It’s a simple concept.  Shouldn’t the states, who are going to end up footing the bill for refugees in so many ways, be involved in signing off on the decision to bring refugees in to their communities?  Representative Scott Perry has a bill before the House that would make just this commonsense solution a reality.

Perry’s bill… would require that states affirmatively sign off on refugee resettlement proposals before the federal government and private [taxpayer-funded] refugee resettlement contractors can seed their communities with refugees. Under this legislation, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would have to first submit a plan to the relevant state legislature that includes all of the information concerning costs, criminal history, and health records of prospective refugees. They would also have to provide information regarding said refugee’s affiliation with any Muslim Brotherhood group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case. Most importantly, any plan for resettlement must be ratified by the state legislature and signed by the governor, otherwise no refugees can be settled in that state.

It is a solid idea even apart from the concerns about the Holy Land Foundation case, although that is a strong addition.  The simple fact is that the Federal government is not going to come close to paying the full costs of these resettlements.  Refugees will have children, and those children will almost certainly have to go to public school.  They are likelier than other families to be poor, and thus to require state as well as Federal welfare.  Our study of this issue suggests that refugees are very much more expensive than other immigrants.  Surely states should have some say in whether or not they take on those costs.

Likewise, it is not first- but second-generation immigrants who are the most likely candidates to be radicalized into terrorism.  Scientists continue to find, whether they are studying the issue in Denmark or broader Europe or America, that it is not the immigrant you bring into your country but his children who are most likely to turn against you.  As long as that remains true, no background checks can suffice as a solution to the problem of terror.  Unfortunately, the states need to be involved in deciding how much exposure to these risks they can afford.

Thomas Jefferson thought of the the bargain between the states and the Federal government as a question of whether an issue looked outside, or inside.  The refugee issue, unlike many foreign policy issues, does not look only outside.  The states will have to sustain and support immigrant populations who come into this nation with almost nothing.  They have an interest in the question of whether such refugees are more or less capable of fitting into the existing culture.

Only such subdivision of power can be properly accountable to the people in a democratic form of government.  It is the locality that has to sustain the hardest costs and the deepest dangers that ought to have the final say.