The state of Alabama is suing the Obama administration in federal court to stop the resettlement of refugees in the state, alleging that the federal government is violating the consultation clause of the Refugee Act of 1980.
World Relief, one of five Christian charities among the top nine voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) receiving $1 billion a year in payments from the federal government as part of the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program, is leading a political charge calling on American taxpayers to “care sacrificially for the refugee.”
State Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver (R-Lancaster), the daughter of a refugee from Yugoslavia who came to the United States in 1952 as a twelve-year-old, wants the Tennessee General Assembly to step up if Governor Bill Haslam fails to launch a constitutional challenge to the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program.
The constitutional argument is that the federal government, without the permission of these 12 Wilson-Fish states, has “commandeered” state funds by placing refugees in their states, thereby obligating states to pay Medicaid expenses for the refugees, in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
