Posted by Ann Corcoran on September 10, 2015
Back in 2013, when I attended an Office of Refugee Resettlement meeting in Lancaster, PA, government officials identified Georgia as having a ‘pocket of resistance’ because the Republican Governor, Nathan Deal, had asked the feds to stop sending so many, that Georgia was overloaded. So it is no surprise that Gov. Deal is saying the same thing today. (And, it looks like his appeal to the US State Department fell on deaf ears!)
From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
I can only assume Gov. Deal did not warn SC Gov. Nikki Haley before she went on record supporting more refugees for South Carolina. Either that or she didn’t listen. LOL! Maybe he didn’t warn her because he wishes SC would take some of the load off of Georgia!
Gov. Nathan Deal’s administration doesn’t want to see the number of refugees resettling in Georgia increase, despite pleas from humanitarian officials urging the U.S. to take in substantially more Syrians fleeing their war-torn country.
In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday, Deal urged a cautious approach to the desperate refugee crisis unfolding across the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. The governor repeated his assertion – disputed by some advocates – that Georgia takes in more than its fair share of refugees.
[….]
Deal’s administration confirmed Tuesday it has asked the State Department to keep the number of refugees resettling in the Peach State “static” going into the next fiscal year.
“We will be welcoming,” Deal told the AJC. “But we want to make sure we’re not taking a disproportionately large share of them compared to other parts of the country.”
This is very interesting considering Reed has been promoting Atlanta as a welcoming city.
Deal’s wary approach to the escalating crisis was echoed by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, typically one of the region’s most forceful advocates of a welcoming policy to immigrants and refugees. He said he needed more time to evaluate the city’s position and that he would likely follow the lead of the Obama administration, which is weighing its options.
“I’m not going to get ahead of the federal government with regards to the Syrian refugee crisis,” he said.
[….]
The Deal administration has previously called on the U.S. State Department to sharply reduce the numbers of refugees being resettled in Georgia, citing state and local taxpayer costs associated with taking in the refugees, school budget shortfalls and other concerns. ...
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