the decline of refugees arriving in the us costs the overall economy over 91 billion a year according to a peerreviewed paper published in the oxford review of economic policy “the sharp reduction in us refugee admissions starting in 2017 costs the overall us economy today over 91 billion per year” the paper concluded it also cost public coffers “at all levels of government” over 2 billion per year it added “florida gov ron desantis a republican sent two flights of venezuelan migrants to martha’s vineyard from san antonio texas last week a texas sheriff opened an investigation on monday into the legality of the flights” “beyond claiming a need for protection refugees and asylum seekers are economic actors all are consumers most are or become workers and many are or become investors” the author michael clemens director of migration displacement and humanitarian policy at the center for global development wrote the paper studied the impact of the more restrictive refugeeadmission policies from 2017 to 2020 the exclusion policy has blocked approximately 73 of the refugees that would have arrived in 2018 clemens estimated the drop in international migrants costs the economy 30962 per missing refugee per year on average and costs the government 6844 per year per missing refugee the study found the report comes at a time of heightened tensions around refugees and migrants florida gov ron desantis a republican sent two flights of venezuelan migrants to martha’s vineyard from san antonio texas last week a texas sheriff opened an investigation on monday into the legality of the flights “the amount of admitted refugees to the us fell to 30000 in 2019 from 84994 in 2016 this has adverse economic consequences for the country economist michael clemens said” julio henriquez an attorney who met with several migrants said they “had no idea of where they were going or where they were” the associated press reported the amount of admitted refugees in the us fell to 30000 in 2019 from 84994 in 2016 according to migration policy institute data “in short the implications of prior recent refugeeexclusion policy in the united states are complex” clemens wrote on twitter twtr  “many are noneconomic obviously but they include a large ongoing permanent economic cost to the average american”