One out of five legal immigrants in this country in recent years has come here as a client of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement — and they arrive with instant access to all welfare programs the United States has to offer. This, according to Don Barnett, a fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies and a resident of Williamson County. Barnett spoke in Lebanon Monday as part of The Tennessee Star Wilson County Town Hall on Refugee Resettlement at the Lebanon D.T. McCall and Sons’ location. Barnett delivered an extensive and detailed presentation on the history and costs of the Refugee Admissions Program, which began 40 years ago with the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. More than 3 million refugees have been legally resettled in the United States under that program over four decades, Barnett said. The Office of Refugee Resettlement is an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. “In 2016 we had 212,000 individuals with instant access to the welfare system,” Barnett told audience members. In 2016, 85,000 of those 212,000 entered through the federal Refugee Admissions Program, while the remainder came through other programs. “In addition, there’s another category called…
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