Administration Rushes More Than 900 Refugees Into U.S. On Consecutive Days, On Track for 185,000 in FY 2017
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The Obama administration accelerated the resettlement of refugees into the United States during October, the first month of FY 2017, bringing in a total of 945 refugees on October 5 and 931 on October 6.
In the first six days of October, the Obama administration resettled 3,062 refugees in the country, according to the Department of State’s interactive website.
The second consecutive day of more than 900 new refugee arrivals raised the daily average or arriving refugees to 510 refugees per day for the first six days of FY 2017 (see chart). If that rate continues for the next 359 days of FY 2017, the Obama administration would resettle 185,000 refugees in the country, 75,000 more than the 110,000 he proposed to Congress for FY 2017, and 100,000 more than the 84,995 refugees resettled in FY 2016.
News of the continued acceleration of refugee resettlement in the United States backs what critics of the federal refugee resettlement program have been telling Breitbart News for several months.
“If Hillary Clinton is elected, she will be on a glide path to reach 200,000 refugees in FY 2017 easily.She can use emergency power under the Refugee Act to bring in more refugees than the 110,000 ceiling Obama presented to Congress,” Ann Corcoran, founder of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, told Breitbart News on Thursday.
“A Donald Trump administration could turn off the refugee spigot,” Corcoran added.
Hillary Clinton has previously stated she supports increasing the number of Syrian refugees annually resettled in the United States to 65,000.
Though she has avoided making public statements about the number of total refugees she wants resettled annually, critics of the federal refugee resettlement program are convinced she supports the 200,000 annual level put forward by the Refugee Council USA, the lobbying arm of the politically powerful refugee resettlement industry, whose executives include a number of former Obama and Clinton administration appointees.
Breitbart News reported previously that 2,058 refugees (subsequently restated by the Department of State as 2,131) were resettled during the first five days of FY 2017, a daily average of 411, which set the Obama administration on a pace to bring in more than 150,000 refugees in FY 2017.
In contrast, the daily average of arriving refugees in FY 2016, when 84,995 refugee were resettled in the United States, was 233 (see chart above).
The acceleration of refugee resettlement is even more stunning if the first three days of October are compared to the next three days.
As the chart above illustrates, no refugees were resettled on October 1, 10 were resettled on October 2, and 370 were resettled on October 3. Eight hundred and six refugees were resettled on October 4, 945 were resettled on October 5, and 931 were resettled on October 6, according to the most recent State Department reporting (see chart above).
During the three day period between October 4 and October 6, 2,682 refugees were resettled in the United States. That’s an average daily rate of 894 refugees for those three days. Should the Obama administration maintain that hyper-accelerated average for the remaining 359 days of FY 2017, it would end up resettling 325,000 refugees for the year, which would be a record high for the thirty-six year old program, which was initiated by the Refugee Act of 1980.
Congress has not granted the Department of State, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or the voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) in the lucrative and politically powerful refugee resettlement industry the budget authority to bring refugees in to the United States at the extraordinarily high pace at which the program has operated during the first six days of October.
During FY 2016, which ended on September 30, Congress appropriated more than $1 billion, funds paid to the VOLAGs and their local affiliates to manage the refugee resettlement process at various locations across the country. Under that funding, the VOLAGs resettled 84,995 refugees, just five below the 85,000 ceiling President Obama proposed and Congress accepted for FY 2016.
Though President Obama has proposed resettling a maximum of 110,000 refugees in FY 2017, Congress has not yet approved of that ceiling, nor has it appropriated 52 weeks of funding for the fiscal year that began on October 1. Instead, Congress has approved interim funding to cover just the first 10 weeks of FY 2017, which begin on October 1 and end on December 9.
It is unclear whether that funding is at the 85,000 refugee annual level of FY 2016 or at the 110,000 annual level proposed by President Obama for FY 2017 but not yet either approved or rejected by Congress.
During the first six days of October, the Department of State, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the VOLAGs have far exceeded their current budget authority to bring in refugees.
Operating at the 85,000 annualized level, which equals 233 refugees per day, they would have so far brought in only 1,398 refugees, 1,660 fewer than the 3,062 who have arrived. Operating at the 110,000 annualized level, which equals 301 refugees per day, they would have so far brought in only 1,806 refugees, 1,256 fewer than the 3,062 who have arrived.
***UPDATE
At noon eastern on Friday October 7, the Department of State’s interactive website provided new numbers for refugees resettled month-to-date for October 2016 in the United States.
The number of refugees resettled on Thursday, October 6 was increased to 975 from 931.
The number of refugees resettled during the six day period beginning October 1 and ending October 6 was increased to 3,106 from 3,062. This increases the average number of refugees resettled during the first six days of FY 2017 to 517, up from 510.
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