Maine is withdrawing from the federal refugee resettlement program just four days before Election Day, WMTW in Portland reports.

“I have lost confidence in the federal government’s ability to safely and responsibly run the refugee program and no longer want the State of Maine associated with that shortcoming,” Gov. Paul LePage said in a letter sent to President Obama and released by his office late Friday.

“The federal government has proven to be an unwilling partner with states in ensuring that refugee resettlement does not unduly put American lives at risk,” Le Page added in the letter.

“I sincerely hope that the federal government will re-evaluate its current refugee policy — both the quantity and nation of origin of refugees it resettles and the vetting process they are subjected to — in order to best protect the safety and interests of the American people,” LePage wrote.

“In his letter, the Republican governor wrote about Adnan Fazeli, a former Freeport man who, according to court documents, fled Iran in 2009, who died last year while fighting for the Islamic State in Lebanon,” according to WMTW.

As Breitbart News reported previously, Fazeli “initially came to Philadelphia in 2008 [as a refugee from Iran] and then moved to Portland, Maine [in 2009],” according to a Facebook post by Fazeli’s brother, Dr. Jabbar Fazeli, a physician who resides in Maine and has had a practice there for over a decade.

Maine is now the thirteenth state to formally withdraw from the federal refugee resettlement program. In those states, the federal government selects a voluntary agency (VOLAG) to operate the program on its behalf under the statutorily questionable Wilson Fish alternative program.

Three other states have withdrawn from the federal refugee resettlement program this year: Texas, New Jersey, and Kansas.

Nine states withdrew from the federal refugee resettlement program between 1990 and 2015: Kentucky, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Alaska.

In three other states, Vermont, Colorado, and Massachusetts, the federal government operates the refugee resettlement program under the Wilson Fish alternative program, even though those states have not withdrawn from the program.

The Tennessee General Assembly is suing the federal government for its operation of the federal refugee resettlement in the state of Tennessee on Tenth Amendment grounds, an argument that is only available to the thirteen states that have formally withdrawn from the federal program.

In those states, state taxpayers are required by the federal government to pay for the medical, housing, English as a Second Language, welfare, and translation expenses of refugees resettled within their jurisdiction without their consent. This amounts to an unfunded liability.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimated that in the state of Tennessee these expenses amount to $165 million annually.

In October, the Tennessee General Assembly “selected

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read full article at source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/05/maine-withdraws-federal-refugee-resettlement-program/