RETHINKING U.S. REFUGEE POLICY
- Edwin S. Rubenstein
- February 4, 2020
- Forum Papers
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RETHINKING U.S. REFUGEE POLICY
An NPG Forum Paper
by Edwin S. Rubenstein
February 2020
The Trump administration recently announced a number of changes in the nation’s refugee policy. They include a lower cap on refugee admissions, restricting the UN’s roll in selecting refugees, and allowing state and local governments to opt out of the program altogether.
Welcome changes, to be sure, but relative to NPG’s goal of reducing U.S. population, it’s too little, too late.
Since 1975 about 3.5 million refugees have settled in the U.S. Two years after their arrival they can petition to have immediate family members – spouses, children, and parents – join them as legal immigrants. Refugees themselves are required to apply for U.S. citizenship within one year of arrival. As naturalized citizens, they can petition to have other family members enter as legal immigrants.
This chain migration process – by which one generation of refugees spawns future generations of legal immigrants – has been part of U.S. immigration policy since the 1965 Immigration Act. That law was supposed to cap legal immigration at about 200,000 per year, but the cap is waived for immigrants with relatives already in the U.S.
Over time, those 3.5 million refugees can generate a legal immigration influx many-times that size. Like compound interest, its impact is imperceptible at first, but at some point accelerates uncontrollably. That point may have arrived: about 44% of all legal immigration to the U.S. in 2015 was attributable to spouses and children in the country –i.e., chain migration.
So while the President, with great fanfare, slashes the annual refugee cap, refugees already here – aided and abetted by federal refugee bureaucracies and resettlement non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – set the long-term trajectory of U.S. population growth.
Did we say “Over time?” Well, for many refugee groups, the time is now.
Take the Vietnamese, for example.
Total refugee admissions peaked in 1980, fueled mainly by Vietnamese fleeing post-war chaos in their country. With normalization of relations, the refugee inflow collapsed: less than 100 Vietnamese refugees per year have been admitted since 2011, with a low of 10 reached in 2018. Yet today – decades after the war – legal immigration from Vietnam remains high, as post war refugees are still sponsoring family members. (Nearly 300,000 Vietnamese obtained Legal Permanent Resident status over the 2010 to 2018 period.)
Similarly, after averaging 40,000 to 60,000 per year following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the number of communist bloc refugees fell to 426 in 2008. Over this period, however, an average of roughly 30,000 individuals from Russia, the Ukraine, and other components of the former Soviet Union were granted LPR status each year. Iraq could be next. After averaging 14,100 per year from 2009 to 2017, the Iraqi refugee inflow fell to 140 in 2018. Is a wave of Iraqi immigrants about to break here?
Bottom line: the U.S. refugee program has all the earmarks of a population time bomb. It’s time to consider alternatives. We have one in mind…
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Ed Rubenstein, president of ESR Research, is an experienced business researcher, financial analyst, and economics journalist. He has written extensively on federal tax policy, government waste, the Reagan legacy, and – most recently – on immigration. He is the author of two books: The Right Data (1994) and From the Empire State to the Vampire State: New York in a Downward Transition (with Herbert London). His essays on public policy have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Investor’s Business Daily, Newsday, and National Review. His TV appearances include Firing Line, Bill Moyers, McNeil-Lehr, CNBC, and Debates-Debates. Mr. Rubenstein has a B.A. from Johns Hopkins and a graduate degree in economics from Columbia University.