The Hill has published an article positing that Americans, in general, are in favor of accepting refugees, but the Trump Administration and far-right activists are not. The article is full of fallacies that are easily exposed. If you asked most Americans if they are in favor of accepting refugees, they would answer, yes, of course. If you asked these same Americans if the process of accepting refugees is important, they would, again, agree. The article in The Hill does not address the process. The process is key.

The writers of the article are Jonah Cohen, is a founder of the South Sudan Center for America, and Biar Atem, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. From the first paragraph, the gentlemen make their disdain for the Trump Administration known:

The recent House Judiciary Committee hearing on the current state of the U.S. refugee program confirms what many analysts have noted – that the Trump administration is out of step with America’s history as the global leader in the resettlement of the world’s most vulnerable people.

We are a generous and welcoming nation. We have great things to offer refugees and asylees. I don’t know whether we SHOULD be the global leader for the “world’s most vulnerable people”. The authors don’t explain WHY we should accept these people. But, let us accept the fact that we are and talk about the refugee process.

A simple internet search shows that, since 1980, our policy for refugees has changed dramatically. This chart if from Migration Policy.org:

Notice that the number of refugees accepted in 2002 was only about 10% of the number accepted in 1980. This reflects that we were attacked in 2001. Although none of the 9/11 terrorists were refugees, the attack made us keenly aware of foreign-born terrorists fighting us on our own soil. According to the CATO Institute, “Foreign‐​born terrorists were responsible for 86 percent (or 3,037) of the 3,518 murders caused by terrorists on U.S. soil from 1975 through the end of 2017.”

Native-born American terrorist are enough of a problem. Why should we import more terrorists?

The stories of the Lost Boys of Sudan, the Christian girls of Nigeria or Northern Iraq being sold as sex slaves are heart-breaking. Would that we could take them all in. The authors argue that we don’t because of economic lies told by far-right activists. From The Hill article:

Anti-refugee publications tout a study claiming that resettlement costs American taxpayers about $1.8 billion a year. Omitted in their propaganda are the financial paybacks that refugees bring to the country. They pay far more in taxes than they receive in benefits. They are more likely to be entrepreneurs than other immigrants. And their median household income after 25 years is an incredible $14,000 more than the median income of U.S. households overall.

The authors do not link to the anti-refugee publication, and I could not find it. The authors did link to the CATO Institute study that touts the financial paybacks.

So, why might the Trump Administration want to limit the number of refugees? Could it be because we are being overwhelmed by illegal immigration at our Southern border? Ken Cuccinelli and Mark Morgan say yes, in this video from EWTN:

While the Democrats deny there is a problem at the border, we know that our border facilities are at capacity and that our border agents are stretched beyond their abilities.

We Americans can not focus on the “world’s most vulnerable” when we are dealing with an invasion. We must have a process in place to make sure everyone who enters our borders and ports of entry is heavily vetted. We must end chain migration. Just because a young girl is vulnerable that doesn’t mean her relatives are terrorists. Technology is our friend and our enemy. While we are able to find anyone on the internet, that same person can obtain a new identity on the internet.

Another problem that we need to be aware of is saturation in our communities. We don’t want to tax the infrastructure of a town or state with too many new persons of a different culture.

The final paragraph of the Cohen/Atem article reads:

To be sure, it is cynical political maneuvering by the president’s advisors. But we should also have the courage to confess that until the rest of us begin to make the plight of refugees a serious election concern, then we aren’t all that much better in this area. Keep in mind, then, that our inactivity is allowing a radical fringe to run our refugee policy. And remember, too, those 9-year-old Christian girls — stripped, shipped and passed around like meat.

What the authors see as “cynical political maneuvering” might be clear-eyed, rational thinking. Before we can take care of those Christian girls – “stripped, shipped and passed around like meat”, we must make sure that our own country is a safe and secure haven for them.

The authors used load, emotional words and their own cynical arguments. We must not be swayed by these fallacies. We must stay rational to protect our generous nation.

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