Former President Donald Trump has pledged to turn away refugees displaced by the conflict between Israel and Hamas, Breitbart reported. Trump, who is the GOP frontrunner, warned that President Joe Biden would turn the U.S. " into a hotbed for jihadists" by allowing them in.
Speaking in Derry, New Hampshire, Trump promised restrictions on who could be resettled in the U.S. There will likely be an onslaught of refugees following Hamas's terrorist attack on Israel and the ensuing conflict.
"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 the crowd. "A vote for President Trump is a vote to … keep radical Islamic terrorists and their supporters the hell out of our country," he added.
"They want to come in; they want to bring the same people that are shooting rockets at Israel; they want to come into the United States. I don’t think a lot of good things are going to happen. And I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants," Trump went on.
"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 warned. The former president said he would reinstate his previous restrictions against immigrants from "terror-afflicted" areas.
He also said he would prevent refugee resettlement programs that are bound to spring up in the wake of the coming war between Israel and Hamas. So far, Trump is the only candidate to make such a forceful pledge.
Other Republican primary candidates are playing both sides of the issue. While stating that they won't allow refugees from Gaza, they have not directly addressed the resettlement programs already in place under Biden.
The Biden administration has welcomed refugees coming in from Arab countries without regard to their possible Hamas sympathies. In the first two years Biden was in office, his administration has let 9,500 people from countries like Jordan, Yemen, Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq.
The problem goes beyond just the initial wave of refugees, of course. Resettlement often leads to chain migration, which includes family members of refugees after they become naturalized citizens.
They can then sponsor their relatives for green cards, and there's no limit on how many each can bring in. Considering that a million refugees have been settled over the last decade, the number of foreign nationals is made exponentially higher.
Even just the number of refugees alone is equivalent to adding the population of Pensacola, Florida, every year before their additional sponsorships. This many refugees become a financial burden on the U.S.
Every five years, taxpayers in America shell out almost $9 billion to resettle refugees. Each one costs $133,000 to taxpayers over the refugee's lifetime.
This could go higher as nearly 16% of those refugees welcomed will require financial help with necessities like housing. This comes at a time when the U.S. is already grappling with an immigration crisis that has some areas at their breaking point, Fox News reported.
Trump is the only candidate with enough courage to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. The U.S. is not in a position to take so many newcomers, and it's certainly not ready to receive unvetted people coming from a place where Western values are attacked.
