South Carolina Refugee case

A controversy in South Carolina over the placement of Syrian refugees has implications for similar efforts throughout the nation.

The New York Times notes that The Obama Administration has pledged to increase the number of worldwide refugees allowed in the U.S. each year from 70,000 to 100,000 by the year 2017. In September, the Obama administration said it would take in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees within the next year.

According to a November 2015 report by Business Insider “a number of immigration-law experts say that even if a state refuses to cooperate with the federal government, governors won’t technically be able to bar the resettlement of refugees in their states.

“States have absolutely no legal authority to bar someone who is granted refugee status from entering their state, since it’s federal law that determines whether someone is a refugee,” Greg Chen, director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told Business Insider.”

That view is partially supported by a Congressional Research Service analysis. “a state likely could not opt to participate actively in the resettlement of refugees from some countries but not others. In contrast, a state lacks the power to prohibit a Syrian refugee admitted into the United States from physically entering or remaining within the state’s jurisdiction… States can be seen to have some discretion as to whether their agencies participate in the federally funded refugee resettlement program. Nothing in federal law purports to require that states seek or receive federal refugee resettlement funds, and the Tenth Amendment proscribes Congress from directly ‘commandeering’ the states to administer a federal regulatory scheme. Thus, a state that previously made provisions for state agencies to participate in the federally funded refugee resettlement program could terminate these agencies’ participation, provided it complies with any conditions as to the time and manner of termination that it may have agreed to as a condition of its funding agreements.”

Basically, while governors cannot bar the refugees, they may not be forced to provide funding for their needs. However, it is unrealistic to believe that governors could effectively bar refugees from benefiting from state educational, health, and other benefits with danger of federal lawsuits being brought.

Originally, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had requested that refugees not be placed in her state due to security concerns, according to the Greenville Online site. Now, however, critics have accused her of changing course and supporting White House plans. In response, a civil action has been filed in the United States District Court, Columbia Division. While the case in question applies only to South Carolina, the points are relevant to any state that has been requested to take in Syrian refugees.

Paul Sutliff is an author and researcher on Islamic terror issues. Recently, he was accepted as an expert witness on the case. We asked him to summarize his affidavit on the legal contest:

“1. It is impossible to know if the South Carolina budget can afford the number of Syrian refugees sent.

Federal funds for refugees in SC has expanded almost exponentially under President Obama, However, there is a history of demanding some of the funds back.

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Federal funds do not cover housing.
Day one refugees are received they are taken to apply for state welfare benefits. This is counted as becoming independent.
Federal funding does not cover the cost of schooling their children which could be a very high expense dependent on familiarity with English and the level of need. It is expected most young girls may not have had much education.
2. Are refugees actual legal refugees under the 1980 Refugee Act?
“The term ‘refugee’ does not include any person who ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” (PL 96-212. Sec. 212)
Sunni Muslims are not persecuted in Syria–they are the persecutors of Christians and Jews.
The UN assigns who are to come as refugees. This bad because the UN classifies persons as refugees who do not meet the US definition of refugee.
I list those who are under persecution in this area.
We cannot know if the persons are who they say they are.

[Editors Note: A RedState analysis agrees with Sutliff’s point, noting that the people involved “are not refugees as we ordinarily consider them. The UN High Commissioner On Refugees says 65% are military aged males. The original plan was to import 10,000 job seekers and potential terrorists, but Senate Democrats, deciding that they may not get enough bang for their buck, demand that at least 65,000 be brought into our communities.”]

Refugee Plan places refugees as state dependents costing SC residents.
It is difficult to get persons weaned off from the welfare system.
The cost of refugees is then transferred from the feds to the state.
Caliph Abu Bakr Al-Badadhi has stated he has sent some of his men amongst those who are coming here and to Europe.
Both Muslim sources and American intel sources warn us of this.”

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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