writes<\/a>\u00a0Ann Corcoran, who has been tracking refugee resettlement for over a decade.<\/p>\nIf successful, Corcoran said, Tennessee\u2019s suit would cut the legs out from under the program by attacking its funding. She said other states, like South Dakota and Texas, which have been trying to get control of their budgets with regard to refugees, should be joining Tennessee in this suit.<\/p>\n
\u2018Preferential treatment\u2019 for refugees<\/strong><\/p>\nThe suit\u2019s language, crafted by Thomas More Law Center, is clear:<\/p>\n
\u201cAttempting to escape the fact that the refugee resettlement program is funded by the States, defendants erroneously lump refugees in with other lawfully present aliens and then assert that all of them are the responsibility of a State\u2019s Medicaid program. This argument ignores the fact that the federal government has conferred\u00a0preferential<\/em>treatment on refugees, which leaves them situated more favorably than immigrants admitted through regular means.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nGenerally, \u201c[s]elf-sufficiency has been a basic principle of United States immigration law since this country\u2019s earliest immigration statutes,\u201d states the U.S. code 8 U.S.C. Section 1601(1), and thus other categories of lawful immigrants to the United States are required to make certain showings as to their financial self-sufficiency as a condition to immigrating.<\/p>\n
In fact, 8 U.S.C. Section 1182 (a)(4)(A) states: \u201cAny alien who \u2026 is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit continues:<\/p>\n
(\u201c[A]liens within the Nation\u2019s borders [should] not depend on public resources to meet their needs, but rather rely on their own capabilities and the resources of their families, their sponsors, and private organizations.\u201d) In contrast, the Refugee Resettlement Act imposes no such self-sufficiency requirement and mandates that refugees be deemed eligible for enrollment in Medicaid immediately upon arrival and for a period of up to seven years thereafter.<\/p>\n
45 C.F.R. \u00a7 400.94(c) (\u201cA State must provide medical assistance under the Medicaid and SCHIP programs to all refugees eligible under its State plans.\u201d); See 8 U.S.C. \u00a7 1612(a)(2)(A)(i) (establishing seven-year limit).<\/p>\n
As such, it is improper to say that refugees are simply another part of the lawfully present immigrant population for which states would otherwise be responsible. To the contrary, refugee populations are an economically disadvantaged population who are admitted to the country without regard to their economic status and who are allowed to immediately access welfare benefits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If the refugee resettlement program was terminated along with refugees\u2019 favored status under federal welfare laws, it would mean refugees would not be eligible for admission without regard to their economic condition, and they would not be eligible for Medicaid until they had lived in the United States for five years, just like most other types of immigrants, according to the suit.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s \u201cspecial treatment of refugees may very well serve a legitimate federal goal, but it is just that: a\u00a0federal<\/em>\u00a0goal,\u201d the Tennessee brief states.<\/p>\nThe federal government cannot constitutionally force \u201cstate governments to absorb the financial burden of implementing a federal \u2026 program\u201d while the federal government takes \u201ccredit for \u2018solving\u2019 problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s argument, concludes that the feds \u201cmerely seek to have the federal government absorb the costs that it is currently passing on to states like Tennessee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tennessee\u2019s refugee resettlement program is operated by Catholic Charities, which is one of nine federal contractors the U.S. government pays more than $2,000 for every refugee they resettle in U.S. cities and towns. The resettlements are carried out devoid of any required input from elected city representatives, who answer to local taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Since the Refugee Act of 1980 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, more than 3 million refugees have been permanently resettled in the U.S. from dozens of Third World countries. More than 90 percent of refugees entering the U.S. are hand-selected by the United Nations.<\/p>\n
___
\nhttp:\/\/www.wnd.com\/2017\/07\/lawsuit-would-cut-legs-out-from-under-refugee-program\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATE REVOLTS AGAINST FEDS: NO MORE REFUGEES Claims U.S. giving ‘preferential’ status to U.N.-backed migrants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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