Crosstalk: December 13, 2016

Mark Krikorian is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent, non-partisan research organization that examines and critiques the impact of immigration on the United States. He frequently testifies before Congress and has published articles in numerous publications. Among his writings is the book, 'How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration'.

For years we've been taking in large numbers of Somali refugees and this has had consequences as we saw through the recent incident at Ohio State. Interestingly, this was a young man who wasn't a terrorist before coming here. In fact, there's reason to believe the screening didn't fail in his case. It appears that he became a killer because he couldn't cope with life here in the U.S.

Mark believes we are we poised to see more of this and that calls for an overall reassessment of the way we help refugees.

Mark went on to note that the whole idea of resettling refugees in our nation needs to be rethought except in the most extreme circumstances. He believes we should be helping people where they are. CIS did research on this and they found that it costs 12 times as much to bring a refugee to the U.S. as it does to help one in the Middle East in the nation where they've taken refuge.

Mark believes that you could make the case that resettling refugees is morally wrong because each person brought here as a refugee represents 11 other refugees who aren't being helped with that money. It's the equivalent of feeding caviar to one person instead of rice and beans to 12 people.

Jim then wondered if this plays into how we define what a refugee is as there are those showing up here under refugee status who are not refugees. Mark responded by noting that there is a definition in international agreements that defines what a refugee is and it doesn't include people who are fleeing poverty or even generalized violence. Being a refugee means you are being persecuted, or have been persecuted for things specific to you. These may be factors such as religion, race, nationality or political opinion.

Mark went on to explain how we're allowing people to the U.S. who come from 'crummy' places. There are a lot of those places, but that doesn't mean you get to move here. If we're going to treat refugees like someone coming here under the status of political asylum, that means you get to stay here. In that case Mark believes we need to maintain a very high standard regarding how we decide whether you qualify for that status. If we don't do that, we'll have all kinds of illegal aliens telling us they're refugees and that they want to stay. That's what's taking place in Europe and on a smaller scale in South Texas with Central Americans who see that until President Obama leaves office, they have a window of opportunity to stay, at least temporarily, in the U.S.

In the midst of this discussion, Jim had Mark also comment on the following:

--Obama's secret agreement with Australia for the illegals they don't want.

--Trump's idea of 'extreme vetting'.

--The U.S. southern border surge.

--Can President Obama pardon illegal immigrants?

--Is Trump softening his position on immigration?

--Can Trump put an end to sanctuary cities?

--What actions does he see Trump taking regarding immigration?