Hearing of the Immigration and The National Interest Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Opening Statement of Sen. Jefferson Sessions, Hearing on Refugee Surge

Hearing

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's hearing to investigate the Administration's controversial plan to admit nearly 200,000 refugees over the next two fiscal years, including a large increase in Syrian refugees, on top of the existing annual admittance of 1 million permanent residents.

"I would like to thank you all for being here today and thank Senator Durbin for joining us to serve as Ranking Member.

This hearing will focus on the administration's proposed refugee resettlement program for Fiscal Year 2016. In particular, we will examine the economic and security implications of the Administration's plan to boost the admission of refugees to nearly 200,000 in two years, including a large increase in Syrian resettlement.

Too often, discussions of any one particular immigration program lack broader numerical context. Refugee admissions, asylees, and parolees are all additional to our huge annual intake of 1 million green card holders, the 700,000 foreign workers and the 500,000 foreign students. So before addressing the policy question of whether or not to admit additional groups of refugees, we should first consider our broader immigration situation.

This week is the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Pew Research has done an exhaustive study on the Act, and here are some of their findings, as well as findings from Census and DHS:

In the last five decades, 59 million immigrants have entered the United States.
Immigration, including the children of post-1965 immigrants, added 72 million people to the U.S. population.
One-fifth of the world's immigrants live in the United States. No other country has taken in more than 1 in 20. We have taken in 6 times more immigrants than all of Latin America, and 10 million more immigrants than the European Union.
We have permanently resettled 1.5 million immigrants from Muslim countries in the United States since 9/11.
In 1970, fewer than 1 in 21 Americans was foreign-born, today it is approaching 1 in 7 and will soon eclipse the highest levels ever recorded.
Pew projects new immigrants and their children will add another 103 million individuals to our resident population over the next five decades. That means for every one new resident produced by our existing population, immigration will add another 7 new residents.
Six of the ten decades of the 20th century witnessed immigration declines. Every decade of the 21st century will see rapidly-rising immigration, with each decade setting a new all-time record.
After four decades of large-scale immigration, Pew shows that -- by more than a 3:1 margin -- the public would like to see immigration reduced, not increased. According to Rasmussen, only 7% of Americans support resettling 100,000 Middle Eastern refugees in the United States.
Meanwhile, recent studies from Georgetown Professor Eric Gould and Harvard Professor George Borjas, have linked this huge increase in the foreign labor supply to the crippling wage stagnation and joblessness afflicting our workers.

With that context in mind, we must consider what our economic, social and security infrastructure can responsibly handle. Let us not also forget that we are presently dealing with our hemisphere's immigration crisis.

The situation in Syria and throughout the Middle East is not a problem that can be solved with immigration. While the United States may have a role to play -- such as establishing "safe zones" in Syria, as recommended by General Petraeus -- it would be more cost-effective to support refugees in locations closer to their homes with the long-term goal of returning them home instead of permanent resettlement elsewhere in the world. That is why Middle Eastern nations must take the lead in resettling their region's refugees. It is not a sound policy to respond to the myriad problems in the region by encouraging millions to abandon their home. Resettling the region's refugees within the region is the course likeliest to produce long-term political reforms and stabilization.

It has also been reported that three in four of those seeking entry into Europe are not refugees from Syria, but economic migrants from many different countries. In a September 23rd Washington Post article, it was reported that

"there are well-dressed Iranians speaking Farsi who insist they are members of the persecuted Yazidis of Iraq. There are Indians who don't speak Arabic but say they are from Damascus. There are Pakistanis, Albanians, Egyptians, Kosovars, Somalis, and Tunisians, from countries with plenty of poverty and violence, but no war. It should come as no surprise that many migrants seem to be pretending they are someone else. The prize, after all, is the possibility of benefits, residency and work in Europe.'

We must be more cautious. The administration originally proposed a ceiling of 75,000 refugee admissions in the next fiscal year. Last week, the administration announced that it plans to accept up to "at least" a "floor" of 85,000 refugees next year, and at least 100,000 the following year.

Once here with refugee status, these individuals can claim any job and collect any federal welfare benefit. Recent statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement indicate that 75 percent of refugees receive food stamps and more than half receive free healthcare and cash welfare. For refugees from the Middle East, the numbers are even higher: more than 90% of recent Mideast refugees draw food stamps and about 70% receive free healthcare and cash welfare.

Refugee resettlement also comes with security risks, as we have witnessed with the surge of ISIS recruitment among Somali-refugee communities in Minnesota. Anyone claiming to have a serious and honest discussion of refugee resettlement must ask the difficult questions about integration, assimilation and community safety.

This is certainly true with respect to countries like Syria, where we have little to no information about who these people are, and no ability to determine whether they are radicalized now, or likely to radicalize after their arrival in the U.S. Indeed, the FBI Assistant Director for Counterterrorism has testified that the United States does not have "systems in places on the ground" in Syria to collect enough information to properly screen refugees. Our Subcommittee is currently investigating the scores of examples of refugees and asylees who go on to commit acts of terror or become involved with terrorist organizations.

The economic and physical security of the American people must never be a secondary consideration. With workers' pay stagnant, our entitlement programs on the verge of insolvency, our law enforcement struggling to combat radicalization and increasing crime, and our schools and communities struggling to keep up, voters are rightly wondering about their government's priorities. We will explore those priorities today.

Once again, I would like to thank the witnesses for joining us. We look forward to your testimony."

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