Mr. President. I am joining with my junior colleague from California to submit an amendment to S. 643. the Refugee Assistance Act of 1979. to provide continued Federal reimbursement for public assistance to all Indochina refugees for 2 more years. Thereafter. Indochina refugee welfare costs would be paid by the Federal Government only during the 36 months following entry of the refugee into the United States. This is a matter of urgency. The Indochina Refugee Migration and Assistance Act will expire on September 30. This is the authorizing statute for the Indochina refugee assistance program (IRAP) which has paid for the assistance given to Indochina refugees since their arrival in the United States in 1975. The Refugee Act of 1979 . as reported from the Senate Judiciary Committee. does not provide for continued assistance to Indochina refugees who have been in the United States for more than 24 months. This means the overwhelming number of refugees no longer will be assisted wholly by the Federal Government but will become charges on State and local taxpayers. All of this comes at a time when our Nation is responding to the humanitarian need to rescue thousands of refugees fleeing Southeast Asia in order to escape what appears to be certain genocide. We are doubling the number of Indochina refugees being admitted from the present 7.000 a month to 14.000 a month But the Indochina refugee assistance program exf ires on September 30. The amendment I am proposing with Senator HAYAKAWA will greatly strengthen our ability to assimilate the new influx of refugees. First. we provide for continued Federal reimbursement for those refugees who have not successfully been assimilated into society. Language training in English has been insufficient for these people. Many of them live in extended families with only one wage earner. Some families include more than 10 individuals. Some refugees have medical or other disabilities and require expensive and lengthy treatment before they can be selfsufficient. if ever. Relieving States and local governments of these costs will provide time to assess accurately patterns of assimilation before a final decision is made as to how refugee welfare cases should be treated. This action also will enable local agencies to concentrate their funds on their continuing efforts to educate and train refugees so that they may obtain better paying jobs. It also will prevent a sharp discrepancv in treatmetn in favor of new arrivals as against earlier refugees. Second. we provide for 36 months of assistance reimbursed by the Federal Government for all new refugees from Indochina. S. 643 provides only 24 months. Welfare officials in California. who have extensive experience with refugees from Southeast Asia. report to me that the average refugee receives assistance for more than 30 months. This compares with the average AFDC case in the State which continues for only 23 months. I will ask that a brief report prepared bv the California Denartment of Social Services on "What We Know About the Indochinese Refugee Assistance Program (IRAP)" be printed at the conclusion of my remarks. It is clear from the California experience that we know very little about providing effective assistance to refugees from Southeast Asia. The early arrivals were Vietnamese. Laotians. Cambodians. and other indigenous ethnic groups to Southeast Asia. The new boat people and camp refugees include large numbers of Chinese and other minorities driven from their homes for racial reasons as much as for rolitical ones. Mr. President. our amendment is not the last word on this subject. It is a proposal to give the States and local governments 2 years in which to work to assist refugees to become selfsupporting. Ours is a proposal to postpone for 2 years the very basic question of who should pay for those refugees who clearly have not been assimilated and who have become welfare cases. S. 643 decides this question without full consideration and guided solely by shortsighted budgetary considerations. Unfortunately. the overall context in which S. 643 nresents the question of who pays is established by the far more compelling moral mandate to provide for the rescue and relief of refugees from death at sea or in substandard refugee camps or concentration camps. The estimated costs of our proposal are very rough. HEW has not been able to provide me with final estimates.
Keywords matched
Refugee refugee refugees