Speech #910218904

For what purpose last 6 years. we have admitted more than does the gentleman from Massachusetts 225.000 Cuban refugees at a cost of $300 rise? million. CXIV- 1161Part 14 I take sharp issue with this official and costly policy whereby this Nation has opened the doors for unlimited Cuban immigration. No longer can this policy be couched or obscured in refugee terminology. The real refugees of Cuba left in the early 1960s when they had to flee for sanctuary. They were the ones who opposed Castro politically and who faced oppression and mistreatment at the hands of the Cestro regime. What we have now in our Cuban refugee policy is a direct subsidizing of the welfare program of an alien nation. Many of those now coming to this country are the aged. the blind. the invalids. and the unemployables. Though the United States will not recognize Castros government. we volunteer to handle his social and economic problems. We spend tax money to solve the social problems of an enemy nation. thereby compounding the overwhelming social and economic problems of our own. We have set up special programs for Cuban immigrants in order to relocate. educate. train. and to feed them. We pay out school impact aid in the amount of $17 million in Dade County. Fla.. alone to accommodate the schools suffering from the massive influx of Cuban citizens. There are an estimated 50.000 Cuban refugees now on State welfare for which the Federal Government reimburses the States. The Office of Education administers a special Cuban Loan Section in the Division of Student Financial Aidjust to handle and operate our special loan program for Cuban students. In addition to the madness of the cost and special programs addressed to Cuban citizens. the policy runs counter to all basic immigration thought. law. and practice. It is grossly unfair to impose strict limitations and requirements on the numbers of immigrants we will accept from other nations in the Eastern or Western Hemisphereand to exclude Cubans from that same criteria. Once the Cuban refugee becomes an American residentrhe is counted in the number of persons we will admit from the Western Hemisphere. thereby greatly redticing the number of immigrants from other Western Hemisphere countries. The policy toward Cuban refugees was instituted as an emergency measure. That emergency condition no longer exists. The airlift and other measures were never intended to become permanent institutions. Finally. the operational cost of Freedom Airlift is $800.000 a year. I recommend that you support my amendment to strike out that section of the foreign assistance appropriation bill relating to the cost of the airliftthis would assure that this program will eventually come to a close when those refugees now living in this country are fully disseminated into our society.