Speech #920286876

Mr. Speaker. Soviet authorities have instituted a new system of heavy exit fees ranging from $5.000 to $25.000 for educated Jews who wish to emigrate. Technically. the regulation applies to anyone seeking to emigrate to a nonCommunist countryArmenians trying to get to America. Ukrainians wishing to go to Canada. ethnic Germans seeking to reach West Germany. But in practice. by far the largest group to be affected are Soviet Jews. The new. steeply graduated fees represent a drastic increase from the old general fee of about $1.000 per emigrant. The greater the level of education. the higher the fee: $5.400 for a graduate of a teachers institute. $10.800 for an applied arts degree. $13.200 for a university degree. up to $26.400 for the Soviet equivalent of a Ph. D. In some cases the new fees are applied ex post facto. At least 20 families who had already been granted exit visas were told by officials to produce large sums to "pay back the working class" for their Statefinanced education. Not only is this newly instituted system unfair and disingenuous in itself. its effects ate far more important than a mere restriction of the emigration process. Whether or not he pays. by the mere act of asking permission to leave the Soviet Union. the Russian Jew signs his own political and economic death warrant. Every Jew who asks to go is immediately fired from his job. He is blamed and ostracized by his colleagues at meetings called especially for this purpose. The system is remarkably cruel. The Sovietsare trying to keep the Jews from emigrating and yet the Jews are persecuted for remaining. Theoretically they have the right to leave the country. but the authorities are actively suppressing this movement. By demanding this dishonorable ransom. the Soviet Union accepts the right of the Jew to emigrate. The Soviet authorities do not tell him that he cannot go. but his position is. in practice. that of a prisoner because these conditions cannot be met. In mid19th century preSoviet Russia. the buying and selling of human beings was a normal phenomenon.