Speech #960106003

Mr. President. in the last weeks the attention of the Senate. and indeed the world. has been repeatedly directed to the plight of Indochinese refugees. On June 25 I introduced a concurrent resolution along with the Representative from New York . That same day. I incorporated the language of the resolution to an amendment to the appropriations bill introduced by my colleague (Senator BOSCHWITZ). That legislation called for increasing our assistance and resettlement of refugees and was passed by the Senate. Heeding to congressional initiative. the President came out in total support of our action by announcing at the Tokyo summit meetings that the number of refugees the United States would accept would be doubled. thus setting an example for other nations. Other nations have also pledged to increase their efforts to deal with the problem. As a result of the U.N. Conference on Refugees held in Geneva on July 20 and 21. a total of 260.000 refugees have been promised asylum by the 65 nations participating in the conference. This was an increase from only 125.000 resettlement places available as of Mayof this year. In the recent public discussions of this problem much reference has been made to the 1938 conference held in Evian. Switzerland which produced no real assistance for the persecuted Jews of Nazi Germany and Austria. I am gratified that the international community has refused to repeat history. and is committed to taking concrete steps to aid those refugees. Even so. Mr. President. there is no time to lose. Some 350.000 refugees are scattered around Southeast Asia. Secretary of State Vance. in testifying before the Judiciary Committee on July 26. made the rough guess that tens of thousands of boat people have died in the current exodus from Vietnam. Of course. CXXV- 1463Part 18 it is impossible to quantify the outrages being inflicted on the refugees of Indochina. As Secretary Vance pointed out in his testimony. Vietnam has not indicated any intention to moderate its efforts to expel ethnic Chinese from within its borders. The United States has by no means been negligent in its efforts to deal with the problem. having accepted the largest number of Indochinese refugees to date. Other nations. including France. the Philippines. Indonesia. Great Britain. Canada. and China have aided in the resettlement of refugees. Now. with the bill that is before the Senate. the United States has the opportunity to step forward and provide once again the leadership in dealing with the problems of refugees on the longterm basis that is called for. Though the Judiciary Committee favorably reported out S. 643 by unanimous vote on July 17. this bill has been held from consideration by the Senate to allow the asylum nations of the world to deliberate at the U.N. conference and chart the course of further international humanitarian efforts. Indeed. the feeling was. and justly so. that the United States cannot and should not be expected to support all of the refugees without assistance from other countries. I urge my colleagues to vote favorably on S. 643. This bill establishes a uniform and comprehensive iiolicy toward refugees that would correct the injustices and simplify the complexity of the present maze of procedures. It creates an orderly mechanism for accepting changing numbers of refugees. all the while insuring congressional participation in refugee policy. Certainly this response to the refugee problem will not be cheap. The anticipated cost of this refugee assistance program for fiscal year 1980 is $404.4 million. Yet other nations are also investing their resources In this effort. For example. Japan has promised to underwrite up to half of the costs of the U.N. refugee program. There are legitimate concerns about the possible impact of this bill. The United States should not shoulder the humanitarian burden of resettling refugees alone. The response of the International community at the Geneva conference suggests that other nations will meet their responsibilities in this regard. and we must encourage them to continue to do so. In addition. Mr. President. we must never fail to remember that the whole reason for a refugee problem is that countries like Vietnam and Cambodia produce refugees. Though Vietnam has promised to regulate the flow of refugees. it has not promised to moderate its policy of expatriating ethnic Chinese. On the contrary. Vietnam has promised before that it would not adopt such discriminatory policies. In the Vietnam Peace Agreement signed in 1973. the South Vietnamese parties. including the Hanoibacked Vietcong. promised in article 11 of the document. to ensure the liberties of all the people. including. and I quote. "Freedom of Residence." Such is the credibility of the governments which produce refugees. We must also care that any refugee policy we embrace does not allow our humanitarian impulse to be twisted into the means by which other nations can expatriate their unwanted minorities with impunity. Such blatant violations of basic rights we cannot countenance. I believe S. 643 allows us to offer reasonable resettlement opportunities to refugees while allowing us the flexibility to deal with the problems I have just mentioned. Furthermore. we as a people benefit from our reception of refugees. Throughout our history. repeated immigration to our land has fertilized us with the talents. hard work. and dedication of people from a variety of other lands. Once again. I urge the Senate to support this measure.