New Funding Package Includes $5 Billion for Refugees

The government funding package for this year, released this week, includes more than $5 billion in welfare for refugees.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul asked his followers on X to call their senators and urge them to vote against the minibus. “We need to send a message, loud and clear. Call your senators and tell them to vote NO on this reckless spending spree,” he said.

Fellow Kentuckian Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) seconded Paul’s disapproval. “And when we vote against this minibus containing the $5 billion refugee welfare program, some will say ‘why aren’t you supporting the President?!’” Massie wrote.

Welfare Fraud

Paul reminded his social-media followers why it doesn’t make sense to continue this type of spending. “After the staggering level of welfare fraud exposed in Minnesota, why on Earth would ANY Republican vote to fund more refugee welfare programs?” Paul said. “This is DC insanity at its finest.”

The Somali daycare scandal became a major news item after YouTuber Nick Shirley got nationwide attention with his investigation into the matter. Prosecutors suspect that Minnesota lost half of the $18 billion allocated to welfare to fraud. The revelation forced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to scuttle plans for reelection.

Federal investigators are now looking at several Minnesota politicians.

A common suspicion is that the fraud happened with the knowledge, perhaps even the participation, of the people in charge.

Congressional Investigation

Congress is looking into the fraud scheme as well, interestingly, under the suspicion that it’s part of a larger election scam carried out by Democrats. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told Just the News, “No question. One hundred percent, this was a coordinated effort to get more Democrat voters into these states.”

Just the News summarized the Republicans’ argument this way:

Democrats reversed Donald Trump’s related first-term executive orders and ensured that noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, were counted into 2020 U.S. Census. Then-President Biden opened the southern border so that millions of illegals could flood the country in just a few years.

Next, liberal nonprofits helped move those migrants from the southern border red states … to “sanctuary cities” in Democratic-run cities in the election battleground states and helped them enroll in welfare at the taxpayers’ expense.

And finally, Democratic leaders …  failed to act — or even worse, looked the other way — when evidence emerged that non-citizens were defrauding those safety net programs by the tune of billions of dollars. And liberal judges blocked efforts to stop or punish the fraud.

No More Refugee Welfare

Senator Paul, who is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is spearheading Congress’ investigation in the Senate. He also believes there’s a connection between illegal immigrants and electioneering. Paul has introduced legislation to end welfare for refugees. He believes the burden of taking care of refugees should be on the people and organizations that sponsor them. Paul:

If you sponsor them, they’re your responsibility. So you have many of these church charities involved with bringing people here, and then the church charity thinks that charity involves signing them up for welfare. If your charity brings them here, and they can’t, they aren’t working enough to have food you feed them. It’s charitable to give your own money. It’s not charitable to take someone else’s money.

Moreover, as Paul pointed out, “we’re $2 trillion in the hole,” referring to the budget deficit. The nation’s official total debt is $38 trillion and counting.

The $5 billion is tucked 246 pages into the 1,059-page budget bill under the heading “Refugee and Entrant Assistance.” It allocates exactly $5,163,956,000.

The spending is justified under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Refugee Education Assistance Act of 1980, the Trafficking 2 Victims Protection Act of 2000, and Torture Victims Relief Act of 1998, and even sections of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

The bill totals $1.2 trillion, and the House is expected to pass it soon.