Bevin to Bankrupt Kentucky on Refugee Lawsuits

Our repug guv-elect said Kentucky won't accept them. That stupidity is going to cost Kentucky taxpayers millions.

TPM:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Monday against Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) on behalf of the refugee agency that redirected a Syrian refugee family from Indiana to Connecticut at the request of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to keep the governor from withholding any state or federal refugee resettlement funds from Exodus Refugee Immigration, Inc., and states that Pence's rejection of refugees from Syria is unconstitutional.

"This lawsuit is calling out Governor Pence on his unconstitutional bluff," Judy Rabinovitz, deputy legal director of the ACLU's immigrants' rights project, said in a statement. "He does not have the power to pick and choose between which lawfully-admitted refugees he is willing to accept. Singling out Syrian refugees for exclusion from Indiana is not only ethically wrong, it is unconstitutional. Period."

Governors do not have the authority to block refugees from living in their states, since the federal government sets immigration policy. And experts say that targeting refugees from certain regions is unconstitutional and could invite lawsuits.

But the lawsuit filed by the ACLU notes that when Exodus had to redirect a Syrian refugee family to Connecticut at the last minute, the agency had to spend its own funds to find the family a new home.

"Exodus Refugee Immigration had expended both staff time and resources in preparing for the Syrian refugee family who did not come to Indiana. These resources were necessarily diverted from other projects and from assisting other refugees," the complaint reads.

SNIP

In a statement issued in response to the ACLU lawsuit on Tuesday, Pence's office said that the state will continue to suspend the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Indiana.

Moron.  Stand up, Hoosiers and impeach this idiot before you lose everything.