Let us consider the financial burdens of immigration:

Much has been said about vetting the Syrian refugees whom the feds propose bringing into Montana.

What about the costs? Remember, we are talking about legal immigration. Illegal immigration already costs America about $85 billion per year. In a country $19 trillion in debt, with a sluggish job market and stagnant wages, should we even be considering this?

First there are a number of “non-profit” organizations that work with the federal government to resettle refugees here in America. The last figures I could find list the total bill (footed by our tax dollars) in the form of U.S. government grants, at just over $1 billion. The highest salaries paid out to these “volunteer organizations” are all in the mid-six-figure range (Source: Center for Immigration Studies). For instance, International Rescue Committee CEO Charles Rupp received $428,864 in salary and bonuses for year 2008 (Source: Refugee Resettlement Watch).

After they are brought over and installed in their new places of residence, they are on their own after about four months. They will rely on welfare, housing assistance, food stamps, and Medicaid. Most will remain on public assistance because they do not speak English, do not have much education, and may not have skills necessary to compete in the U.S. job market. They will need English classes, job retraining, and judging from the news reports from Europe, cultural assimilation classes.

Obviously, out of a population of millions of Syrians, there are a lot of good, educated, upright individuals. Since we take in more refugees than any other nation on earth, including about 140,000 per year from Muslim-majority countries, don’t you think other nations — especially Muslim nations — could do more to help?

Finally, there is the issue of providing refuge here in the U.S., as opposed to providing help closer to their country of origin. Figures show that it costs about 12 times more to resettle them here (about $12,800 per year, per person, as opposed to $1,200 for the same individual kept in the Middle Eastern area). So we could actually help more people by keeping them there. They would also be with people who speak their language and are culturally more similar. Hopefully, the ultimate goal is for them to return to their own homeland, and in that case it would also be less expensive to get them back home. —Doug Miller, Kalispell