If history is any indicator, the additional 20,000 people will be from cultures hugely inappropriate for resettlement into any highly complex modern society. The United States government will admit more illiterate tribal peoples who do not grasp the nature of doorknobs, are frightened by kitchen stoves and require training to use a light switch. But if refugees could adjust easily into daily life that increasingly requires familiarity with computerized techno-gadgets, then they wouldn't need the assistance of well paid "experts" from the Refugee Industrial Complex.
But if we must have more refugees, why not welcome thousands who are in genuine physical danger and could assimilate rapidly into American life? I refer to French Jews, who increasingly are being attacked by the growing numbers of Muslims that are now metastasizing through the French sector of Eurabia. (In a LittleGreenFootballs blog poll, France was overwhelmingly voted as the European nation most likely to be the first to institute Islamic sharia law.) Anti-Semitic street violence is now a common occurrence, to the extent that thousands of French Jews have moved to Israel, even during the height of the brutal intifada.
This idea is a winner all around. First, designating French Jews as refugees would annoy and embarrass Frankistan, a fine thing to do all by itself. More seriously, America could give refuge to some truly threatened people, and most of these educated Europeans would rapidly become contributors to the country rather than lifetime welfare users. Refugee policy needn't be a masochistic exercise in accepting the world's most unsuitable immigrants to demonstrate our multicultural bona fides. Admitting paleface Europeans would show that America's refugee system isn't a racist jobs program and is open to all in need. [Vdare.com note: The late Sam Francis had an alternative suggestion.]
(In case there is any question, writer Brenda Walker is a Presbyterian-American.)