WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and The National Interest, delivered the following statement on the Obama Administration’s Refugee Admissions Program:

“Today’s hearing addresses plans of the Obama Administration to admit 110,000 refugees into the United States through the Refugee Admissions program, beginning this Saturday.

The tragic reality is, that we have millions of displaced people in the world today—people who are short of food and water and endangered by conflicts throughout various regions of the world.

No one disputes that most are victims. This is a humanitarian disaster and it could even be worse in the future. I think it’s important for government leaders to consult something more than their feelings as we deal with nations in unstable areas of the world. Good intentions are not enough. They can lead to disastrous consequences and put stresses on human beings. 

The challenge for us is to focus on what we can do to help in the best possible way, but we must also consider our limits. We must not endanger our homeland and use our resources unwisely, we must be highly effective in what we do to try to improve this situation.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has presented the American people with a false dichotomy. According to the Administration, we either permanently resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees in the United States, or we do nothing.

The Obama Administration presses forward with plans to admit hundreds of thousands of largely unvettable refugees from areas of the world that are producing terrorists and extremists.

We must reject this false dichotomy.

There are other options—options that carry none of the risks associated with resettling masses of people in the United States and can protect even more people that are facing danger.

I have long argued that the most effective and compassionate strategy—and certainly the only long-term strategy that can actually work for millions of people—is to establish ‘safe zones’ to resettle Middle-Eastern refugees as close to their homes as possible. By doing so, we can more effectively provide protection for refugees and otherwise displaced persons, at a fraction of the cost that it takes to resettle them in the United States. One estimate found that resettling just one refugee in the United States was nearly 12 times more expensive than providing care for that same refugee abroad. With the prospect for a cease-fire in Syria, there is even more reason to focus on providing temporary support for displaced people in the region.

Instead, President Obama has pushed to expand the annual admission of refugees from 70,000 in FY 2015, and 85,000 in FY 2016, to 110,000 beginning this Saturday—on top of asylum admissions, green cards, foreign workers, and all other forms of immigration into the United States.

The American people strongly oppose these policies. According to the most recent Rasmussen Reports poll, 48 percent of Americans do not want any more refugees, with an additional 26 percent supporting much lower numbers than what the President has proposed.  This means that a total of 74 percent of Americans do not support these increases.

The American people are weary of this policy for good reasons. The security and fiscal implications of the Administration’s plans are tremendous. Put simply, there are serious limitations on our ability to adequately vet significant portions of the refugee population, such as those from Syria.

The Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Secretary of Homeland Security have acknowledged that terrorists could infiltrate the refugee population. Their concerns are valid, as it is clear that terrorists have done so successfully in the past.

Moreover, James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, has testified that he cannot certify that every refugee admitted to the United States is not a security threat.  He recently compared the FBI’s anti-terrorism mission to ‘looking for needles in a nationwide haystack’ while also figuring out ‘which pieces of hay might someday become needles.’ Recent attacks highlight just how difficult this is for our law enforcement officers.

It is simply not possible to vet Syrian refugees or other similarly-situated refugees. There are no reliable records in Syria. There is no way to prevent refugees who embrace the tenets of theocratic Islam from being radicalized after their entry to the United States.

In all of our refugee programs we have a right and a duty to favor the admission of immigrants who support and celebrate our pluralist western values. This is not just a security test, this is a national interest test. It is simply naïve to imagine that we can let in millions of immigrants from around the world and screen out all of the potential terrorists.  It has been proven over and over again, our ability to do so is not there.

Perhaps one of the main reasons why we have such a problem is that we do not screen refugees for their likelihood of success after they are admitted to the United States, ability to assimilate and adopt our legal and constitutional values, views toward the treatment of women and homosexuals, views on honor killings, and views on the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States.

There are now nearly 10,000 open terrorism-related investigations across the country. There is an active investigation in every state. Our dedicated law enforcement officers carry a tremendous burden to keep our country safe every day. But it is impossible for them to bear that burden if the Obama Administration does not even recognize the fundamental challenges we face today and continues to admit those who carry significant risks of becoming involved with terrorism after their admission to the United States. I would note, that Director Comey has also said that if you imagine we’re going to give full surveillance to a person that might pose a threat to the United States, it would take 30 agents a week to monitor one single individual effectively. It is physically impossible to do that.

In addition to the very serious national security implications and the initial resettlement costs, admitting 110,000 refugees will result in an enormous long-term financial burden on the taxpayers. Robert Rector, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has estimated that the total lifetime cost of admitting 10,000 refugees—which includes all costs at the federal, state, and local level—is $6.5 billion. Using Mr. Rector’s numbers as a baseline, admitting the 110,000 refugees that the Obama Administration proposes beginning on October 1 will result in a total lifetime cost to the taxpayers of $71.5 billion.

This cannot continue. We must change course. If we cannot ensure adequate screening of any individual, we must not admit them to the United States, period. We must only admit those who support and share our values. And we must only admit the number of immigrants that we can absorb into our society.

We have admitted 59 million immigrants since 1965, and we are adding the equivalent of 1 new city the size of Los Angeles through immigration alone every 3 years.  It is time for us to focus on the task of helping all of our residents living here today rise into a stable middle class—instead of continuing to increase the pressures on our working families by admitting new workers. This becomes even more imperative at a time when automation is permanently changing the entire structure of our labor market.

I would conclude by noting that immigration policy must be guided by our understanding that Western society is unique and special. Our values, our rules, our traditions are what make our societies succeed where others fail. It is necessary and proper to choose who among the world’s 7 billion people will be granted the high honor of immigration to the United States on the basis of confidence that they share our values. Certainly, no one has a constitutional right to demand entry into the United States. It is our choice and we should do it in a way that furthers our country.

We do a disservice not only to those living here today but to all those who wish to come in the future if we allow immigration policy to replicate the conditions which people have fled. We must guard, jealously, our constitutional heritage if the torch of liberty will continue lighting the world. We have to work to maintain the nation’s economic wealth and strength so we can be able to lead the world in a positive way.”