What Is the Effect of Flooding Refugees into Any Nation?

The liberty principle for this freedom Friday concerns the practice of flooding refugees into any nation. The ongoing violence in Minnesota is one example of what happens when a large number of people from a Third World country do not assimilate into the host nation.

The fraud recently exposed widely was known for at least a decade. When Nick Shirley posted his documentary, everyone knew about the ongoing fraud. The fraud happened because there was a flood of refugees from Somali brought into the United States and became a solid voting bloc.

Simon Hankinson at The Heritage Foundation explains why accepting a flood of refugees is not a smart policy. 

But there’s an underlying story that is no less important: the much larger cost of absorbing millions of low-skilled immigrants.

Back in 2016, George Borjas of Harvard wrote that, “the higher cost of all the services provided to immigrants and the lower taxes they pay (because they have lower earnings) inevitably implies that on a year-to-year basis immigration creates a fiscal hole of at least $50 billion.

Because most Somali immigrants came to the U.S. as refugees or on family reunification visas thereafter, they are an interesting subset to examine. At a press conference, Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar said of her Somali constituents that “we have … become nurses and doctors and engineers.”

Some, but not many. From 2019 to 2023, the median Somali household in Minnesota had an income of $43,600, compared to a national median of $78,538. That means that they will qualify for many federal benefits available to citizens and some immigrants.

In a 2024 report, Daniel Di Martino of the Manhattan Institute looked at the net lifetime fiscal impact of immigrants. Immigrants without a college education are a net fiscal burden of up to $400,000, DiMartino estimates, while “each immigrant under the age of 35 with a graduate degree reduces the budget deficit by over $1 million in net present value during his lifetime.”

Somali refugees fall more into the former category. According to a recent Center for Immigration Studies report, 58% of them do not speak English well, and 39% have no high school diploma. That translates into a heavy use of welfare programs.

Of Somali immigrant households with children, CIS reports, 89% use some kind of welfare – 86% of such families are on Medicaid, compared to only 28% of Minnesota households headed by a native-born citizen. More than one in five Somali men of working age re unemployed. More than half of children in Somali-immigrant households are below the poverty line, compared with only 7.6% of those in native-headed homes.

Studies in Europe have shown that, on average, immigrants from certain countries are net takers from the fiscal pot over their lifetime, while others are net givers.

In Denmark, the net fiscal contribution of the average native Dane over a lifetime is positive. In their working years, native Danes pay into the system more than they take. That’s the only way the fiscal equation can balance. But their average immigrant from the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, and Pakistan never pays more to the government than they take in benefits.

A Finnish study had similar results. On average, people from Somalia and many other places were net lifetime losses.

Mass migration was sold to Europeans as a solution to their plummeting fertility rate. To pay for wraparound socialist benefits, the thinking went, they needed to import millions of younger workers. Unfortunately, they weren’t getting the kinds of migrants who are net contributors.

The countries that produce the most economically desirable immigrants have low fertility and don’t export people. Meanwhile, emigrants from the countries whose populations are burgeoning and are on average a lifetime fiscal drain are the ones that do export people….

The Trump administration has lowered refugee numbers for fiscal year 2026 to 7,500. But a future president might choose to ramp up refugees and also open the spigots with other Biden-era tools to facilitate mass migration.

American voters need to understand that accepting refugees and low-skilled migrants means taxpayers write a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to support them for life.

Their children? Some will succeed and help balance the budget. Others will not….

But in the short-term, our fiscal hole will get much deeper, and the politics of refilling it will be impossible….

Pigford Settlement

The United State House of Representatives voted on November 30, 2010, to pay $1.2 billion to settle the case of Pigford v. Glickman, a class-action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The suit alleged that government agents racially discriminated against farm loans and assistance to black farmers between 1983 and 1997. The lawsuit ended when the United States government agreed to pay $50,000.00 to each African American farmer who attempted to get USDA help but failed.

The lawsuit was filed by Timothy Pigford in 1997, and he was joined by 400 additional African American farmer plaintiffs in the suit against Dan Glickman, the Secretary of Agriculture, the nominal defendant. The plaintiffs alleged that the USDA treated black farmers unfairly when decisions were made about allocating price support loans, disaster payments, “farm ownership” loans, and operating loans. They also alleged that the USDA failed to process subsequent complaints about racial discrimination.

After Pigford filed the lawsuit, he requested blanket mediation for about 2,000 farmers who might have been discriminated against. The U.S. Department of Justice opposed the mediation because they thought each case should be investigated separately. The presiding judge however certified as a class all black farmers who filed discrimination complaints against the USDA between 1983 and 1997.

The case was settled in 1999, decreeing that all African American farmers would be paid $50,000 (Track A) or they could seek a larger payment by presenting a greater amount of evidence (Track B). The claimants were given 180 days from the consent decree to file, but late claims were accepted for an additional year – if there were extraordinary circumstances that prevented filing on time.

Pigford thought that about 2,000 farmers would be affected, but 22,505 people applied on Track A with 200 applied on Track B. In addition to those that were heard and decided upon, there were 70,000 more petitions that were filed late and not allowed to proceed. The last number I read for claimants is 85,000, but the number is still climbing because a provision in the 2008 farm bill made it possible for a re-hearing for any claimant with a claim denied without a decision based on its merits.

Another $20.5 billion class action lawsuit was filed in 2004 by the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA) against the USDA alleging racially discriminatory practices between 1997 and 2004. BFAA failed to show it had standing to bring the suit; therefore, the lawsuit was dismissed.

Iowa Congressman Steve King (R-IA-5), a member of both the House Agriculture and the House Judiciary Committees, sent a letter on September 24, 2010, to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to request a meeting in which to discuss allegations of major fraud in the disbursement of Pigford settlement money. He wrote, “There is a growing firestorm over the allegations of massive fraud in the Pigford settlement. … According to sworn testimony by John Boyd, President of the National Black Farmers Association, there are 18,000 black farmers. They could not all have been victims of discrimination. To date, there have been over 94,000 claims made. These numbers speak to massive fraud, meaning that American taxpayers are on the hook for what Pigford judge Paul Friedman called `forty acres and a mule.’
“It is common practice for Secretaries of Agriculture to sit down with members of the Agriculture Committee. It is uncommon for the topic of conversation to be as urgent and expensive as Pigford, with a price tag of $2.3 billion. Secretary Vilsack has an obligation to the American taxpayers to cooperate with an investigation of Pigford fraud.
“The Senate may be poised to pass the Obama administration’s request for additional Pigford funding. Pigford payouts must be stopped until Congress and the USDA can conduct a thorough investigation.”
On September 29, 2010, Congressman King and two other GOP House members called on the Justice Department to investigate the claims to ensure that they were legitimate. Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) read from a letter written by Ed Schafer, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s GOP predecessor: “I urge that our government step back and institute a procedure to properly investigate each claim to see if it is appropriate or not. The allegations of fraud and abuse must be addressed if we are going to assure our citizens that their government is pursuing equal justice for all.”
Vilsack reportedly said that the “discrimination is well-documented, the courts have affirmed this discrimination, and Congress has twice acknowledged the need to settle with those who have suffered from this discrimination.”
The thorough investigation apparently did not take place yet. After the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill,
Representative Steve King (R-Iowa) likened the black farmers program to “modern-day reparations” for African Americans. He joined Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) in arguing that the claims process is rife with fraud
Black politicians are quick to say that Pigford is not about reparations – the act of compensating for wrong or injury done such as payments made by a defeated country for the devastation of territory during war - and yet they have not explained how there could be only 18,000 black farmers but 94,000 people claiming to be injured. How could a small settlement mushroom into a billion-dollar affair? I don’t mind using taxpayer funds to pay those who were truly discriminated against. I do object to my money being used to pay fraudulent claims. This whole affair smells to me like Obama and his kind are redistributing more money. I hope that the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives will investigate how such a fraud could take place and bring any guilty parties to justice. There is no conflict between making sure that the claims are legitimate and offering payments. It is the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture and the court to make sure that the money does not go to people who are not entitled to it.