New Jersey Withdraws from Federal Refugee Resettlement Program
Article publisher:
Breitbart
Article date:
1 May 2016
Article category:
National News
Medium
Article Body:
Gov. Chris Christie has withdrawn the state of New Jersey from participation in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program, and Obama administration officials are working quickly to claim the federal government can continue to resettle refugees in the Garden State.
“Federal officials held a conference call Friday morning [April 22] with representatives of nonprofit groups who help refugees resettle in New Jersey, a process that will no longer have the participation of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration,” New Jersey 101.5 reported.
Earlier this week, Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, announced that Kansas was also withdrawing from the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program.
The decisions by New Jersey and Kansas now bring the total of states who have withdrawn from the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program to fourteen.
The federal government currently operates the refugee resettlement program in twelve of those states through VOLAGs (voluntary agencies) under Department of Health and Human Services regulations that created the “Wilson-Fish alternative program.” Recently, the statutory authority of those regulations has come under question.
New Jersey may actually be slightly ahead of Kansas in withdrawing from the federal program. Their letter of withdrawal was sent to the Obama administration on April 7, while the Kansas letter of withdrawal was apparently sent during the week of April 25...
The Tennessee General Assembly recently declared that Tennessee, one of the states that have withdrawn from the program, intends to sue the federal government on Tenth Amendment grounds to stop the resettlement of refugees in the state under the “Wilson-Fish alternative program.”...
Related article
Kansas governor’s withdrawal decision has the refugee contractors defiant; NJ withdraws too!, Refugee Resettlement Watch, April 30, 2016.
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