, small businessman and former candidate for the New Jersey legislature and New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. He continues to actively work for GOP causes and candidates in the Central New Jersey region.

2 Comments

  1. Europe is finding all this out right now and they are letting in tens of thousands each month. Germany is already trying to figure out where they are going to get all the money to support the refugees. The ones they find with a criminal background, they can’t even send back to their home countries, because they won’t accept them back.
    I just came back from Germany and they are in a world of hurt!

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