Mr. Speaker. the newspapers yesterday carried a report declaring that the Refugee Relief Act is beginning to make progress. Naturally. this article caught my eye. since we had earlier been informed that between the time of the passage of the act last August and until a month or so ago. only nine persons had been admitted to the United States under it. So the information that the act is now beginning to make progress was a welcome piece of information. After all. since we had provided for the admission outside quotas of 209.000 refugees186.000 of whom were to be refugees from Iron Curtain communismover a period of 3 years. admission of only 9 in nearly a year was indeed a dismal result. But what is the truth about this phenomenal progress? We find in reading the news account that the great progress the headline spoke of refers to the total admission since last August of 48 persons27 Italians. 3 Greeks. and 18 orphans. Apparently very few. if any. of these 48. are Iron Curtain refugees. While we appreciate the fact that these 48 were fortunate enough to get through the paper curtain of redtape that the State Department has erected around this program. the results. as I said. are dismal. The report said "there Is evidence" of a quickening tempo of the programthat a single ship docking sometime this month may bring in as many refugees under the program as have been admitted since the program began 9 months ago. A 100percent increase in admissions is impressiveuntil we remember that we are talking about doubling the total from 48 to only 96. So we will still have less than 100 refugees coming in during 10 or 11 months under a program which was supposed to allow 209.000 to get in. in 3 years. The State Department has defended its snails pace on this matter by declaring the problems of security and clearance were so difficult it is impossible to act quickly. It seems to me that in 10 months. it could find more than 96 qualified persons to permit to come to this country.
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Refugee refugees refugees186