Speech #940057276

Mr. Chairman. there is a right way to do things and there is a wrong way to do things. What my amendment does is to say that once these refugees have come to this country. once they have been transported here. once they have been part of our society. that they will be integrated into our society under existing Federal programs and will not be the subject of special new categorical programs. This amendment does not apply to the socalled front end funds that bring the refugees here for resettlement. All my amendment says is that if these refugees. once resettled. require services provided for by existing programs for which they are eligible. these services will be provided by existing programs and not by a new program. It would not change the amount of money appropriated. It would have nothing to do with funding frontend transportation for refugees here. It would only say that if there were existing programs. it would fund them under those programs. There are a couple of very good reasons why this is the right way to do it and not the wrong way to do it. First. a new categorical program means a new bureaucracy downtownand the Members know that and I know thatto administer that program. And. second. while the authorization only applies for 2 years. we all knowthe Members know and I knowhow difficult it is to discontinue a program once we have started it. Why should we create a special category for Vietnamese refugees? We absorbed 80.000 Hungarian refugees through our normal social services. We absorbed 450.000 displaced persons through the same method and 189.000 Eastern Europeans through the same method. And each yeareach and every yearwe absorb into this country over 400.000 immigrants through our existing Federal programs. The only other special program we have is the Cuban refugee program. and that was developed because those refugees impacted on a particular part of this country. These refugees. we have been assured. and by contract with the agencies who are going to resettle them. will be dispersed throughout the United States. and they can well fit into our existing programs. It is agreed that the use of existing programs means that the States will have to contribute part of the services provided for such things as welfare and medicaid and vocational and bilingual education. but just as they did. just as the States did. for the Hungarians and the Eastern Europeans and the displaced persons. Surely. with this limited number of immigrants. the States can absorb this. It seems to me this is the right way. We talk about proliferation of categorical programs in this country. proliferation of new programs.