Federal Law Enforcement Association urges Obama to help struggling Americans, not potentially dangerous refugees

by: Sam Rolley 

The president of an organization representing federal law enforcement officers has an idea for the Obama administration: Why not help out the millions of homeless and suffering American veterans and children before spending millions of dollars hustling refugees from terror strongholds into the country?
Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association President Nathan Catura said that bringing the refugees to the U.S. is going to make the American public less safe no matter how many billions of dollars the federal government spends on the Obama administration’s resettlement efforts.

“How would our government distinguish men and women of military age from true refugees with those intending harm to the American public? The hard, cold truth is there is no way to do it,” he said in a statement.
And the 25,000 federal police officers from 65 agencies he represents, Catura continued, lack the resources to protect Americans from the potential thousands of terror sympathizers the government could let in without proper vetting.
“Is the White House prepared to dispense tens of millions of dollars to federal law enforcement agencies to help offset the cost of vetting and investigating the thousands of refugees that are set to enter our homeland? Most likely not,” he said.

Even without increased funding for law enforcement to deal with refugees, the Obama plan comes with a hefty price tag. According to research from the Heritage Foundation, the net cost of resettling just 10,000 refugees in the U.S. is about $6.5 billion.
That number is going to be much higher once the administration’s refugee plan is complete.
In September, Secretary of State John Kerry announced: “The United States will significantly increase our numbers for refugee resettlement in the course of this year and the year after … We are going to go up to 85,000 with at least, and I underscore the ‘at least’ — it is not a ceiling, it’s a floor — 10, 000 over the next year from Syria specifically even as we also receive more refugees from other areas.”

Catura contends that the expensive refugee plan isn’t so “compassionate,” considering the burden it would place on a social safety net already stretched too thin to help millions of American citizens struggling to survive on the nation’s streets.
“All one needs to do is look at how our military veterans have been treated since returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan to know the truth. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are about 48,000 homeless American veterans living on the streets of America today. How does our country, in good faith, over-extend our limited resources to take in any refugees when our veterans are in dire need of shelter, food, clothing and mental health care? Additionally, there are currently over 2 million homeless children in America. The sad truth is that taking care of Americans first has been lost in this debate,” he said.

On behalf of the federal law enforcement officers he represents, Catura is urging the Obama administration to rethink its policies “and not betray the unwavering priority of Americans first.”