Now to our partners at WisContext
and new reporting on refugee resettlement in Wisconsin.
While the current political fight in Washington revolves
around DACA and the so-called dreamers, there's been
a downward shift in another type of immigrant, refugees.
Our partner at WisContext, Scott Gordon
has new reporting on this topic.
Thanks for your time. - Thanks for having me.
- Your numbers show a big drop-off in the number of
refugees resettled in both the United States and Wisconsin in
the last year.
What's behind those numbers?
- Well, the Trump Administration has been,
it's fair to say, less hospitable refugee settlement
than any administration in probably about a generation.
Going back to Reagan, this has been a fairly noncontroversial,
almost nonpartisan thing.
And of course over the past year,
they've implemented multiple versions of the travel ban,
targeting several countries that tend to send a lot of refugees
to the U.S.
and they've also lowered the target of the number of refugees
that they want to welcome in a given fiscal year.
- During the presidential election Donald Trump was
stoking fears about Syrian refugees and terrorism.
And we heard about the need for so-called extreme vetting.
Has the vetting process changed?
- To start with the vetting process was already very strict.
It already involved first the United Nations and second a
number of federal agencies interviewing people,
biometric screening, background checks.
It's something that could take up to two years for a lot
of people, and that's before they even have a chance to get
on a plane to the United States.
So the whole extreme vetting thing has put, it's fair to say,
a disingenuous frame around the whole debate.
It already was pretty strict.
Of course, one could argue
the details of that if they wanted to.
But it certainly wasn't people pouring into the country
willy-nilly via this process.
- In 2016 Governor Walker said he didn't want any Syrian
refugees in Wisconsin.
And while as a governor he doesn't have control over that,
your numbers show only 57 Syrians were resettled here in
2017, which looking at the graphic on the screen,
that's not the top bar or the first few.
That's way down the list. - That's correct.
The big bar at the top of the chart is refugees from Burma.
In recent years they've been the fastest-growing refugee group
entering Wisconsin, although they don't enjoy nearly the same
media visibility as the crisis in Syria.
Of course Burma is a country has been in crisis on multiple
fronts for decades.
But as you pointed out, it's a relatively small number of
people from Syria entering Wisconsin.
Although that's, of course, people from Syria are a big
driver of refugee resettlement in the country as a whole.
- This drop-off in refugees in Wisconsin is not new.
Some of your other research shows there have been spikes up
and down over time for Wisconsin.
Why is that? - Yeah.
This year is especially low
compared to any time in the last decade.
But refugee resettlement is a process that is inherently tied
to crisis and instability and to shifts in policy,
not necessarily whether or not we welcome refugees,
but whether people want to focus on bringing a certain group
of refugees over.
For example, in the early aughts,
the federal government made a big final push to bring over
Hmong refugees from this last refugee camp in Thailand.
That accounted for a big spike of people being resettled in
Wisconsin and elsewhere.
- The Hmong are a great example in Wisconsin
of a success story for refugees.
They're well-established in a number of communities:
Wausau, Eau Claire, Green Bay, over to the Twin Cities.
So it's not like they failed to assimilate into Wisconsin.
- Well, yeah, if you look at a community like that,
obviously they've had several decades to get established here
and are a pretty visible part of Wisconsin's public life.
Again, I think people across the political spectrum
were generally really proud of how the United States
welcomed Hmong refugees.
And of course as you see now, there's tons of different groups
and countries where people are fleeing crisis or persecution of
one kind or another.
So it really is a diverse population that's coming in.
Even in Wisconsin, which has a relatively small number of
refugees compared to the country as a whole.
- Scott Gordon, thanks for your time today.
- Thanks very much.