I see Brenda Walker has a letter to the editor in the Contra Costa Times

Limit refugees

This is regarding the recent Times article, "A journey from conflict: The Mainalis adjust fitfully to new life in Oakland."

In July, Alameda County's unemployment rate was 11.9 percent, so why is Washington resettling Third World refugees here to compete with unemployed Americans?

We already have a surplus of unskilled workers from other countries, who push down wages for our own citizens in blue-collar occupations.

Why does Washington take on the interior tribal problems of countries around the world? This nation has become the dumping ground for people inconveniently located, where majority populations don't want them, such as Nepalis in Bhutan, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, Somalis in Kenya, to name a few.

There is apparently no "off" switch in Washington for expensive do-gooder schemes that harm Americans financially and increase cultural discord.

The reason given for America accepting Nepalis is that Bhutanese fear a "demographic inundation" by people who don't share their language and culture.

Apparently Americans aren't permitted to have similar misgivings, even though 12.6 percent of the population is now foreign born, and we are daily assaulted with "bilingual" signage and the need to "Press one for English" to communicate in our own country.

Brenda Walker

Berkeley

I had an article years ago that suggested that it maight make more sense to move refugees to compatible countries outside America. If the Nepalese aren't welcome in Bhutan, perhaps they could go to Nepal, which is very Nepali-friendly. My 2001 suggestion was that

"But there’s another option for dealing with refugees. They can be assisted to move to other, third, countries, where they won’t be persecuted.

The State Department’s Bureau of Refugees has a $670 million annual budget which would buy a lot of plane tickets, definitely a net saving of taxpayer dollars.

Hindu refugees from the Taliban can be helped to go to India or to Fiji, where there is a large Hindu community. (Too large already, say the native Fijians, but that’s just ”nativism.”) Christian refugees from Hindus can go to Spain or England, depending on their brand of Christianity.

There’s a place for everybody. "

I also suggested that there's a country nearby that must suffering a labor shortage, and could use refugees—I called my essay Dear Mr. Fox: Please Find Attached our Poor/ Tired/ Dispossessed, Etc.