After its almost comical withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, the can’t-shoot-straight Biden administration announced it planned to bring 95,000 Afghanis into this country this year. When they couldn’t make the laughable claim stick that these were all “interpreters,” they cooked up a “humanitarian parolee” concept and decided to bring them in anyway. After all, “this country can tolerate a heck of a lot more people” (Joe Biden, Democrat debate, July 31, 2019), right?
To date, according to Breitbart’s John Binder, more than 73,000 Afghanis have been brought in, with many more thousands on their way. While some are still being temporarily housed and cared for in various military bases across the country, about 25,000–or around 4,000 each week–have been resettled in permanent homes.
Though protocols require that refugees, especially from Islamic countries, be interviewed prior to resettlement about any possible plans they might have, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted last week that well, “not everybody” was being interviewed. (What could go wrong with a policy like that, anyway?)
And where are these New Americans going? The Washington Post says most want to go to California, Virginia and Texas, states that already have large Afghan communities. But State Department officials are saying those places are “saturated” and cannot accommodate any more Afghans. Instead, the officials are talking up places like Birmingham, Alabama, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, as alternatives.
Wherever they end up–and even in the unlikely event that none proves a security risk–it’s a cinch they’ll go on costing us for some time. Historically, refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers about $9 billion every five years, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of his lifetime. Many go on needing housing assistance, for example, for years after resettlement.
But, as Joe Biden tells us, Americans are duty-bound to tolerate and keep tolerating.