Critical Thinking Paper

Amelia Frey
CAP 9
Red Group
May 15th, 2017

The United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) needs to ban the immigration

of refugees migrating to the United States from countries that have a large presence of ISIS, Al

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Qaeda and other groups that exhibit widespread support for radical Islamist terror groups. The

United States need to prevent these refugees from settling in America, in order to protect the our

country and our civilians from significant threats including terrorism, the isolation of refugee

communities from the rest of American society, and the economic strain on national resources

which are funded by US taxpayers and result in a tremendous burden on the economy, social

fabric and safety of the United States.

A refugee is defined as a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to

escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. It is important to note that many of the refugees who

are accepted into the US are not wishing harm upon the United States and their citizens.

However, a growing number of other refugees take advantage of their refugee status, claim it

inappropriately, and take advantage of American generosity. In 2016, the US admitted 84,995

refugees, and 12,587 of these refugees came from Syria, a nation suffering from civil war and

plagued by terrorism. While 54% of the registered voters in the United States believe that US

does not have a responsibility to accept refugees from Syria, only 41% stated that the US does

have a responsibility to welcome these refugees. (Krogstad and Radford). Newly elected United

States President Donald Trump has proposed halting all refugee admissions into the United

States for 120 days to ensure that screening procedures are strengthened in order to ensure that

criminals who wish our nation harm are not able to arrive under the guise of refugees. This

plan also includes an important caveat that the US will accept any refugees from Syria until

further notice (Radford).

Refugees pose a significant threat to the US economy, safety, and social fabric of

communities because their motives and background are often a mystery. In order to prevent

terrorist attacks, self-isolation in communities around the country, and further economic strain on

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American resources, the government needs to step in and ban the immigration of refugees

coming from high risk countries.

Admitting refugees into the United States from countries that have a substantial terrorist

presence is putting America at risk of future terror attacks. Terrorism is a growing movement that

threatens to destabilize and deteriorate the entire world. It is defined as the unlawful use of

violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. America,

arguably one of the most developed and powerful countries in the world, whose decisions impact

people worldwide, is frequently targeted by terrorists due to the progressive perspective our

nation has on many issues including the role of women in society and our religious freedoms. In

order to protect our citizens from terrorist attacks and the killing of innocent people, we must ban

the immigration of refugees from countries with significant terrorist presences (Terrorism

Research). There have been several instances where the government vetting process failed to

identify possible terrorists and/or people who wish America harm, and these slipups sometimes

cost innocent lives. When a refugee arrives from an area where ISIS and other terrorist groups

have a strong presence, it is very difficult to know their background, beliefs, values and even

about their previous or current involvement with criminal organizations. It is the job of the

government to make sure that our country prevents these fatal errors and that it keeps US citizens

safe from dangerous terrorists, before it experiences another terror attack like those of September

11, 2001.

These refugees kill innocent citizens and create fear and anxiety throughout America.

For example, Ahmad Khan Rahimi was accused of leading three different terrorist bombing

efforts in New York and New Jersey in 2016. These bombings left 31 people wounded. Rahimi

came to America seeking refuge from Afghanistan, a country that has a long history of being the

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home to many radical Islamic terrorist groups, who use the country as a training and operational

base for their radical beliefs. Rahimis motives for the bombings were seemingly influenced by

the ideas of the extremist terror group Al-Qaeda, who claimed responsibility for the September

11, 2001 terror attack. He had also visited both Afghanistan and Pakistan before the bombings

and was in contact with people who had connections to terrorist groups in Pakistan (Santora).

Another risk factor is that these refugees may attempt to return to their countries of origin

in order to better assist terrorist groups by providing information about America and how to plan

future attacks. The most prominent terror group is ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. There

have been many cases of refugees who have been vetted and become citizens in the United

States, who then turn to support ISIS and other terrorist groups overseas, by providing them with

information, money, weapons, and other supplies. Terrorism can occur in many shapes and

forms, and banning refugees coming from areas that have an open presence of terrorism could

not only prevent further attacks in the US but also limit the intelligence that these individuals are

capable of collecting and providing to others interested in harming the US.

Refugees participate in an intense vetting and screening process, which can take

anywhere from 18-24 months. After they successfully complete this process and are allowed to

enter the US, they relocate to American communities so that they can learn English and begin to

integrate and establish a new life in the United States. Sometimes the refugees form small

communities of their own, speak their native languages with fellow immigrants, and instead of

becoming active and engaged with American community members, they choose to remain

isolated within their own culture. According to a study in 2013, more than half of the refugees in

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America cannot speak English. This inability to communicate in the most commonly accepted

language in the United States can prove dangerous in creating mistrust with long-term

community members. Even more concerning, this isolation can lead to the formation of

subcultures, who share misinformation, creating an ideal breeding ground to introduce young

people radicalism and jihadism. This situation has happened in the US and other countries,

including Germany during the recent Syrian refugee crisis, which is still happening today.

The United States has the worlds largest refugee resettlement program, accepting two

thirds of the 98,000 refugees who arrived for resettlement in 2013. Just over 50% of refugees

who apply for asylum in the United States actually receive asylum and the numbers have

increased over the last ten years. Refugees continue to move into American cities and towns

throughout the country (Altman). The growing diversity of the refugees migrating to America

continues to provide complications for authorities trying to integrate refugees into an American

lifestyle. Some refugees even refuse to attend classes to learn English. Extremely low rates of

literacy and the inability to speak English make it even harder to integrate refugees, especially if

they demonstrate a desire to remain in the same culture from their countries of origin. After

about five years, many of the asylum seekers who come to America for refuge also wish for their

family members to join them in the small communities they have created. The small subcultures

increase the population of these areas, and place more stress on local institutions. For example,

elementary and secondary schools are suddenly required to take in refugees in need of education

without the proper learning resources.

Unaccompanied youth provide significant obstacles for American society, because these

refugee immigrants often have nobody to depend on other than the federal government. These

individuals often come with two main goals: to earn money to send to their families back in their

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home countries, and to bring additional family members to the United States to live with them. In

neither of these cases is English literacy or education considered a priority, therefore many

refugees assume that they are a waste of time, and refuse to receive lessons to help them

integrate. Learning English and the ways of American society is vital for someone to fully

integrate into a country, and if it is denied, they remain an outsider and pose a potential risk to

other Americans.

Somalia is one of the countries that contributes a substantial amount of refugees to the

United States population each year. Somali refugees tend to settle in big cities, and have

established a significant presence in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Based on a 2010 American

Community Survey, approximately 25,000 Somalis out of the 85,000 nationwide are located in

Minnesota (Koumpilova). The [Somali] community [in Minnesota] has faced unwanted national

attention after nine Somali refugees from Minnesota were arrested for plotting to join ISIS in

Syria (Campbell). These nine refugees were living in a small, isolated community comprised of

mainly Somali immigrants that may have served as a radical breeding ground. This type of

environment is an ideal environment for recruiting members to support and join terror groups

while giving young men meaning and purpose in their lives, as well as offering them a sense of

security and belonging. These isolated communities exist in other cities in the US and present a

growing concern and risk for terrorism in refugee communities in our own country.

Refugees are an expensive endeavor. It is astounding to realize that it costs $36,000 for

each refugee to complete the application and admission process in the US. It is estimated that

during the first two years of living in the United States, each asylum seeker costs the government

about $20,000. This money is used to establish their new lives, and includes services such as

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paying rent, buying furniture and clothing in the United States. This takes a toll on the

communities where they settle because local citizens bear the burden by paying more taxes to

accommodate them. Some refugees also become reliant on the government over the long-haul to

pay for their food rations, homes, jobs beyond just their settling-in expenses. With the large

number of refugees the US takes in every year, it has become very costly to support these

refugees, and this funding could be better used on Americans to improve education, community

services, and job opportunities.

Directly after the refugees are placed in cities, the Office of Refugee Resettlement

provides them with medical care, job training, and English lessons, along with one thousand

dollars of spending money (per refugee). The total cost of these immediate services will amount

to $2,840, but the rest of the services the refugee requires over the years amounts to a much more

significant amount per refugee. For example, in Cleveland, in 2012, the local refugee services

agencies spent about $4.8 million to help refugees get established in the area in one year

(Soergel). With the large number of refugees the United States is currently admitting, this

estimate is expected to rise substantially, possibly reaching an astounding grand total of more

than $4.1 billion by the end of the 2017 fiscal year.

The conclusion drawn from a study from shows that over a five year period (2010-

2015), American taxpayers pay $59,251 per refugee (Leahy). 155,865 refugees from these ten

countries sought refuge from their homes over the course of the entire study. That means that

American taxpayers pay a grand total of 9,235,157,115 dollars over the course of five years to

provide for the refugees. This money could be going towards improving the average American's

life instead, by cleaning up the environment, and improving the education system; things that all

Americans would be impacted by, not just a very small percentage of the population.

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 Unfortunately for American taxpayers, refugees continue to be highly dependent on the

US government for providing job opportunities, and to assist them by providing job training,

English lessons, and other work-related courses, not to mention the enrollment and teaching of

their children in local schools. If the refugees chose not to find a job, and instead choose live off

of welfare benefits provided by the United States government, the US taxpayers money

essentially pays them a salary, and the situation depresses the US economy since the refugees

refuse to contribute to the labor market. When food stamps, housing, job training, and assistance

for torture, violence, and domestic trafficking victims are all immediately provided for the

refugees when accepted into the country, this can lead to the refugees to turn to automatic

dependance on the government (federal dollars) to pay for a vast majority of their living costs,

and this can cost the taxpayers even more than they were accommodating originally.

Refugees exhibit an overly negative impact on the US economy. First of all, there is

increased job competition on both lower and higher skilled job markets. If the refugees who

come to the United States are lower skilled, than the lower-skilled jobs will be harder to come by

as there are more people taking the jobs of the rightful American citizens. Second of all, since the

refugees receive the benefits of Social Services (healthcare, adoption, job training, housing,

education and more), there is more of an increased dependence on those services, which are paid

for by local community taxpayers. Even if they are employed, many refugees do not pay regular

income taxes. Yet they rely heavily on community-provided services; that means an increased tax

on the rest of the community. If a large number of refugees moves to one area, this can have a

very negative impact (Solman).

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 Refugees pose a major threat to the United States, especially refugees migrating from

war-torn countries that have a significant presence of terrorists in thei, in order to prevent these

refugees from settling in America, as to to protect the our country from the threats that refugees

bring. These can include terrorism, the isolation of refugee communities from the rest of

American society, and the economic strain on national resources which are funded by US

taxpayers. It is essential that the United States Refugee Admissions Program bans the

immigration of refugees from these terrorist-riddled countries from migrating to the United

States.

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 Works Cited

Campbell, Alexia Fernandez. "Americas Real Refugee Problem." Americas

Communities. The Atlantic, www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/the-

challenge-of-integrating-americas-refugees/505031/. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017. Originally

published in The Atlantic, 24 Oct. 2016.

Krogstad, Jens Manuel, and Jynnah Radford. "Key Facts about Refugees to the

U.S." FactTank, 30 Jan. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/key-facts-

about-refugees-to-the-u-s/. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

Leahy, Michael Patrick. "Refugees Will Cost Taxpayers an Estimated $4.1 Billion

in FY 2017." Breitbart, 19 Feb. 2017, www.breitbart.com/big-

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government/2017/02/19/refugees-will-cost-taxpayers-an-estimated-4-billion-in-fy-2017/.

Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

Menahan, Chris. "20 'Vetted' Refugees Who Turned to Terrorism after Being

Allowed into America." Information Liberation, 29 Jan. 2017,

www.informationliberation.com/?id=56194. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

Santora, Mark, et al. "Ahmad Khan Rahami Is Arrested in Manhattan and New

Jersey Bombings." New York Times, 19 Sept. 2016. New York Times,

www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/nyregion/nyc-nj-explosions-ahmad-khan-rahami.html?

_r=0. Accessed 1 Apr. 2017.

Soergel, Andrew. "Refugees: Economic Boon or Burden?" US News, 15 Sept.

2015, www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/09/15/would-syrian-refugees-be-an-

economic-boon-or-burden. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

Altman, Alex. "This Is How the Syrian Refugee Screening Process Works." TIME

Politics, TIME, 17 Nov. 2015, time.com/4116619/syrian-refugees-screening-process/.

Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

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 Annotated Bibliography

1. Altman, Alex. "This Is How the Syrian Refugee Screening Process Works." TIME

Politics, TIME, 17 Nov. 2015, time.com/4116619/syrian-refugees-screening-process/.

Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

I used this source to learn more about the Paris attack that was carried out by refugees, and to

learn more about the American screening process when it comes to Muslim refugees and

refugees coming from areas largely controlled by terrorist organizations. This website also

provided me with statistics on entry into the US, and the background of letting refugees in. I also

used this source to fact check some other information that I had seen in other places, but I

wanted to make sure it was valid. I used this website to fact check because I knew that TIME

Magazine was a reliable and unbiased source.

2. Campbell, Alexia Fernandez. "Americas Real Refugee Problem." Americas Communities.

The Atlantic, www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/the-challenge-of-integrating-

americas-refugees/505031/. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

Originally published in The Atlantic, 24 Oct. 2016. I used this source for an in depth analysis of

the Somali refugee community in Minneapolis and Minnesota. I also used it for statistics and the

information about the Somali refugees who are unemployed, and their interactions with jihadists,

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gangs, and radicalism. I also read an interview on this website that helped me be more informed

about the struggles of a Somali refugee living in Minneapolis after the 9 refugees who were

discovered to be attempting to join ISIS.

3. Krogstad, Jens Manuel, and Jynnah Radford. "Key Facts about Refugees to the U.S."

FactTank, 30 Jan. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/key-facts-about-refugees-

to-the-u-s/. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

I used this source to get statistics on the general opinion of refugees (specifically from Syria) of

the American public. There were charts and pie charts that I could use to get a better visual

interpretation of the refugees coming into the US, and there was also poll information from

registered voters and their opinions. This source also provided a comparison of the number of

admitted refugees over the years (from 1940-today). This really helped me see the trends,

increases and decreases of admittances of refugees in the United States.

4. Leahy, Michael Patrick. "Refugees Will Cost Taxpayers an Estimated $4.1 Billion in FY

2017." Breitbart, 19 Feb. 2017, www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/19/refugees-will-

cost-taxpayers-an-estimated-4-billion-in-fy-2017/. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

I used this source to find out statistics about how much refugees had cost and will cost the United

States in previous years and the years to come. This website provided data based of off

individual refugees, groups of refugees, and the races of the refugees. This source helped me

specifically with the financial statistics I needed to backup my claims. This website also

contained the results of a five year study, which contained a variety of data, which helped me

visualize the statistics within a five year range.

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 5. Menahan, Chris. "20 'Vetted' Refugees Who Turned to Terrorism after Being Allowed into

America." Information Liberation, 29 Jan. 2017, www.informationliberation.com/?id=56194.

Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

This website helped me gather information on refugees who turned to terrorism after being

granted American citizenship. I used this website to also gather statistics about refugees who had

turned to terrorism. This website also gave an accurate explanation of what the people had done

in order to support terrorism, and it gave accurate dates and cases.

6. Sachs, Jeffrey. "Whats the economic impact of refugees in America?" Interview by Paul

Solman. PBS News, 7 Apr. 2016, www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/whats-the-economic-

impact-of-refugees-in-america/. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

I used this source to read an interview about the negative and positive effect that refugees had on

an economy. This interview provided a personal reference to the issues mentioned because the

interviewee was an economist who specialized on the topic on refugees and their role in

American society once they had been integrated. This was an online source, but the interview

had been conducted in person.

7. Santora, Mark, et al. "Ahmad Khan Rahami Is Arrested in Manhattan and New Jersey

Bombings." New York Times, 19 Sept. 2016. New York Times,

www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/nyregion/nyc-nj-explosions-ahmad-khan-rahami.html?_r=0.

Accessed 1 Apr. 2017.

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I used this citation to find out more information on the New York and New Jersey Bombings that

occurred last year, and were carried out by an extremist who was a refugee in the United States.

This source helped provide background knowledge on what exactly happened in the terror attack,

and which people were involved. I used this source to back up my evidence and provide further

depth on the event.

8. Soergel, Andrew. "Refugees: Economic Boon or Burden?" US News, 15 Sept. 2015,

www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/09/15/would-syrian-refugees-be-an-economic-

boon-or-burden. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

I used this website for statistical purposes because it had lots of valuable and valid data

represented in charts and graphs. It also included a variety of limiting factors, which helped

specify the topics it was focusing on (in terms of refugees).

9. Unknown. "Countries with a Large Terrorism Presence." Terrorism Research, Unknown,

2014, www.terrorism-research.com/state/countries.php. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

I used this source to find out which countries had the most present terrorist forces in their lands. I

also used the other links on this website to educate myself on terrorism around the world and the

people most targeted/impacted by it. This source helped give me background information on

which terrorist groups were located in each specific country, what their motives were, and how

long they had had a presence in the country of choice. I mainly used the information given from

Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq because they had the largest presence of terrorism.

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 10. Ziener, Markus. "Germany And Refugees: The Perils Of Failed Integration." The

Huffington Post, 6 Apr. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/markus-ziener/germany-and-refugees-

the-_b_9618046.html. Accessed 2 Apr. 2017.

I used this source as a comparison factor to what the issues with integration of refugees were like

in other countries (Germany) compared to the United States. I also used it to learn more about

the European refugee crisis, and the statistics involved in that too. This website helped me

understand the perils of refugee migration and it helped me see the worst-case scenarios

involving integration into normal society.

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