It is the question of secondary migration. Mr. Chairman. a number of those refugees admitted to this country have initially resettled in some States of the Union and finding it difficult to achieve resettlement successfully there. have moved on to other States. As a result some States are resettling far more refugees than other States. far beyond State population figures would initially suggest. Mr. Chairman. in my own State of California. the best figures we can find are that approximately 40 percent of all the Southeast Asian refugees have resettled in California. Of that number about 70 percent are in southern California. Now. that is no problem as far as I am concerned and no problem as many Californians are concerned in terms of their hospitality and in terms of their recognition of the tremendous commitment this country has to resettle these refugees. However. it is an undue burden in terms of the State and local taxation that goes into effect when many of the programs that are necessary to accomplish successful resettlement are not going to be carried forward by the Federal Government. Mr. Chairman. I think those who have heard me speak in the well before know that I cannot be accused of being a big spender. particularly on Federal issues. but it seems to me the issue is very different here. There is a Federal commitment. a correct Federal commitment. in my judgment. that we should accept these refugees. However. at the same time it ought to be a Federal commitment to take care of the refugees to the extent that Government programs are necessary. Mr. Chairman. we have found in southern California. for instance. that a good portion of those refugees who have already been here for 4 years are still on some form of assistancecash assistance or medical assistance of some sort. And this may differ with some of the other States because the secondary migration question comes into play here. While some States may be able to show that a tremendous numbei such as 70 or 80 percent of the refugees after just 2 years are able to go off welfare assistance of any sort. that has not been the case in my home State. One of the reasons is secondary migration. When people find they cannot make it in some of the States of the Union and go to a second State. in terms of statistics it may show that that first State has been successful in getting them off assistance programs when. in fact. all that has happened is that those people have moved to another State. fl 1650 We can guess at why these refugees go to a second State. We can talk about climate. We can talk about the fact that in California and some of the other States of the Union a large number of people have already resettled in the first place and others then gravitate to those areas. These refugees have the same cultural background. the same training. the same language. some of the same values. It is a very natural thing that they should go there. As a result. the secondary migration takes place and large numbers find themselves in States where they were not originally settled.
Keywords matched
refugees