Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the Republican presidential primary, is again promising to halt all refugee resettlement to the United States in response to war in Israel following terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas.
“A vote for crooked Joe is a vote to turn the United States into a hotbed for jihadists and make our cities into dumping grounds resembling the Gaza Strip,” Trump told voters in Derry, New Hampshire. “A vote for President Trump is a vote to … keep radical Islamic terrorists and their supporters the hell out of our country.”
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According to Trump, he will reinstate a travel ban for “terror-afflicted” foreign countries while also pausing all refugee resettlement to the U.S.
“If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country, and you are not getting in,” Trump said.
The former president’s distinction to stop refugee resettlement altogether is significant, as fellow GOP presidential primary candidates have said they will oppose importing Palestinians from Gaza to the U.S. but have not commented on the federal government’s resettlement program.
Refugee resettlement also inevitably adds so-called “chain migration” to the U.S. as refugees secure green cards and, eventually, naturalized American citizenship. From there, they are able to sponsor an unlimited number of foreign relatives for green cards. About seven in ten legal immigrants arrive through chain migration every year.
In 2022 and 2021, President Joe Biden’s administration brought many refugees from Arab nations — those most likely to sympathize with Hamas — to the U.S.
For example, the Biden administration has resettled nearly 9,500 nationals from Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, and Sudan in the prior two fiscal years. Annual refugee data is not yet available for Fiscal Year 2023.
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Over the last 20 years, nearly one million refugees have been resettled in the country. This is a number more than double that of residents living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is the equivalent of annually adding the population of Pensacola, Florida.
Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to research, and each refugee costs taxpayers about $133,000 over the course of their lifetime. Within five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.