The United States admits at least one-third million refugees a year. (In 2020, the last year for which statistics are available, the number was 340,881. That would not include of course last year’s Afghan total, perhaps another 95,000.) The Federation for American Immigration Reform found in 2018 that the resettled refugees here at that time were costing the federal and state governments about $8.8 billion–or nearly $80,000 per refugee–every five years. By law, refugees resettled here are provided government support for six months. After that, they are expected to achieve self-sufficiency, which includes learning English and finding a job.
How successful, in general, are they at doing that?
To answer, a team of academic researchers centered at Cornell University did what academics do: they conducted a study. The results of the study, announced last month, were discouraging. The team found that, after five years here, refugees tended to be more fully employed than natives. Yet, a few years beyond that, their degree of employment began to decline.
Apparently, while initially willing to take so-called “survival jobs,” which are typically low-skilled and offer little career growth, the refugees eventually grow bored and unhappy with such employment and quit.
The academics’ answer: keep the refugees as public charges longer, so that they might have more time to establish professional credentials and find positions that provide them the “greater dignity” to which they are entitled.
Meanwhile, guess who pays the freight?
For more, see The Hill.