Speech #940053757

We have evacuated our American civilians from Vietnam and Cambodia. Now it is time to pay the final bill. We must approve legislation providing humanitarian and resettlement assistance for the refugees. Our Nation spent an estimated $150 billion during our military involvement in Southeast Asia. The least we can do now is provide the necessary money to help the victims of our involvement resettle. We owe these people the chance to start anew In the land of the free. It is a moral obligation. Much of the opposition to these refugees. I believe. has been caused by misinformation. We are talking about less than 150.000 people. About 30.000 household heads who will need jobs. They are to be spread across the country to cut down on the economic impact to any one area. Many of you have read reports that there are undesirables among the hoards of refugees making their way to this Nation. While this may be true. checks now show that the majority are potentially good. solid citizens. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service says it is running security checks on all these people to weed out the bad. I would encourage them to do so. but we must make sure that we do not allow a few bad apples in the basket to turn public opinion against the entire group. Most are hardworking. honorable people who belong to highly religious and closely knit families.