In 1980, the Refugee Act of 1980 became law. Among other things, it required that the federal government consult with elected officials of state and local jurisdictions before placing refugees in their jurisdictions.
Flash forward to the Obama years, when “regular” consultations have become few and far between. In 2015 and 2016, respectively, the officials of two states, Texas and Alabama, sued the feds in federal court, claiming that refugees were being resettled in their states without their input. While unsuccessful, those lawsuits set the stage for President Trump’s Executive Order 13888 of September 26, 2019, titled “Enhancing State and Local Involvement in Refugee Resettlement.” EO 13888 ordered the U.S. Secretary of State to develop a process that, in the absence of any other over-riding requirement, would. . .
. . . provide that, if either a State or locality has not provided consent to receive refugees under the Program, then refugees should not be resettled within that State or locality. . . .
The order thus not only gave voice to jurisdictions that had increasingly been left out of decisions directly affecting their citizens, it actually required their explicit agreement.
Joe Biden had announced during the campaign that he hoped to radically increase America’s intake of refugees, to 125,000 per year. So, upon taking office on January 20, he revoked Executive Order 13888, returning total control of refugee relocations to the federal government and rendering states and localities once again subservient to Washington.
As of today, no new lawsuit has been filed challenging Biden’s order. For now, your town and your state remain powerless to complain the next time Joe decides to welcome a few thousand anti-American insurgents. Such is life in Bidenworld.
For more, see Breitbart News.